CREATING INDIGENOUS ECONOMIES AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES Professor Robert Miller Lewis & Clark Law School Portland, Oregon 1
Traditional American Indian property regimes & rights Successfully supported for centuries with agriculture & hunting & fishing Private & community property rights Trade networks & economic systems Intellectual property rights Self-sufficiency is self-determination 2
Euro-American impacts Land dispossession Dependency theory U.S. legal claims –Discovery Doctrine U.S. constitution, laws, treaties Removal, Reservation, Allotment, Termination eras 3
BUSINESS OWNERSHIP PER CAPITA BUSINESSES PER THOUSAND POPULATION STATE OF OREGON Source: 1992 Census of Business © ONABEN 1997
COMMUNITY EFFECTS Poverty-related education, economic, social & health issues Community cohesion Family stability Long term perspective Self-Determination
Community Benefits EARNED INCOME CONTAINING LEAKAGE EMPLOYMENT and TRAINING INFLUENCE
Onabens conclusions Small business ownership is a critical element in community stability Small business ownership is unequally distributed Everyone benefits from equality of ownership Creating business ownership depends on thoughtful adaptations of prevailing models 7
Self-Determination and effective governance creates environments in which individuals (tribal citizens & others) will invest time, energy, ideas, & money.
What does effective governance involve? Stability in the rules & laws Separation of politics from business management Effective and non-politicized dispute resolution A bureaucracy that can get things done
Economic development obstacles Attracting investments $$, time and laws Rural areas Land in trust & federal approvals Credit & potential Tribal courts & U.S. & tribal bureaucracies Sovereign immunity Political instability Economic education & experience 10
Potential Poverty is not an Indian cultural trait Improved education & health levels Tribal govts – to assist & be clients – Buy Indian Acts Onaben, 4 Bands Comm. Fund, Lakota Fund U.S. government – Buy Indian Act (1910). Multiplier effect & stop leakage (Montana tribal study) 11
U.S. Buy Indian Act – 25 USC That so far as may be practicable Indian labor shall be employed, and purchases of the products of Indian industry may be made in the open market in the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior. 12
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