HEFFNER: I am Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome to the broadcast today, Professor Ronald Trosper, professor at the University of Arizona, and author of “Resilience, Reciprocity and Ecological Economics,” and also newly the author of “Indigenous Economics.” Welcome, professor.

TROSPER: Thank you very much.

HEFFNER: Professor, I was reviewing a commentary on “Indigenous Economics.” The full title of the book is “Indigenous Economics: Sustaining Peoples and Their Lands.” The comment was that the book offers an important alternative to classic economic theory, and you are looking at indigenous populations to inform a specific approach to biodiversity loss and climate change.

Can you expound on how you arrived at this contention?

TROSPER: Many indigenous people here in North America emphasized relationality and relationships, and in particular, one of the groups that I visited that began to come, said, before we can make a forest plan, we have to get the relationships right.

And so I took that as a piece of advice and sent out to figure out what it meant to get the relationships right and to organize through relationships, primarily.

HEFFNER: What does it mean to establish those relationships?

TROSPER: Well, for instance, this group would come manage forest land, and they want to establish relationships with all the beans on the land to make sure they understand.

For instance, they used to use beaver.

So what is, it did be require on the land.

Similarly, other indigenous groups, when they are managing their land, they want to be sure that they have good relationships with entities on the land.

They also need good relationships with each other so that they trust each other to follow the rules, to take care of the land.

So when people are taking care of land, you really need to have sensible rules, and you need to share the output and trust each other.

HEFFNER: One of the themes in your first book and this book as well as reciprocity, and to me that is notable because it's a word absent the vocabulary of most Americans.

It's a word that's in a Lauryn Hill song.

You may know the singer musician.

Well, it's a famous lyric in one of Miss Hill's songs, but it came to me early, that word reciprocity.

I appreciate it greatly.

And I want to know what you mean by reciprocity, not just in the definitional sense, but in the sense of what the native indigenous populations practice, how they practice reciprocity, and how we ought to as non-native populations as well.

TROSPER: Well, an elder in my tribe, I asked him, how can we decolonize?

And he said, well, we're not taking care of each other like we used to.

We're not sharing like we used to.

And I'm thinking we're use the word share instead of the word reciprocity, share with each other.

Let's be concerned about the welfare of each other.

And in my earlier book, I showed that if you shared the catch from a fishery, all the prisoner's dilemmas problems, all the problems over exploitation disappear because people recognize that what they do affects the other harvesters, the other fishermen.

The reciprocity is really a matter of sharing.

HEFFNER: How does transaction or exchange factor into that?

Because a fair transaction or an equitable transaction is also an exchange that is a fair exchange that promotes the wellbeing of each party in a trade, whether it's a trade of commerce or a trade of ideas.

I think the implication, if you were to ask our viewers today, is that most Americans get a raw deal, and probably native populations too in their treatment, in most of their relationships, vis-a-vis the government vis-a-vis neighbors.

And it's because they think the transaction is inequitable or they're not getting their fair end of the bargain.

TROSPER: So, yes, the point is that if you have a good, solid relationship in your community among all members of the community, then nobody is really left out.

I was saying that yes, people feel that they're unfairly treated because they merely trade money for things.

But if one has a system, a relational system, then in the community, everybody cares for everyone else.

And although some may get more because they're better able at producing, there's a concern that everybody is taken care of.

And so that's a principle of equity that everyone is taken care of.

And it's also a principle for good commons management.

If all the fishermen don't get a share, no one is out there cheating.

HEFFNER: I want you to give us the most basic, and I'm sure soundest overview of how life in native communities operates today, right.

How has it evolved from the foundation of Native populations establishing their own independent land?

Not so long ago, there was a Supreme Court decision that impacted criminal justice in the practice of law enforcement in native communities, and how that boundary is reflected in the treatment of non-native populations within native territories and native populations within non-native territories.

But I think most Americans just don't know what is the governing structure of native populations in the US today?

How does it vary or is it identical in most native populations?

TROSPER: So you're bringing me to the question of native communities today are severely controlled by the federal government.

For instance, we used to have good relationships with the land and we're able to manage people's relationship with the land.

And if one family say was short on land, we could redistribute land.

Right now, the federal government has imposed a system of property rights on tribes that has removed tribal government from controlling the system of property rights.

Similarly, you mentioned legal matters.

In many indigenous tribes, traditionally, if there was a conflict, it would be solved by making peace among the parties, by seeing why there was a conflict in the first parties and setting out to create, to diminish the conflict and remain and make peace.

But in the American political system, the question is who wins?

You go to court and one side wins, and the other side wins.

There's no effort to deal with why what happened, and how you fix the system so that people would not feel mistreated if they do, if that's what caused the problem in the first place.

So the systems of justice on reservations are quite different because there's a lot of concern, as I mentioned, for the respect and equity among people.

And it's not a question of who was right, but how can we fix this problem through restructuring our relationships?

So one of the major stories of American history is the imposition of the justice system of the United States upon tribes who had a different justice system, a peacemaking system, rather than a system of finding out who was in blame in any particular case.

HEFFNER: When I asked you about governance within these territories, native-controlled territories, whether we're talking Oklahoma or South Dakota or Arizona, where you are.

The governing structure is folks who are growing up in these communities, how does their relationship with the governing structure work, compared to electing your local council member, mayor, governor and president?

And again, because I think Americans don't know, for example, if tribe members have the right to vote in federal US elections, please illuminate this for us.

There tends to be some grave misunderstanding about what Native American, native indigenous populations have the rights within their own tribes and territory.

And then more broadly, do they vote?

Do they pay taxes?

And who are they electing within their tribes?

TROSPER: So tribes nowadays usually have elections for their leaders.

Some tribes still have traditional systems where religious leaders have important roles in selecting the political leaders, but in most tribes, there are elections.

And a tribe really has to work on making sure that there are election procedures, uh, get along, go along with some of what they would do traditionally, which would be to elect leaders that took care of the, of the community, were concerned about fair distribution of income and things like that.

It's very difficult when you talk about what's going on reservations now to make sure that tribes have actually adjusted their election system or their governing system to something that they appreciate compared to some of the systems that have been imposed by the federal government.

So it's true on most reservations that the tribal council is elected by the membership and serves at the pleasure of the membership just as other governments operate.

Whether to the extent to which that government responds to caring for the membership depends upon whether they've gone back to their traditional approaches rather than sticking purely to representative system inherited from the federal government.

So you see on some reservations, there's still a lot of fighting over land and other reservations.

They figured out how to get along with each other and manage the land cooperatively to the extent that it's possible given the constraints of the federal government.

HEFFNER: And what about the question as to reservation, tribal leaders, tribal members and their relationship to the federal government, with respect to tax paying, with respect to voting in the elections of the state of Arizona, for example?

TROSPER: In Arizona, for instance, the tribal members vote for the government, governor as well as for their own government.

They pay state taxes whenever they shop off the reservation.

They pay state taxes.

State collects taxes on the minerals that are mined on the reservations.

The people who are employed by the tribe pay federal income tax.

They don't pay state income tax.

Most tribes are exempted from state income tax, but they're not exempted from state sales tax.

When they go off the reservation, they pay sales tax.

I'm from the state of Montana, which does not have a sales tax, but when I live on my reservation, I don't pay income tax state.

If I move off the reservation, I do.

So the tax depends upon where you are.

On my reservation, in fact, if I own the land under the state, if I own my land in simple rather than trust land, I will pay county taxes and state taxes on the property.

HEFFNER: You were suggesting perhaps that it does vary state by state.

In Arizona, for example, you can vote for your tribal leader, you can vote for your governor.

I think the implication of what you're saying is not federal elections.

You, for example, you can't vote for senate or president or can you?

TROSPER: Oh, yes.

No.

All elections you can vote for president.

Absolutely.

HEFFNER: Is this governed state by state?

So there are different procedures in Montana, for example, and restrictions on perhaps electoral rights in other states, where Arizona grants you the right to vote on the tribal land and for statewide office and federal offices, or in all populations, in all tribal populations, can you vote both for your tribal leaders and your state and federal leaders?

TROSPER: I think you're correct on the second statement.

Tribes vote for all in all elections.

In Arizona we had a case in which the federal government limited the ability of tribes, for instance, on the Navajo reservation, transportation is very difficult.

The state of Arizona said well you can't carry an absentee ballot of anybody else to the post office.

It has to be done an immediate family member so that an aunt or a cousin can't bring someone's vote to the post office that was declared legal, even though it does restrict the access to voting on the part of the Navajos.

But whatever the rules are for voting are the ones that apply everywhere.

And if they happen to be discriminatory to people on reservations, that's what it is.

HEFFNER: The reason that I wanted to establish this.

This is precisely what I was going to say, fairly rudimentary understanding, but still essential, I would say imperative.

Is because your thesis is essentially that we ought to look to indigenous communities to inform economic policy, and when we think about something like cap and trade, or when we think of systemic approaches to preserve nature or the ecological wellbeing of our surroundings, you're saying, let's look to the tribes, at least as much as we are looking internally in the non-native population.

So what I wanted to establish was some foundation, because ultimately we live in a capitalistic system.

And so any way in which you're suggesting reforms could be informed by the way indigenous populations operate their economy, it has to ultimately weave in or intersect with the mainstream realities off of those reservations.

So this is your platform.

TROSPER: My view is that as you talk about the capitalist system of the realities off the reservation, folks are very strongly encouraged to act as individuals and discouraged for cooperating with each other.

So if one has a, a major environmental problem in an area, my advice would be to get, to build relationships among everyone to see what can be done jointly.

But when people are living on their own land with private property and very worried about their own private property rights, they find it very difficult to cooperate with.

So for instance, in the United States, The New York Times had a series of articles about how water is being overexploited, and groundwater in particular is being overexploited.

Well, if people were encouraged to build relationships and be concerned about their neighbors, they would be able to get together and deal with that raw water problem.

And in some communities, they do that.

For instance, Elinor Ostrom has pointed out that in Los Angeles, they had a big problem with salt water coming in.

And so the various communities got together and came to an agreement to restrict withdrawal of fresh water so that their groundwater in the Los Angeles basin would not become all salty.

Well, that kind of cooperation is very difficult in a capitalist society because everyone is encouraged to be selfish.

And this problem of selfishness creates the dilemmas in the fisheries management, water management, air management, all the problems that are joint problems are very hard to address because of the dilemmas caused by individual property rights, individually.

And so tribes too have to deal with that.

But they many cases, what they do, they start to build relationships with the other people.

For instance, on my reservation, we spent a lot of time building relationships with non-Indians on the reservation so that we can solve the problems together.

So that's the main function and distinction that I would point to is the dilemmas that occur from the excessive individualism in America.

And it's just very hard to cooperate.

HEFFNER: I appreciate your pragmatic response and your recognition that transitioning practices from indigenous lands to non-indigenous lands will prove challenging.

There is a particular passage from your book that I want to read.

It's especially salient.

And again, I wanted to establish the norms and relations in application of the economy and political franchise of tribes, because I want you to get innovative and think about not just the problem, but being prescriptive.

And as we look to a new Congress forming in January of 2025, what can be done?

So this is a really important passage you write, “Standard economics defines wealth as the ownership of sources of commodities, which is usually physical and financial capital, valued in monetary terms.

An individual's wealth is his or her net worth.

Some indigenous peoples have urged a different definition of wealth.

People are wealthy who have many strong relationships with each other and with all persons in the landscape, including non-human persons.

This economy of affection has a strong subjective component based on the feeling of community resulting from participation in making and sharing relational goods.” You are urging professor a cognizance of other observable characteristics within biodiversity and health of people of people and of Mother Nature, of earth.

So how do you propose that we take stock of what's going on in indigenous communities and extrapolate so that the obsession with the excessiveness of unhealthy choices does not define or animate how we live off the reservations?

TROSPER: So I began my book with some examples of indigenous people applying relationality by building relationships with their neighbors so that they emphasize that if we're going to solve our problems together, we need to treat each other well and to establish good relationships with each other.

So doing that means always consulting your neighbors before deciding on things that affect them, having listening to everyone and understanding where they're coming from, all sorts of things build strong relationships.

And working on the relationships first then will lead to people recognizing their joint concerns and proceeding to solve those problems.

There are other scientists, we have some political scientists here at the University of Arizona who focused on collaborative governance by which they, and they've identified situations where a joint problem has caused non-indigenous people to start working together to treat each other with what they call principled engagement.

They treat each other well.

They listen to each other, they make decisions together so that the solution to solves problems for everybody.

So that kind of movement towards listening to each other, acting together and solving problems together is what I would recommend.

And very often what indigenous people do is start on that project with their neighbors.

If we are going to solve our problem, first we build the relationships, get the relationships right, and then address the problems rather than say appealing to the government to set up the right rules.

Because when we set up the right rules, everybody fights, the government sets up particular pollution standards, and everyone fights as to whether or not they approve.

Well, if the folks that are affected by those pollution standards were able to talk to each other and get a solution, maybe they wouldn't fight so much.

HEFFNER: Has there ever been a period in America where that has been modeled successfully?

TROSPER: Well, I think that actually there were cases where among the settlers and among the communities, you know, de Tocqueville claimed that America was very good at relationship building and local building.

And that seems to have been forgotten and disappeared as we've gone get gotten more and more into the individualistic approach.

So there is a history of cooperation and people, for instance, do studies in many communities in the United States, there is a lot of trust because people have worked together.

There's trust within ethnic groups, however, it's not trust across ethnic groups.

So that, for instance, at Flathead, we've had to fight with non-Indians on the reservation because they're not amenable to the kinds of relationships that we want to build.

So my tribal council has very careful not to make enemies of the local folks, but just to continually work with them, convince them that yes, if we work together, we could solve our problems.

So for instance, on irrigation issues on our reservation, we're making progress because people have stopped fighting.

HEFFNER: So you would say your thesis would be, if you want pluralistic solutions to actually manifest and work, consult your neighbors.

And something like cap and trade can operate on a municipal level or a neighborhood level before ever it would be established by an act of Congress.

TROSPER: Correct.

Work on the neighborhoods first.

And if people prefer a cap and trade process, then they'll adopt it.

But often, for instance, many indigenous people will say, well, if you want to solve your water problems, don't create a market in water because that makes water into a commodity.

What water is something that needs to be shared, and everybody needs to have a fair share, and you need to solve your water problems by talking to each other, by establishing, maybe you will establish a way in which people who rely on the water pay the people who create and protect the water, but it's in a mutual relationship rather than a market relationship.

HEFFNER: Professor, we only have two minutes, but this has been really stimulating, and I'm thinking of a fellow scholar, Robert Putnam.

You're concerned that homogeneous populations will be incapable of finding common purpose in across creed, across ethnic stripes, TROSPER: Heterogeneous populations.

Homogeneous populations get along with each other better.

It's heterogeneous populations have the problem.

HEFFNER: That's what I mean.

I mean that homogeneous populations in isolation cannot interface with different perspectives to form a working community.

I mean, Putnam would, would say that a diversity of creed can actually instill a kind of virtuous diversity, virtuous pluralism.

And maybe Tocqueville too.

You leave me a little bit hopeless on this question of a heterogeneous, the idea of a heterogeneous community being able to flourish and find those solutions.

But if you had one prescription so that not only solutions can be forged within those homogeneous populations, but they can also be forged heterogeneously.

Besides look local, is there anything else prescriptive in the minute we have left that you would say?

TROSPER: Well, I would say that if you listen to your neighbor and understand where they're coming from and, uh, come to a common solution, that would be very promising.

And in many local areas, that's what's being done in cities and so forth.

It's very hard to do when you think about it at a national level, when you about at the local level, folks can come together even when they're very different.

And indigenous people have done that with their neighbors.

HEFFNER: Professor, I appreciate your wisdom.

Professor Ronald Trosper, author of “Indigenous Economics Sustaining Peoples and Their Lands.” It's really an important historical sociology that can help inform a better way in America.

Your insights ought to be preserved and acted on.

I appreciate your time today, sir.

TROSPER: Well, thank you for giving me the time to expound on my ideas.

HEFFNER: And for those who are interested, check out the book and also understand that the native populations do contribute to the economy and democratic lifeblood of our country.

They are not alien to us.

They can pay taxes and they vote in our elections.

And that was the purpose of me reiterating that line of questioning with you, sir.

Thank you again.

TROSPER: You're welcome.

Thank you for recognizing the need to start where you did.

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