Share the Land

September 6

A Capital Idea Part 29: Share the Land

A little known fact outside of so-called Indian reservations is that each tribe is considered an independent nation -- well, a semi-independent nation with its own government. I was recently reminded of this fact when returning with my wife Eunice from a fishing trip to the Mammoth area in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. There is a place called the Paiute Palace just north of Bishop, CA, in the Owens Valley on the east side of the mountains. As might be expected, it has a casino. It also has a gas station, restaurant and souvenir sales. Eunice figured that the casino would come along with a buffet, the way they do in Las Vegas, so she wanted to eat at the buffet. When we got there, we walked through a distressingly smoky casino to find that there was no buffet, but there was TuKaNovie Restaurant. I am sure that TuKaNovie means something good in the Paiute language, but I was unable to find out what in the description of the restaurant on the menu.

In any case, the restaurant had mainstream American table fare for relatively inexpensive prices. The lunch special cost $4.99. When we got the bill, we were surprised to see that there was no tax, although we shouldn't have been surprised. The tribe sets its own prices and taxes, and apparently, the people who administer the tribe's financial affairs feel that there is no need to charge tax. They get plenty of money to work with by the use of their "one armed bandits" to which hapless visitors donate large sums of money. Fortunately, as my wife and I discussed, neither of us really likes gambling, and neither of us is prone to addiction. As Eunice said, if I was into gambling, she would have to dump me, but fortunately we are blissfully compatible (well, for the most part, and our commitment to the relationship takes care of the rest). Out of curiosity, I did put one dollar in a poker machine, won three dollars on my first hand with 3 of a kind (which is the minimum hand it takes to win anything there), then proceeded to lose 4 times in a row until my dollar was gone.

Even before receiving the bill, I had an epiphany, since I was thinking in my "spare time" about my capital ideas. The menu mentioned that the Paiute tribe has about 2,000 members, on a small patch (or patches) of land in the Owens Valley. If nothing else, it's a beautiful location, but my epiphany was that a small tribe such as this might make an ideal situation for initiating a resource-based economy, or at least trying out some of my ideas. The lack of taxes only reinforced my feeling about the tribal economic situation. Native Americans prior to their semi-assimilation into Euro-culture, never used money very much, although they may have had certain items which were treated as money. It may be an idealistic view of Native Americans, but more or less true that they had a "green" lifestyle, cooperated as a group, at least among a given tribe, and usually between tribes as well, and shared the land, their resources and so forth. They also had forms of local democracy, in which group decisions were made. Of course, I am generalizing here, and don't know much about the particulars of the Paiute tribe, but I am fairly certain that resource sharing and democratic decision making would agree with the Paiute people. They probably already do share the earnings from their casino, although most of the employees working on the reservation are Paiute, including the lovely waitresses at TukaNovie Restaurant. (I also noticed that our waitress was a lefty.)

Obviously, the tribe members would still have to use money in transactions with non-tribe members, but within the tribe, resource sharing could be the norm. I could see the social contract described in my previous post, including all of the rights and obligations included therein, being applied to the Paiute tribe, or any modest sized tribe, with relative ease, as long as resources were adequate. My feeling is that with the casino acting as a "cash cow" for the Paiute tribe, that should not be a problem. Furthermore, there is a hospital in Bishop and plenty of modern amenities in the area. Every tribe member could receive that to which they have legal (according to tribal law) right, without having to pay. After all, they make their own rules as long as it is a tribal matter. The money for this could come from their casino and other work done by tribal members, money which could be pooled for such uses. In addition, workers on the reservation, whether tribe members or not, could receive some salary, which could be used to buy goods or services outside the reservation. As in the social contract outlined in the previous post, every able post-educational tribe member would be expected to engage in productive activities for a certain minimum amount of time per week, so they would have some U.S. dollars to work with, in addition to the free goods, services and education for all. No one person would be exorbitantly rich, but every person would have a good standard of living. The extreme disparities in wealth which are seen in American culture would not happen in the resource-sharing tribe.

Over time, since the Paiute tribe has a relatively small patch of land, perhaps the tribe could pool their money to purchase more land, which could be used for farming, for instance, to make the tribe more self-sufficient. (Self-sufficiency is one problem with this test case since the Paiutes have limited land and natural resources available, making self-sufficiency from a natural resource perspective unlikely.) The Owens Valley has plenty of good farmland, although Los Angeles stole most of the water from the Owens River long ago for its own use. If water sources and/or the appropriate crops could be found, the valley could be a great farming area. It also contains considerable ranchland with cattle, sheep, and horses. Perhaps other natural resources, such as mineral ones, could be found on their land, and utilized in a non-destructive, environmentally friendly way. Of course, since the Owens Valley is a major vacation spot, and on the way to other vacation spots for many people, it is also a great place for tourism. With these resources available, the Paiutes should be able to all live a good, healthy lifestyle and standard of living. All it takes is sharing the wealth.

By the way, I got the title of this post from a song. Last year, when Eunice and I were on our way to my brother's house in South Lake Tahoe, we heard a song called "Share the Land" on the radio. The song is from a Canadian group called Guess Who which was popular in the 1960s, one of my favorite groups when I was a kid, and this song was one of my favorite songs on one of the first albums that I bought. There seems to be a Native American theme in this song, so it fits perfectly here. Since I hadn't heard the song in many years, it seemed a propitious circumstance, and I thought it would be of use to me somehow. Perhaps you remember this song, too. Of course, what it really means is "share the wealth."