In a response to TNC’s reparations essay, Tyler Cowen suspects so:
I would suggest that most living white Americans would be wealthier had this nation not enslaved African-Americans and thus most whites have lost from slavery too, albeit much much less than blacks have lost. For instance it is generally recognized that freer and fairer polities tend to be wealthier for most of their citizens. (We may disagree about what “fair” means for many issues, but slavery and its legacy are obviously unfair.)
More specifically, many American whites benefited from hiring African-American labor at discrimination-laden discounted market prices, but many others lost out because it was more costly to trade with African-Americans. That meant fewer good customers, fewer eligible employees, fewer possible business partners, fewer innovators, and so on, all because of slavery and subsequent discrimination.
Cowen concedes that there “is still a moral case for reparations even if most American whites have lost from slavery rather than benefited.” But he thinks “this analysis makes slavery out to be all the more destructive, and reparations to be all the more unlikely.” Recent Dish on TNC’s cover-story here and here.
The Dish 