Ep. 271 The Economics of Reparations and the Danger of AI
Bob first explains his long-held position on the economics of slavery and reparations, and then applies it to the debate over the danger of superintelligent machines.
Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest:
- Matt Walsh rips on Ryan McMaken and (indirectly) Murphy.
- Bob Murphy Show episodes on economics of slavery, with Jeffrey Rogers Hummel and Mark Thornton.
- Help support the Bob Murphy Show.
The audio production for this episode was provided by Podsworth Media.
About the author, Robert
Christian and economist, Chief Economist at infineo, and Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute.
A very insightful commentary on the issues related to the ideas of reparations – both from a group and individualist perspective.
One objection to reparations dogma that I felt came up short in your exploration was that the burden of proof for the claim that “whites today enjoy greater prosperity due to past structural racism” rests on the affirmative and has never been delivered. It remains an allegation only.
I’ll add that one *significant* argument *for* reparations that you did not consider was that reparations *are* currently owed by the group receiving net coerced (enslavement) tax money from another:
The current generation of blacks (living) owe a median of 500,000 $ per person to the whites and asians, based on net tax take. That’s a coercive wealth transfer — a taking of labor without compensation and de-facto partial enslavement.
As long as we’re accepting the racial group categories promoted by the left, that’s the actual, correct application of their reparations-by-race creed, based on actual proveable enslavement of those alive today.
Perhaps that modest proposal is best left to the comments section though.
Cheers!