The injustices that have been visited upon racial minorities in the United States have a substantial economic legacy, both in terms of wealth disparities and resulting structural differences in economic opportunities. In response, some prominent Black scholars and policymakers have proposed a ‘baby bonds’ wealth-building policy. In this paper, I complement the economic justifications for this policy by examining the case for the proposal in terms of racial justice. The common justifications in the literature use a ‘justice as rectification’ framework, but this framework is a poor fit for the baby bonds proposal, unless we first examine the policy as a way to mitigate barriers to economic opportunity caused by persistent wealth gaps. This analysis focuses the case for baby bonds on their real selling point: a universal wealth policy can limit the intergenerational impact of injustice and misfortune of all kinds.

美国少数族裔遭受的不公正现象在财富差距和由此产生的经济机会结构性差异方面都留下了巨大的经济遗产。作为回应，一些著名的黑人学者和政策制定者提出了“婴儿债券”的财富建设政策。在本文中，我通过从种族正义的角度研究该提案的案例来补充该政策的经济理由。文献中的常见理由使用“作为矫正的正义”框架，但该框架不适合婴儿债券提案，除非我们首先将该政策作为一种减轻持续贫富差距造成的经济机会障碍的方法。该分析将婴儿债券的案例重点放在其真正的卖点上：