Are reparations necessary or possible? Research Paper

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The Persistence of Global Wealth Inequality
There exists great economic inequality among different countries in the world. Due to the effects of globalization, some poor countries are slowly developing with the help of the improved labor market and other opportunities of rich countries. There are opportunities in education, economic growth and health sectors that are otherwise absent without the help of other countries (Roser). However, globalization also resulted to multiple instances of grave exploitation where poor countries were treated as cheap source of labor and resources by rich countries (Perkins, 48). This is especially true with large corporate entities of large industrialized countries like America. This resulted to a disparity with the wealth distribution between rich and poor countries. Throughout history, America is guilty with the exploitation of other nation’s resources and people to improve the country's wealth while leaving the exploited country into poverty with the leftovers of their own wealth (48). Although a developing country's economic growth is still relative to their policies and governance, America should provide economic aid towards developing countries to compensate with the years of resource exploitation that hindered a poor country's economic growth. In this paper the growing wealth gap between industrialized and developing countries, especially the instances of American exploitation of other country's resources will be discussed to justify the reparations that should be given. Additionally, the possible strategies and obstacles will be determined to learn how a developing country can improve their situation.
Growing Wealth Gap between Industrialized and Developing Countries
Most people that live in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa had the greatest number of poor people in the world (Hessler). Overall, about two thirds of the world is suffering from poverty while one third has a continuously booming economy (Hardin). The world economy is suffering from extreme inequality because billions of peoples are suffering from poverty while huge resource gains from poor countries are going to the rich countries (Hessler). Rich countries contributed to the increase in wealth gap among nations by taking advantage of the labor market, exploitation of resources, wealth concentration, and educational attainment of the people and other nations. America is historically a country that engaged in such activities.
Over the past centuries in America, slavery was legally practiced to traffic man power as form of cheap employment from Africa. African-American's suffered from prejudice and discriminated that caused multiple instances of injustice and racial unrest to improve the economic situation of the country (Rothstein). According to Rothstein, “Today, however, most Americans understand that prejudice toward and mistreatment of African Americans did not develop out of thin air. The stereotypes and attitudes that support racial discrimination have their roots in the system of slavery upon which the nation was founded.” In the labor market, America maximized production rate by minimizing cost where African-Americans are deprived of their basic rights like education and complementary income that contributed to the inequality of wealth distribution among the people. Additionally, the government blocked the means of African-Americans social benefits like proper housing and healthcare (Rothstein). Added by Rothstein, “Segregationist officials faced two distinct problems: how to keep lower-income African Americans from living near middle-class whites and how to keep middle-class African Americans from buying into white middle-class neighborhoods.” For this African-Americans should be granted with proper reparations for the centuries of suffering.
Another instance of increasing the wealth gap is the direct and indirect exploitation of America of third world countries. Examples of these countries are South Asian countries Indonesia and Vietnam (48). Third world countries often loan large amounts of money from rich countries to improve their economic situation by building proper institutions like schools, business centers and hospitals; however, third world countries are given loans by rich countries to ensure that their residents up to the next generation of their children will be held accountable to pay back their cumulative liabilities by letting large corporations to indefinitely deplete their finite natural resources (Perkins, 48). According to Perkins, “The resources and cheap labor that feed nearly all our businesses come from places like Indonesia, and very little ever makes its way back. The loans of foreign aid ensure that today’s children and their grandchildren will be held hostage (48).”
In terms of wealth concentration, America also had instances of letting the already wealthy individual or entities to poses high profit resources to further leverage their accumulation of economic growth compared to minorities. One such case is the Osage people in Osage county, Oklahoma and their oil production. The Osage people had large deposits of oil in their homeland (Grann). The Osage people are given the full rights of profiting from the oil that made their group wealthy for a certain time; however, large American corporations immediately took notice of their high profit resource and secretly plan to commit unlawful acts to take oil production away from the Osage people and have total control. Wealthy Osage businessmen were abducted and murdered to change the ownership of oil production to American corporations (Grann). According to Grann, “Though the bureau estimated that there were twenty-four Osage murders, the real number was undoubtedly higher. The bureau closed its investigation after catching Hale and his henchmen. But at least some at the bureau knew that there were many more homicides that had been systematically covered up, evading their efforts of detection.”
In all cases mentioned above, education became one of the important factors in the growing the wealth gap between rich and poor nation. In case of the history of slavery of the African-American people, education was restricted to maintain the illiteracy of African-Americans for them to not resist the authoritarian rule of the US government. During these times, the US government is afraid to improve African-Americans educational attainment since proper education can improve their wisdom and income making capacity to move out from high-poverty neighborhoods (Rothstein). In the case of the third world countries, their continuous paying of their loan from America and the exploitation of their resources prevented them from improving the quality of educational institutions. This delayed their citizens potential of income growth since they need to choose between making basic needs available to the people or improve education (Perkins, 49). In the case of the Osage people, the government was coerced to pay back their seized homeland; however, the government utilized a loophole in giving back a small amount of their money every year to further derail the Osage people into poverty. The government used a ration system to restrict the amount of money that the Osage people could withdraw. These restrictions affected the Osage people's capacity to pay medical and educational fees that are important in improving their situations. The Osage people wanted to educate ...