Thought I should haul this over to its own thread.

R.N.E.:

As for Tom's comment about property rights, even those tribes who were well on their way though long slow process toward an agribased society didn?t believe they owned the land. Still holding the ancient belief that each generation was simply living on the land at the grace and sufferance of the Creator. A favor that could and would be revoked at any time if the land, and all that was upon it, were not treated properly. That does not mean they would not defend their right to live on and use a certain piece of land.

But as for actually being the sole possessor of it, with the right to sell it? No, no more than they could sell the sky or water in the river. Many of the early treaties were signed by tribal elders who thought the encroaching settlers were insane to pay for such an idiotic thing as owning a particular parcel of land.

Everyone knew you couldn't own land, right?

Robert:

I find in your final comments about the Indian view of property rights some confirmation of my own position that our current economic regime, in the broad sense that includes property rights, is an artificial one, based on arbitrary decisions we've made. The dogma of Conservatism that portrays property rights and free markets as if they've been ordained by God or are wired into the natural laws of the Universe (by an Intelligent Designer?) always comes across to my ear as rank self-serving superstitution.

That's not to say that property rights and free markets and all the rest don't work well; it's to say that they work well under certain circumstances, not so well under others. Like the proto Native Americans confronting a continent empty of people, free-market capitalism thrives in an environment of abundance and broad frontiers that supports its assumption of unlimited growth; but it hits the wall when the environment changes and limits appear. That's when a people need to think about converting to a sustainable economic system, one that's in it for the long haul and eschews the destructive "bleed it dry and move on" mentality. There's no longer anywhere to move on to, at least on this planet. We started eating our seed corn several decades ago.

I'm not sure how much of this is romanticized projection, and how much is actual history. Ownership of land is as old as human agriculture, through many different cultures. The ability to sell land required a civilization advanced enough that everyone didn't have to be a farmer. At some point, this would have been true for th

A number of non-nomadic American Indian tribes had family ownership of property. Certainly the Central and South American Indian civilizations and other city builders recognized ownership of real estate.

Robert, it's the idea of personal ownership and responsiblity for land that encourages conservation. The nomadic culture had no need to do anything but use up resources and move on. Only their small numbers kept them from doing much damage to the environment.