Compensation for Slavery: For Real, Maybe

At long last, a group of 14 Caribbean states have recently filed a law suit demanding compensation for slavery. This brings up a truly fascinating set of questions regarding the possibility of accounting for the crimes against humanity, and the damages--economic, political, cultural and social--caused by the brutality inflicted upon peoples of the Global South by European imperial powers as part of colonialism and after the end of the colonial era. This is a truly significant issue, and one that goes directly to the possibility of a just, fair and equitable world.

As I argued it in a paper a few years ago, I am actually quite convinced that a global redistributive system is possible, and the only reason we don't have one is that humankind has not had the fight that needs to happen in order for it to be established. That is the truly Polányian challenge for the world today.