Tyler Cowen misses the point on Coates' Reparations article

Why is economics called the dismal science? oh, yeah:

There is still a moral case for reparations even if most American whites have lost from slavery rather than benefited.  (Although I doubt if the America public would see the matter that way, which is one reason why the reparations movement probably isn’t going anywhere.)  Nonetheless on the economics of the issue I would suggest a very different analysis than what I am seeing from many of the commentators.  And this analysis makes slavery out to be all the more destructive, and reparations to be all the more unlikely. [from How much have white Americans benefited from slavery and its legacy? | Marginal Revolution

Given Cowen's love of liberty and free markets, I wonder what the economic case is if you take into account the fact that the whites who are supposed not to have benefited were certainly free not to participate and as a 'race' had and has power in markets, whereas the same cannot be said to be true for the African Americans. Also, even if only a single white person benefited from slavery, Jim Crow, contract lending, etc., what does that have to do with the argument? The argument Coates makes is about the economic impacts on African Americans, not about who did or didn't benefit. And Coates' vision of reparations is not a strictly economic one, nor does he say that whites are responsible for making reparations. He says that Americans are. All of us, not just the ones who can be proven to have benefited. Maybe Cowen should read the article.