In Support of Reparations
Will Ta-Nehisi Coates accept them?
The subject makes talking abortion sound fun. But I got this… so don’t freak-out.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a strong writer for the Atlantic. But, he’s a terrible reader. And that’s actually more than half of it, isn’t it? IMHO, he favors a one-sided approach to discussion… like Obama.
But that does not, in and of itself, diminish his point of view.
Because TNC is right. Blacks have gotten a far shittier deal than everybody else. If you disagree, you are an idiot.
HOWEVER.
Whatever the reparations are going to be, and I suggest TRILLIONS of dollars, I am only in favor of them, if and only if, the guaranteed end result is smaller government.
The wretched sin of slavery, what blacks suffered while this country became the greatest on earth, is not a reason to end what made this country great. Libertarians didn’t do this to blacks. Government did. And in any solution, we are not going to punish Libertarians, we are going to punish Government.
The question is will TNC accept TRILLIONS in reparations as a truce between blacks and Libertarians? Are TRILLIONS of dollars enough for TNC to throw Democrats under the bus and give Libertarians a chance?
When Libertarians point out the party of the Republic fought to end slavery and the party of Democracy fought to keep it, we get poo-pooed.
When we point out government created Jim Crow, and it created Chicago’s ghettos, that doesn’t muster any anti-government rage with TNC. And it should. Frankly, it must. If an alien read TNC’s piece, he’d think, “boy this government thing sure sounds awful!”
GI/CYB: The Reparations Compromise
Native Americans have casinos. My policy suggestion is we grant blacks cheap labor.
Guaranteed Income / Choose Your Boss is wage subsidy Open Source Software that ensures every person who wishes to work receives enough money to cover their nut. It replaces unemployment insurance and minimum wage.
This is TNC’s map of Chicago by race (basically, blacks are in the red):
This is his map of Chicago unemployment:
According to this map, under GI/CYB, more than 30% of the population in the black neighborhoods would receive GI and be available to work for the families and Entrepreneurs in their neighborhood who pay as little $40 per week. But the workers are paid $280+ per week with wage subsidy.
Notice: They would all be working for blacks.
Why would they be working for blacks? Chicago can determine that no GI/CYB recipient could be made to take a job more than half a mile away from where they live.
Let’s go further, to get GI/CYB in place, Chicago should have sovereign discretion to decree that ONLY 100% black owned businesses should be able to hire workers in the GI system.
With GI/CYB in Chicago, black entrepreneurs can obtain labor in poor Chicago neighborhoods for as little as $1 per hour, and go out to affluent suburbs and crush non-black businesses with a price advantage with as much as a 75% discount. With such a lopsided price advantage, upper middle class whites will venture into black neighborhoods to spend their money at black owned businesses.
Black families in black neighborhoods will be able to get their properties fixed up for pennies on the dollar. Which race will be favored by lenders now?
TNC gets to nub of it here:
Liberals today mostly view racism not as an active, distinct evil but as a relative of white poverty and inequality. They ignore the long tradition of this country actively punishing black success—and the elevation of that punishment, in the mid-20th century, to federal policy.
Libertarians today want to reward and ensure black success. When TNC hears this, he assumes it means nothing… he’s wrong. There is meat on the bone. Since it will shrink government, Libertarians will alter welfare policy to directly advantage blacks, over all other races.
If 30M unemployed are made exclusively available to work for black businesses that’d mean as much as $350BILLION per year in labor advantage (and the profits will be far greater). The design logic of GI/CYB literally GUARANTEES a strong black middle and upper-class.
Over the next decade, GI/CYB could deliver more than $3.5TRILLION in slave reparations. Reparations would continue by systemic design until those ugly race based neighborhoods in Chicago evaporate.
The Ricardian feature of GI/CYB is that labor advantage will give ghettos a massive trade advantage that fancy white neighborhoods do not have.
This means that the price level, and the wealth will find equilibrium quickly through competition.
Overnight black owned businesses undercut white businesses, without any Affirmative Action. Overnight, your dollar goes much, much farther in black neighborhoods, so their property values increase, and white neighborhoods decrease.
Equilibrium. There will be blood.
Hopefully, someone will try to convince TNC to read this offer. He needs to grok that just because Libertarians rule out larger government, that doesn’t mean we don’t have smaller government policy options to actually pay slave reparations.
The one thing he needs to come to terms with however is what we are celebrating on July 4th…
What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.
None of that is going to stop. Because the 4th of July, my 4th of July, is about celebrating small government. It is about toppling kings to be free men.
And when we put GI/CYB in place and it delivers blacks to the middle and upper class, TNC better finally go out on the 4th of July and celebrate small government with me.
