UK development built from historical slavery???

[stone]

I'm happy to be shot down over this. I know for instance Sean has expert knowledge about developing country's economies and Andy knows about reparations and I'm sure others on here can see through what I'm missing.

My knee jerk impression though is that in developing countries there is a lot of underemployment. It is not just about lack of access to imports. It is more about about the country not enabling the population there to make full use of their capabilities even given the constraint of not having imported equipment/materials etc.

Reparations would enable countries to import stuff. But perhaps that isn't addressing the pinch point holding them back. If what they really need is the capacity to employ their own people, then that isn't something reparations are relevant for. Employing the local population to serve the local population (via both the public and private sectors) "just" requires a well functioning local monetary system. It doesn't require foreign currency.

Having foreign/hard currency denominated government debt does undermine local monetary systems. Not having local currency denominated government debt also perhaps undermines local monetary systems. My impression is that sorting that out so that these countries had well functioning monetary systems might be the best help. Re-denominating government debt into local currency might be a sort of reparation if it were backstopped by developed countries. But much of this might be best done by knowledge transfer between central banks, government treasury departments etc. I guess private investment banks are always super keen to set up hard currency bond offerings for developing country governments. This might be about getting ahead of them and setting up an alternative.

 

[Wellsy]

For me for Reparations to actually be, well, Reparations, they need to be material i.e. there is a solid cost to them.

I think that at the moment given the state of the UKs public finances any international Reparations fund would be political suicide. Where is that money coming from and what else could it be used for?

Some of the figures thrown around are frankly silly too. A UN judge recently spoke in reference to a report which estimated that the UK is required to pay 18.8 trillion quid. Well that's just ridiculous, the UKs GDP is 3.495 trillion. Suggesting the UK needs to pay like 5x that is just fundamentally unserious.

 

[andy popp]

a report which estimated that the UK is required to pay 18.8 trillion quid. Well that's just ridiculous, the UKs GDP is 3.495 trillion. Suggesting the UK needs to pay like 5x that is just fundamentally unserious.

This is a frequently aired misrepresentation (not a dig at you Wellsy. It gets repeated all the time so its not surprising people pick up on it). That sum has never been the demanded (and I've no idea who could "require" the UK to pay it). It is a "calculation of how much the UK would owe were it ever to repay the unpaid wages of generations of enslaved workers, damages for a profound modern crime against humanity, & interest to bring the sums into the present" (emphases in the original). In other words, tts purpose is probably best thought of as rhetorical - to give a sense of scale. As historian Alan Lester unequivocally states: "This is not being demanded as a cash sum." In fact, as I understand, the CARICOM ten point plan doesn't come with any suggested bill.

Link to Alan Lester's blog on "Refusing to Consider Reparations: The Top Five Manoeuvres to Block a Conversation": https://alanlester.co.uk/blog/refusing-to-consider-reparations-the-top-five-manoeuvres-to-block-a-conversation/

Link to CARICOM plan, which is meant to be the starting point for a conversation: https://caricom.org/caricom-ten-point-plan-for-reparatory-justice/

 

[stone]

Thanks for the links Andy.

I'm really usure what to make of it all. Our ancestors acted demonically towards their ancestors. They currently are fairly messed up.

My feeling though is that they might be best off seeking inspiration and guidance from somewhere like Singapore. Singapore is also a small tropical island. At the end of the colonial era, it was destitute, with an illiterate population, no industry or farmland and a calamitous housing shortage. Singapore now is world leading by some metrics.

I'd be totally up for the UK making decent efforts to help other countries get on their feet. I don't think that is best done by self flagellation on our part. This is about people working out how to coordinate human efforts/capacity. That is what creates prosperity and abundance instead of misery and chaos. Only a tiny bit of prosperity is zero-sum claims over genuinely limited natural resources. What distinguishes eg Haiti versus Singapore seems to me almost entirely about human relations and organisation within those countries. That isn't something that can be bestowed by writing a cheque. It is something that has to be believed in and instituted and lived by a country itself. Like I said, foreign currency denominated government debt perhaps is something getting in the way of that and that could be sorted out. But that is a very specific aspect of it all.

.

 

[clclark]

I think it is such a complicated discussion that a direct comparison means that huge levels of nuance are missed. Putting the Haiti vs Singapore divide down to human relations and organisation completely ignores the loans that Haiti had to repay up until 1947, over 100 years after the debt had started. I'm not hugely familiar with Singaporean history, Haiti more up what I studied, but I think one of the greatest problems the reparation argument is facing is such comparisons. I think issues such as 19th century scientific racism, difference in trading partners, locations, environment and timing have such a role to play. I don't disagree that countries have to be willing to move with the change, not just writing a cheque, but I think there are clear reasons why it's easier for some to succeed and others not.

 

[stone]

I've been banging on about redenominating government debt. So I'm very far from ignoring it.

To me the crucial point for everyone everywhere is that by far the most valuable resource any country has is its people. If they can get on and work together, then great things can come from that. I'm worried that the whole reparations argument is just a distraction from focussing on what is actually needed for them to get to where they want to be.

Yes, if there are specific, potentially effective, steps that could be taken by eg the UK such as backstopping a redenomination of the gov debt of eg Carribean and/or West African countries, then great.

 

[seankenny]

To me the crucial point for everyone everywhere is that by far the most valuable resource any country has is its people.

The UAE would like a word.

If they can get on and work together, then great things can come from that.

So America is currently the world's richest large country because everyone is getting on? Or perhaps this is a tad simplistic?

Yes, if there are specific, potentially effective, steps that could be taken by eg the UK such as backstopping a redenomination of the gov debt of eg Carribean and/or West African countries, then great.

This is a classic Stone "I've read one thing that might help, now I'm going to consider it the only thing that needs doing" which is far from the case. Try making the case as to why this idea might have weaknesses.

 

[clclark]

I've been banging on about redenominating government debt. So I'm very far from ignoring it.

Thats very different to a debt that has already been paid and stopped growth though no? Given Haiti made all these payments to France and the US already, I merely meant this makes it a poor comparison Singapore. Don't disagree with the importance of redenominating debt among other points.

 

[stone]

Sean, is redenominating Caribean/West African government debt being considered? It seemed sensible to me but as you are well aware, I'm clueless. If it makes sense and is being considered, then great.

Americans squabble but they do work together. They pay their taxes, they keep law and order. They let one another prosper and do great things.

The UAE uses oil money to employ foreign servants and buy flash stuff whilst lazing around. Is that really what reparations are being sought for? I'm not sure people are happy doing that.

 

[petejh]

What distinguishes eg Haiti versus Singapore seems to me almost entirely about human relations and organisation within those countries. That isn't something that can be bestowed by writing a cheque. It is something that has to be believed in and instituted and lived by a country itself.

Almost entirely... apart from geography and physics.

Singapore is a major air transport hub for China/India/Indonesia and for connecting the western world to the asia-pacific region. Singapore's economy is a major benefactor of being such an air-travel hub: https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/singapore--value-of-aviation .

Haiti, not so much of an international air travel hub..
And the small factor of Haiti sitting in the path of Atlantic hurricanes which it gets regularly fucked by. It has a relatively high exposure to risk of natural disasters..
..compared to Singapore which has a low risk of exposure to natural disaster of the meteo or seismic kind: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7120670/#:~:text=Singapore%20has%20a%20low%20risk,a%20low%20seismic%2Dhazard%20region.

But yeah 'people organising' etc..

 

[Oldmanmatt]

The UAE uses oil money to employ foreign servants and buy flash stuff whilst lazing around. Is that really what reparations are being sought for? I'm not sure people are happy doing that.

Dude, apart from being utterly wrong, that is unforgivably racist.
The days of the idle local are long past, the vast majority of locals work like the rest of us. Just as in the UK, there is an uber-wealthy “upper class” but drive out of the cities to what were villages 20 years ago and nothing more than seasonal halts for a migrant population as little as 30 years ago, full of working class Arabs and farmers/herders. They represent the majority of the population. One of my dearest friends, Ali Fikree, comes from one of the uber-wealthy families, however, being the 12th son of his father and from his fourth wife; he got the square root of FA from daddy, growing up (especially after he divorced Ali’s mother). Ali became an apprentice welder with Dugas in 1999, a year before we met. Earning about $1000/month as I recall. He’s a senior manager now.
My Brother-in-law, Salem Al Band, was a beat constable in the Ajman police, when he married my SIL in 2003, living in a grotty, government supplied studio apartment. We thought she was mad. He’s a full Colonel now and still only has the one wife.
Oh, and oil and gas revenue was down to 60-65% of GDP by 2009 and is ~30% ish today, government investment is predominantly (massively so) in infrastructure, housing, schools and hospitals. In Dubai, O&G has dwindled to almost nothing, a tiny fraction of what was here when I first arrived in 2000.
“ UAE has the second-largest economy in the Arab world (after Saudi Arabia),[22] with a gross domestic product (GDP) of US$414 billion (AED 1.52 trillion) in 2018.[23] A third of the GDP is from oil revenues.[22] The economy was expected to grow 4–4.5% in 2013, compared to 2.3–3.5% over the previous five years. Since independence in 1971, UAE's economy has grown by nearly 231 times to AED1.45 trillion in 2013. The non-oil trade has grown to AED1.2 trillion, a growth of around 28 times from 1981 to 2012”

"UAE's economy growth momentum set to pick up". Khaleej Times. 27 December 2013. Archived from the original on 4 January 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2014

This isn’t new. I deliberately picked an old article to demonstrate that.

 

[stone]

Thanks Matt, I stand corrected.

The thrust of your argument seems that actually the UAE is OK because they get along and work together and that oil revenue isn't all they have. So after all, the UAE isn't such a good counter example to my general point.

 

[stone]

Pete, Singapore fashioned itself into being a major ship re-fuelling stop-off. It didn't have the industry it now has at independence. There are loads of other potential ports on that transport route that could have taken its place. If it was so geographically blessed, why was it so poor at Independence? Why was Malaysia so happy to expel it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_Singapore

Singapore has an equatorial rainforest climate. I think its pretty hard to argue that that is an automatic route to a country becoming prosperous.

 

[Oldmanmatt]

Pete, Singapore fashioned itself into being a major ship re-fuelling stop-off. It didn't have the industry it now has at independence. There are loads of other potential ports on that transport route that could have taken its place. If it was so geographically blessed, why was it so poor at Independence? Why was Malaysia so happy to expel it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_Singapore

Singapore has an equatorial rainforest climate. I think its pretty hard to argue that that is an automatic route to a country becoming prosperous.

In both cases, the UAE and Singapore, strong and largely benevolent, leadership at an early stage, is likely the most influential of a multitude of factors (that include luck). Many Gulf states, for instance, held greater oil wealth, yet have not seen the social advances and prosperity of the UAE. Note I said “strong and largely benevolent” not “nice”.
There is a story that the residents of the coastal “ports”” that would become the British Trutial States and later the UAE, were simple pearl fishermen and divers, who rose to dominate the disparate tribes that roamed the hinterland; during the early twentieth century whilst themselves under British domination (from 1820).
The reality was, that the British were only interested in these desolate territories, because those “ports” were actually hard to find/navigate creeks, hidden in the endless dunes, populated by Pirates who were raiding British merchant shipping to and from India.

 

[petejh]

Pete, Singapore fashioned itself into being a major ship re-fuelling stop-off. It didn't have the industry it now has at independence. There are loads of other potential ports on that transport route that could have taken its place. If it was so geographically blessed, why was it so poor at Independence? Why was Malaysia so happy to expel it?

Singapore has an equatorial rainforest climate. I think its pretty hard to argue that that is an automatic route to a country becoming prosperous.

As per Matt, geography plus a healthy dollop of luck. Opportunities come from geography among other factors. Any number of other potential places in that region might have taken advantage of the opportunities that their place in the world presented to them. India, China and Indonesia may not have followed the paths they did, which would have affected Singapore's opportunities. The Asia-Pacific region may not have developed to be the manufacturing centre if the world. The opportunities presented to any of the other potential Singapore-like transit hubs are different to the opportunities presented to Haiti. To say the main difference between Haiti and Singapore is almost entirely a result of relations between people is wrong because I think without opportunity (presented by geography) what are they relating about, the weather?

 

[stone]

My impression is that different geographies offer different opportunities. If people work together effectively, then they can make the most of those.

At independence, Singapore wasn't thought of as being blessed

As a tiny island, Singapore was seen as a nonviable nation state; much of the international media was sceptical of prospects for Singapore's survival. Besides the issue of sovereignty, the pressing problems were unemployment, housing, education, lack of natural resources and lack of land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_Singapore#1965_to_Late_1970s

 

[petejh]

My impression is that different geographies offer different opportunities. If people work together effectively, then they can make the most of those.

Yes that's exactly my point.

And if opportunities are different in different places, with some places offering better opportunities (or alternatively lesser risks) then outcomes aren't almost entirely down to people.

 

[Oldmanmatt]

After mentioning the Piracy issue, I briefly wondered if that wasn’t part of the reason behind both Singers and the UAE’s successes, since we think pirate bands were more democratic, permissive, racially diverse, than the stereotypical image would have believe.
Then I remembered Haiti was once called Tortuga…

At least, part of the archipelago, was.

 

[seankenny]

a report which estimated that the UK is required to pay 18.8 trillion quid. Well that's just ridiculous, the UKs GDP is 3.495 trillion. Suggesting the UK needs to pay like 5x that is just fundamentally unserious.

Link to CARICOM plan, which is meant to be the starting point for a conversation: https://caricom.org/caricom-ten-point-plan-for-reparatory-justice/

I'm with Wellsy here - this is just unserious. Point number two is a demand for repatriation for "people who wish to return". Yes I'm sure Nigeria and Ghana are going to welcome the UK and others setting up a system to take in Caribbean people and put them... where exactly? It talks about "community reintegration" as if the intervening 200 years of divergent history meant nothing.

Point five, "public health crisis" also seems questionable. It says: "The African descended population in the Caribbean has the highest incidence in the world of chronic diseases in the forms of hypertension and type two diabetes. This pandemic is the direct result of the nutritional experience, physical and emotional brutality, and overall stress profiles associated with slavery, genocide, and apartheid." I'm entirely unsure of the veracity of the first claim - a brief look at a Lancet article suggests that the MENA region has a higher incidence of diabetes, along with parts of Oceania, but they narrow down the population and include two illnesses so it's a hard claim to assess. It's also somewhat obscured by a study I found that suggested that whilst Afro-Caribbean people do indeed have high rates of diabetes, the South Asian population of the region have even higher rates. And how one can draw a direct inference that it was slavery caused that specific disease I just don't know. It might be a credible claim, but I strongly doubt it. (Note that I have read studies that link economic problems with health outcomes, and health problems with later economic outcomes, so I don't doubt that it's possible to find such links in general. I'm just sceptical in this particular case, but would be happy to see where they source this claim from.)

And as Wellsy points out, the numbers he quoted for restitution are very silly. The UK's current output reflects the ability of a large modern economy to produce goods and services. There is simply no way that workers in the 18th and 19th centuries, any workers let alone agricultural labourers, would have produced output that even closely matches the modern UK in value, even in real terms.

All in all, this doesn't strike me as a particularly serious piece of work. I don't know the background, but I'll hazard a guess that this is mostly for domestic consumption and internal political purposes in the CARICOM nations rather than any serious attempt to engage the UK and other developed nations, They have an obvious bind when it comes to getting development largesse, because they are poor, but not that poor. Comparing Jamaica with Nigeria (for obvious reasons, I hope): Jamaica's GDP per capita is 12,540, as compared to Nigeria's at 6,540 (using international dollars for comparison). That's a huge difference. If GDP doesn't capture everything important, then look at the UN's Human Development Index - Jamaica is 0.706, which just about counts as "high", whereas Nigeria just about falls into the "low development" category with a HDI of 0.548. Antigua, the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago do even better.

Assuming that development funding is limited, then it's fairly reasonable to take a utilitarian view of how that money is spent, ie try to achieve the maximum improvement in beneficiaries' welfare for each pound spent. Inevitably that means focusing most development spending upon countries far poorer than most of those in the Caribbean (with Haiti the obvious exception because it really is poor). This sucks for the poor countries of the Caribbean region because many of the problems detailed in the link above are real problems that are difficult to solve. They would like some help, and that's entirely reasonable. Asking for slavery repatriations is a way of making that argument more urgent and palatable, and also convincing a domestic audience that the government is doing something. I don't see it as a particularly serious plan, more as a lobbying document. But in my view lobbying documents are more successful when they stick to something realistic.

 

[stone]

Point number two is a demand for repatriation for "people who wish to return". Yes I'm sure Nigeria and Ghana are going to welcome the UK and others setting up a system to take in Caribbean people and put them... where exactly? It talks about "community reintegration" as if the intervening 200 years of divergent history meant nothing.

This reminded me that in Romesh Ranganathan's TV program, his guide in Sierra Leon was saying that Sierra Leoneans of Creole ancestry (such as the guide) were not allowed to own land except in a tiny part of the country. Apparently Creole meant decedents of the returnees after slavery was abolished. Apparently there was still sectarian tension between Creoles and indigenous Sierra Leoneans, generations later. I just Googled about this and saw that since the TV program was made, the law there has changed.
https://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/sierra-leone-now-has-new-land-rights-law-to-promote-gender-and-tribal-equality-and-social-justice/