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Do descendants have the same responsibility as their ancestors who actually owned slaves? No. But do they bear some ongoing responsibility as a benefactor of a system that was built around their ancestors owning slaves? Yeah they do.
All of this is incredibly messy, but approaching it at a governmental level is definitely something I support, because slavery was sanctioned and even encouraged by the government we're talking about, which has existed continuously
That's the feedback loop argument, right?
Some countries collonised others: crime of ancestor
But those countries used slaves and stole resources, making those countries wealthier. That wealth allowed them to develop better technologies, making them even wealthier.
So the argument is that while the original crime is not the responsibility of those alive today, the proceeds of crime should not be kept - they should be returned. In this case the proceeds are wealth, so a monetary reparation is appropriate.
Is my train of thought right? Because it seems to make sense to me.
Pretty much my take.
OPs position is based on the idea that the reparations are punitive, which they are not.
No one alive in England today was engaged in slaving, but everyone is the beneficiary of the practice.
Disclaimer that I'm not English and don't particularly have a dog in this fight, and my opinions are a little mixed. On the one hand, I agree on the morality there, a lot of people were damaged in the very long term by slavery. But on the other, even if you can say that it's an act to attempt to return the wealth to the wronged people, that doesn't mean the wealth has simply been sitting there for nearly 200 years, waiting for return. That money has to come out of some budget, somewhere.
So where are they going to pull 18 trillion to give reparations from? Certainly, cuts will need to be made somewhere to make it happen, and often, those cuts are usually made along the lines of political agendas rather than things that are objectively bloated.
But the ability to pay reparations isn't really considered in deciding whether reparations should be made.
You're right that the money isn't just sitting there, it's embedded in the development of the nation.
This is true. Also, remember that some African kingdoms were the sellers of slaves. Modern countries there are not direct analogs, and they don't really have any money, but they deserve some of the blame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire
Yes, but the few dollars per slave that a trader would have received is nothing in comparison to the value a slave would generate through their lifetime.
Compensation is based on damages, not on how much money the crime made. People routinely owe damages for assault or vandalism that makes them no money.
You may have misunderstood me. By removing someone from their home nation, the damages would be the value they would have produced in their home nation.