This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, October 12, 2018. I'm Caleb Brown.

Native American tribes are supposed to be sovereign. They are far from it.

Terry Anderson is one of the founders of the Alliance for Renewing Indigenous Economies.

We spoke about the price that Native Americans pay for the false promise of sovereignty on tribal lands.

When we think about economic development, it's not that we should be thinking about mere dollars and the collection of dollars and

growth in some particular enterprise. Economic development is about the process of expanding options and expanding choices for people to develop

themselves economically.

What has been the story of indigenous peoples of Native American tribes in the United States

for the last 150 years or so with respect to economic development?

Let me start even before 150 years

by saying that indigenous people around the world,

and certainly here in North America,

had enjoyed economic development, as you've described it. They had the freedom to

travel to trade to engage in whatever enterprises they wished.

I use those words because they were words that Chief Joseph uttered in 1879 here in Washington,

D.C.

After his band had been captured 40 miles from Canada where they were trying

to escape for asylum.

So prior to the colonization that they've had, they enjoyed economic development.

I like to say that they didn't just survive, they prospered.

Since then, however, all of the aspects of freedom that Chief Joseph called for, and all of the

aspects of economic development, meaning expanded options, have been limited and constrained in ways that they simply can't enjoy

...