Let’s talk about Haiti and France.
Or, say, about third-wave feminism.
Or maybe about the results of Russia’s privatization.
You know what all these topics have in common? The fundamental impossibility of answering the question “what should we do?” within a liberal framework — because liberalism assumes the inviolability of individual rights and freedoms. Now, let’s take it step by step.
Once upon a time, when people still ran naked through caves, the French conquered Haiti. The island’s wealth was extracted, and the local population surrendered the surplus of its labor to its colonial masters. Haiti eventually won its freedom — which France did not appreciate — and twelve French warships appeared off its shores, making it clear that liberty had a price.
From then on, Haitians “paid” for their freedom until the mid-20th century; according to 2022 estimates, their cumulative losses equaled roughly three years of national GDP. Macron — monsieur, after all — apologized to Haiti, calling the era of slavery and ransom payments a shameful, dirty page in France’s history. Yet in a liberal world, you cannot compel present-day French citizens, who personally did nothing wrong, to compensate for the crimes of their great-great-grandfathers — men who, after all, acted according to the laws of their own time. That would sound perfectly liberal, if not for the small detail that it’s the people of Haiti who continue to pay for those historical crimes. The French — even those who don’t own stock in a small cotton factory — still drive on roads, study in schools, and visit hospitals built in France with wealth that never built anything in Haiti.
For a long time, women were denied essential rights: to vote, to divorce, to work. Replace “women” with “Black people” or any other group whose oppression you don’t question — the logic holds. In most developed countries, discrimination is now illegal, and its most obvious forms are punishable. But what should we do to erase prejudice, including self-fulfilling prophecies? (“You’re a girl, math isn’t for you” → she studies less math → fewer women in math programs → “math isn’t for women” → “you’re a girl, math isn’t for you.”)
And what if we’re talking not about women — a non-heritable trait — but about African Americans? The grandchildren of men who were forbidden to get an education will inevitably live worse than the grandchildren of those who were allowed to. So who should pay to fix that? A white man who personally never benefited from discrimination? And what if he lives in Alabama, and half the Black population there bears his surname? Who, then, pays for the crimes of his great-great-grandfather — him, or the descendants of those that ancestor oppressed?
Russia’s privatization took place under conditions of information inequality — and often outright corruption. The privatized property was later legalized, which is why “the results of privatization will not be revisited” has become a mantra. Moreover, any new redistribution of property would damage the country’s image (imagine I’m writing this not in 2025). So who should compensate for the unequal access to information and assets that my mother and Mikhail Khodorkovsky had? Me, or Mikhail Borisovich himself? Or his children?
It might seem I’m pushing you toward an answer — that the rich should pay the poor. But I’m not. I don’t believe another violation of property rights is a good thing. Think about it: what kind of liberal would I be if I said, “Yes, people worked hard for their children, built inheritances — let’s take it all away and redistribute it”? But what kind of liberal would I be if I said, “Yes, the starting conditions were blatantly unequal — let’s just ignore that”?
Whichever way you turn it, I’m a lousy liberal.
And so are you.
So perhaps it’s time to admit that any ethics is limited by the reach of our compassion — and to do good where our hands can still reach.