The poorest region of the United States has long been the region in which slavery was concentrated. The worldwide track record of slavery as an economic system is bad. Slaveowners benefitted, but that is not saying that the economy as a whole benefitted. The last desperate argument for reparations is that blacks have lower incomes and occupations than whites today because of the legacy of slavery. Scholars who have spent years studying racial and ethnic groups in countries around the world have yet to come up with a single country where all the different groups have the same incomes and occupations.
Groups everywhere differ too much in too many ways to have the same outcomes.
Slavery itself was not unique to Africans. The tragic fact is that slavery existed all over the world, for thousands of years. Unfortunately, irresponsible demagogues have also existed for thousands of years. JWR contributor Thomas Sowell, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, is author, most recently, of The Quest for Cosmic Justice.