Bureau of Indian Affairs

Property Rights: A Human Universal

Brandon Christensen History , ,

I have been reading a lot about property rights among the San (“Bushman”) in southern Africa for a little research project I am doing, so bear with me as most of my posts over the next little while will deal with property rights in the non-European world.

From the Freeman come this article by co-blogger Michael Adamson:

By any criterion, the economic and social standards of living are lower among Native Americans than among the balance of the U.S. population. Unemployment on or adjacent to reservations fluctuates around 40 per cent. Of some 750,000 Native Americans on reservations, 75 per cent earn less than the national average. Leading causes of death among Native Americans are accidents, heart disease, malignant neoplasms, and cirrhosis of the liver, all far above national averages and a significant proportion of these related to alcohol abuse. Drug abuse, mental illness, and obesity are major health problems. Tuberculosis cases are 4.5 times the national average and deaths from the illness are 9.5 times as frequent. Suicide is more than twice as likely among Native Americans. Their life expectancy is about five years below the average American’s and infant mortality rates are 25 per cent higher.

While such facts may illustrate the plight of the Native American, they do not explain why such conditions exist […]

The mission of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is to act as the principal agent in carrying out (1) the government-to-government relationship between the United States and Federally-recognized Indian tribes and (2) the responsibilities of the United States as trustee for the property it holds for tribal units.

Oops. You can probably guess where this is going. Do read the whole thing.

Native American Sovereignty

Brandon Christensen Liberty, Links , , , , , , , , , ,

I have been a proponent of abolishing, outright, the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a long time. In its place, I would either grant the Indian tribes full-fledged sovereignty with reparations for stolen property, or would grant the reservations statehood into the union of the United States federal republic.

If you’ll notice, this proposal goes hand-in-hand with my other writings on decentralizing political power in other various parts of the world, and I think that the issue of sovereignty for Native Americans goes along nicely with this theme.  Tyler Cowen recently directed me to a piece in the Economist that writes about just this topic, so I am not nearly as idealistic and young as some of you might think.

I think this decentralized process is happening for a reason, and that the reason is overwhelmingly good: the world’s markets are becoming increasingly integrated, and as a result, political power is becoming increasingly irrelevant except on a largely local or regional scale.

If we want to avoid the mistakes of the past, including slavery and horrific, large-scale wars, then we would do well to realize and affirm that decentralized governance and integrated markets are extremely beneficial to mankind. In affirming this, we would likewise do well to recognize that when people want more autonomy in governance we should grant it to them, especially in cases where post-colonial states exist. States themselves are largely illegitimate, and the post-colonial ones are the most guilty of this crime. There is no reason to pretend that we have to respect the sovereignty of post-colonial states ruled by dictators, and every reason to respect the wishes of large swathes of the people in these post-colonial states for more political autonomy. Continue reading →