> Continuing with the US slavery example... if systemic oppression and inherent handicaps exist, is a direct transfer of funds really a solution? It's a one-hit

> Continuing with the US slavery example... if systemic oppression and inherent handicaps exist, is a direct transfer of funds really a solution? It's a one-hit-wonder that might appease some voters in the short term but doesn't get at the root of any current problem. Systematic oppression and/or long term ramifications of period of oppression is provably true. ignoring the politics of it i don't think a straight up cash injection would be an efficient means of solving any of the mid to long term problems, but it is certainly an effective measure in helping short term survival. The difference between "better access to education and employment for my kids so they can live better lives" vs "food and medicine so my children don't die this month" > A lump sum of $15k to every Black person in the US doesn't fix the problem. $15k buys them one major medical treatment, if that. Though i think i know what you mean, "15k to every black person" is fairly broad and i think a bit reductive in this case, it would probably need to be something weighted against need and how much the person was affected by the situation being addressed by the funds. Problem is it's really difficult if not impossible to do that effectively, think of it like a whole society version of a class action lawsuit, except the payout amount is directly tied to the level of effect the original issue has had on each person, individually. To be clear, this doesn't mean "non-black person X" doesn't get support and help. Ideally this would need to be something on top of an already working support system for everybody. Everyone gets equitable support up to a certain level, certain groups get additional support where needed because to get them to an equitable level they need additional support as they've started at a lower starting point due to whatever fuckery occurred way back when This is some utopia-level idealism though and I'm not expecting it to happen in the real world, but a good faith attempt would be nice. > Same for education. A lump some might put a single generation through college. But, if there are systemic impediments to Blacks attending college (money, quality of primary and secondary education, etc), a lump sum transfer doesn't fix it. It doesn't fix all of it, but it might fix some of it in an incidental way, though as i said, lump sum probably isn't a good strategy for long term fixes. > At best, it creates a generation of better educated Blacks who might push their kids into college, but all the other structural problems still exist. Yes, but the overall bump in education (assuming education is a reliable means of measuring future quality of life) would go some way to beginning to fix the structural problems. > Basically, we should address those problems head-on and with solutions that solve the problem permanently (or as close as possible). Agreed, but that should also be part of a plan to alleviate the short and mid term problems as well.