Suicidal empathy fuels reparations demands

Politicians' performative guilt can create pressure for massive fiscal transfers—what the author calls 'suicidal empathy'—which may be leveraged by external actors and produce unsustainable policy outcomes. The article ties that frame to concrete numerical claims (an alleged £18tn UN figure, Brattle Group £87tn) and to historical counterarguments about British abolition and enforcement efforts. — If true, the phenomenon links moralized elite signaling to large fiscal and diplomatic consequences, changing how debates over historical justice translate into present-day policy and budgets.