It seems to me that lost in the invective of this debate is some of the history of the 'expropriation of the aboriginal commons', at least as I understand it in the NA context. First, with regard to the intermingling of the (mercantile) capitalist mode of production with the aboriginal domestict mode of production during the period of the fur trade, the conclusion of most of the recent research work (as expressed by the 'articulation of modes of production literature') is that the process of the subjegation of native economies and social structures (including European technology) came quite late in the contact period, largely after the European began the forceful expropriation of land (and resources) with the spread of settlement and the agricultural frontier. For Canadian plains indians, the end of the buffalo economy came quite late -- between the first and second Riel Rebellions, the end result of which was the final movement (outside BC) of the Indian population onto reserves (but not the Metis, Innuit or Dene). Even then, a year or two ago I finished supervising a superb thesis on the economic fortunes of the Indians on reserves in the period from the 1870s to the 1940s. Through much of this period, the natives population did adjust to the market economy and, while hardly prospering or growing rich, did actually quite well; so much so that the government and local business conspired to buy, seize, expropriate or otherwise dislodge Indian land because, in many cases, the Indians were out competing white farmers (such as in hay markets.) Indeed, the federal government in canada denied the Indians their money to buy farm machinery because the government argued that, to maintain their way of life, the Indians had to use traditional, labour intensive, non-machinery mathods. That is, the natives were denied the right to chose to adopt modern technology and when they did and out competed the whites, they had their land and/or resources restricted. The real collapse of the native economies came, according to this thesis on Saskatchewan (and a similar book on Manitoba) during the depression when the aboriginals suffered the same fate as the white farmers. The difference was that the native economies never recovered with the war and the rise of paternal welfarism led to the dependency of the reserve structure which was not (the reserve resource base) sufficient to maintain or increase the income level. Nevertheless, Bhoddi is right in the sense that even if we restored to all the aboriginals all that we have expropriated since the original treaties, and even allocated all or most of the unallocated crown lands, it would do little now to bring the native peoples up to a decent standard of living. Just to give an example, Canada is now overrun with Beaver -- aboriginals can catch as many as they want and most of us wish that they would as they have become a nuisance and a hazard -- but the price of beaver pelts is so low (thanks in large part to the so-called animal rights activists) that the cost of catching beaver is greater than the revenue. Look at what has happened in BC with the salmon fishery. The combination of overfishing by US and Canadian fishers, pollution from logging and mining, etc. has driven the salmon dangerously close to extinction such that, even returning the exclusive fishing rights to the Indians on most rivers would barely provide for a subsistence fishery, etc. etc. Plus, the fact that many Native people don't want to live by the traditional ways -- i.e. want to come to the cities, get good educations, become doctors and even economists, or get good trades jobs. The preservation of traditional (and in many cases isolated) economies denies those kids who want to integrate the tools (social and educational) to do so. I certainly don't have the answer to this problem -- but it surely is not as clear cut as either Louis or Bhoddi make out. Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
