Commentary
The drive for reparations to be paid to African-Americans in the United States has been gaining momentum in places such as California and New York. I have written before about how morally dubious reparations to descendants of slaves would be. But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that reparations can be morally justified, reparations aren’t a viable public policy due to overwhelming logistical and practical considerations.
Here’s the crux of the problem: how to determine exactly who should receive reparations. The first step would be to identify which Americans of African ancestry are descended from people who were slaves here in the United States. At first glance, this seems to be the low-hanging fruit, the easiest part of the problem to solve. But the task is far more complicated than it appears….