by Robert Tracinski

About the author: Robert Tracinski is the editor of the Intellectual Activist, a magazine that champions the power of reason, the value of the individual, and the freedom of a capitalist society.

Over the past few years, a movement composed of liability lawyers and selftitled "civil rights activists" has been trying to revive a deservedly obscure idea: the payment of reparations for the injustices committed under slavery. These activists are undeterred by the fact that none of the original victims or villains of slavery are still alive. Reparations, they say, should be paid by the US government and some long-lived corporations, to compensate the current-day descendants of slaves for the wrongs done to their ancestors.

The most prominent step toward reparations is the formation, late [in 2000], of...