Posted by Ilya Somin:
Native Americans and Property Rights:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_15-2009_03_21.shtml#1237224869
Economist Terry Anderson, an expert on Native American issues, has
[1]an interesting op ed pointing out that the dire poverty of many
Indian tribes could be alleviated by strengthening protection for
private property rights:
Two vital steps in this direction are to strengthen property rights
and the rule of law on reservations. Virtually every study of
international development shows that both of these are crucial to
prosperity. Indian country is no different. The effect of insecure
property rights is evident on a drive through any western
reservation. When you see 160 acres overgrazed and a house unfit
for occupancy, you can be sure the title to the land is held by the
federal government bureaucracy. In contrast, when you see irrigated
land in cultivation with farm implements, a barn and well-kept
house, you can be sure the land is held in fee simple, whether by
an Indian or non-Indian.
Land tenure in Indian country is complicated thanks to laws, dating
back to the 19th century, which put millions of acres of tribal and
individual Indian land under the trusteeship of the Interior
department's Bureau of Indian Affairs. These lands cannot be sold,
used as collateral, easily inherited, or managed productively.
Instead of giving Indians more federal welfare, Mr. Obama has the
opportunity to increase their autonomy. It is, after all, their
land. Let them manage it, borrow against it, and make it
productive.
Like many property teachers, I sometimes encounter the persistent myth
that Native Americans don't believe in private property, had no
concept of property rights before Europeans arrived, and so on. But,
as Anderson explained in [2]this 1997 article, many Indian tribes used
property rights for a wide range of purposes long before whites
arrived. Ironically, the myth of Native American hostility to property
rights was first developed by 18th and 19th century whites as a
justification for dispossessing Indians of their land on the grounds
that they didn't really own it. In the 20th century, [3]the myth was
taken up by some left-wing environmentalists and others in order to
show that Native Americans had a supposedly superior collectivist
ethic that whites should emulate.
References
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123716186521735641.html
2.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/property-rights-among-native-americans/
3. http://www.perc.org/articles/article802.php
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