On Reparations

I find I've never published a post on reparations.  I'm sure I can find some draft posts, particularly commenting on Ta-Nehisi Coates' Atlantic article on the subject.  But that would be work, and I'm lazy.

So here's a brief summary of my views on a complex subject:

• seems to me reparations can be (1) compensation for damages suffered in the past and (2) a symbolic apology for fault in inflicting damages. The apology may carry over to the idea of reconciliation between parties, where there may or may not be any balance of damages inflicted and suffered between or among the parties. I write "and" because I think both apply, in different proportions in different cases. 
• examples of reparations include the payments made to Japanese-Americans who were confined to concentration camps during WWII, payments made by Germany to Jews who survived the Holocaust, perhaps the Pigford payments to African-American, Hispanic, and female farmers,  Reconciliation proceedings have occurred in Rwanda between Hutsi and Tutsi and in South Africa between black natives and white colonists. And, of course, we can't forget the Pigford payments to African-American farmers and the similar payments to Hispanic, female, and Native American farmers.
• as a former bureaucrat I recoil at the prospect of some poor bureaucrats having to work out the rules and administer any program 

When we're talking about possible reparations to African-Americans based on the damages from slavery and past racial bias, it seems to me we're talking symbolic apologies.  Administratively there's some similarity between a program of reparations and  some policy programs, such as a disaster payments program.  In both cases you're looking at what has already happened to determine eligibility  to implement a policy.  The difference in reparations programs is the amount of time that's passed and therefore the evidence which is available to support a claim for payments.

This differs from prospective programs, where the recipient is going to perform some action, install a conservation practice or divert acreage from production as a quid pro quo for the money.

My own feeling is money proposed to be spent as reparations would be more effective devoted to some prospective programs.  The problem I have is, of course, we don't have good data on what programs are effective.  And proposing spending a trillion dollars on Head Start, free college, etc. etc. instead of a trillion dollars to those who can prove descent from an ancestor who lived in America in 1860, for example, doesn't carry the same symbolic energy.