It seems like we’re largely in agreement here in practical terms. However on principle, confiscating stolen wealth that someone has been given isn’t a punishment, since they were never entitled to it in the first place.
But how far away do we judge it to be given? That blood money wasn’t just sitting around - it was used to undertake countless projects. Is the architect who was paid for his work now in debt? Is the otherwise-uninvolved merchant of post-war goods subject to seizure (ignoring the enormous problem of Jim Crow and complicity there, for the sake of the argument in the abstract)? His kids? His kids’ kids? His employees? All of them were paid with money stolen from the sweat, toil, tears, and blood of slaves. Generational wealth and the generation of wealth is not a simple matter like “This is your great-great grandfather’s watch, here you go”, and I don’t think it can be, even just in principle, resolved by the same methods that immediate theft can. There are too many degrees of separation involved even just in inheritance from 5+ generations ago.
For a more modern example, if man robs a bank, uses the money to put his kids through college, and only after they graduate, he’s caught and is killed in a shootout with the police, is it moral to suddenly saddle the kids with the debt of their college years? What about the earnings they made afterwards? Are they illegitimate too? They were only made possible by the expenditure of the illegitimately acquired wealth.
None of this is meant to assert that we disagree strongly, I just love discussing hypotheticals, abstracts, and principles.
Lines do get blurry, and that causes real problems with trying to ensure a just outcome. No real way around that. However, sometimes things are more clear cut. If the plantation (or at least the land it was on) is still in the family, maybe it shouldn’t be anymore?
However, there’s an argument to be made that such a confiscation would be too sudden and severe of a shift in the social contract. I still think it should be considered, though. Of course, I also think we shouldn’t allow absentee land ownership in the first place.
It seems like we’re largely in agreement here in practical terms. However on principle, confiscating stolen wealth that someone has been given isn’t a punishment, since they were never entitled to it in the first place.
But how far away do we judge it to be given? That blood money wasn’t just sitting around - it was used to undertake countless projects. Is the architect who was paid for his work now in debt? Is the otherwise-uninvolved merchant of post-war goods subject to seizure (ignoring the enormous problem of Jim Crow and complicity there, for the sake of the argument in the abstract)? His kids? His kids’ kids? His employees? All of them were paid with money stolen from the sweat, toil, tears, and blood of slaves. Generational wealth and the generation of wealth is not a simple matter like “This is your great-great grandfather’s watch, here you go”, and I don’t think it can be, even just in principle, resolved by the same methods that immediate theft can. There are too many degrees of separation involved even just in inheritance from 5+ generations ago.
For a more modern example, if man robs a bank, uses the money to put his kids through college, and only after they graduate, he’s caught and is killed in a shootout with the police, is it moral to suddenly saddle the kids with the debt of their college years? What about the earnings they made afterwards? Are they illegitimate too? They were only made possible by the expenditure of the illegitimately acquired wealth.
None of this is meant to assert that we disagree strongly, I just love discussing hypotheticals, abstracts, and principles.
Lines do get blurry, and that causes real problems with trying to ensure a just outcome. No real way around that. However, sometimes things are more clear cut. If the plantation (or at least the land it was on) is still in the family, maybe it shouldn’t be anymore?
However, there’s an argument to be made that such a confiscation would be too sudden and severe of a shift in the social contract. I still think it should be considered, though. Of course, I also think we shouldn’t allow absentee land ownership in the first place.