In a recent LA Times op ed, David Boaz of the Cato Institute joins economist David Henderson in interpreting the blockbuster film Avatar as a defense of property rights:
Conservatives have been very critical of the Golden Globe-winning film “Avatar” for its mystical melange of trite leftist themes. But what they have missed is that the essential conflict in the story is a battle over property rights….
But conservative critics are missing the conflict at the heart of the movie. It’s quite possible that [director] Cameron missed it too.
The earthlings have come to Pandora to obtain unobtainium. In theory, it’s not a military mission, it’s just the RDA Corp. with a military bigger than most countries. The Na’vi call them the Sky People.
To get the unobtainium, RDA is willing to relocate the natives, who live on top of the richest deposit. But alas, that land is sacred to the Na’vi, who worship the goddess Eywa, so they’re not moving. When the visitors realize that, they move in with tanks, bulldozers and giant military robots, laying waste to a sacred tree and any Na’vi who don’t move fast enough.
Conservatives see this as anti-American, anti-military and anti-corporate or anti-capitalist. But they’re just reacting to the leftist ethos of the film.
They fail to see what’s really happening. People have traveled to Pandora to take something that belongs to the Na’vi: their land and the minerals under it. That’s a stark violation of property rights, the foundation of the free market and indeed of civilization.
See also David’s follow-up post here.
As I explained in this post, I’m skeptical that this message was either intended by the filmmakers or perceived by most American viewers. On the other hand, in the same post I also noted that that was precisely how it was received by many Chinese, who saw the film as an allegory of their own government’s large-scale violation of property rights. Since then, the Chinese government has forced most theaters to stop showing Avatar, which suggests that its censors interpret the film that way too.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST WATCH: I am a Cato Institute adjunct scholar, which is an unpaid position.
One viewer says:
There are lots of films about rent-seeking, but most people call them gangster films.
February 1, 2010, 4:23 amGuy says:
Yes, but the Na’vi seemed to have a communal concept of property rights, so I don’t think it really counts. At any rate, the corporation decided that taking the land by force was cheaper than buying it, so a fortiori it was the most economically efficient approach, except that they didn’t factor in the possibility of a sentient ecosystem mucking up their calculations. Maybe it’s a parable about incorporating externalities based on the findings of environmental scientists (represented by Sigourney Weaver).
I still don’t understand why they couldn’t just drift mine, was the tree too heavy for the ground to support if they mined under it? Set up some structural supports or something, it’s got to be cheaper than warfare.
February 1, 2010, 4:56 amIlya Somin says:
Yes, but the Na’vi seemed to have a communal concept of property rights, so I don’t think it really counts.
Boaz addresses this in his second post. Communal property rights can be a form of private property.
At any rate, the corporation decided that taking the land by force was cheaper than buying it, so a fortiori it was the most economically efficient approach, except that they didn’t factor in the possibility of a sentient ecosystem mucking up their calculations.
It was cheaper for the corporation. That doesn’t make it the most economically efficient approach overall, since they didn’t factor in the cost to the Naavi. By that logic, since it’s cheaper for a shoplifter to steal a coat than buy one, stealing would be the most economically efficient thing that he could do.
February 1, 2010, 5:11 amRicardo says:
To borrow Thomas Jefferson’s phrase, how does that pick your pocket or break your leg? All societies have some form of communal property — that hardly means it’s free for the taking for whoever wants to seize control by force. Moreover, classical liberal and libertarian thinkers have never said the only rights are property rights: they have always said everyone has the right to life, liberty and property. Forceful taking of community property will violate the right to liberty and, if anyone dies as a result, the right to life as well.
I haven’t seen Avatar but it seems to me that most of the conservative opposition to the film is driven by the need to stake out a claim in the culture war. Criticism of mining companies and the way they displace local populations and disrupt local cultures comes overwhelmingly from the left. Some conservatives feel the need to oppose anything that tends to come from the left, regardless of whether it is a substantive point.
Not all conservatives do this, of course. For instance, there are evangelical Christian organizations who wind up agreeing with a substantial amount of the non-Israel-related public campaigns of Amnesty International. But it appears to be what is driving conservative criticism of the film here.
February 1, 2010, 5:28 amGuy says:
I was being slightly ironic.
Presumably, the Na’vi were willing to spend a certain amount of resources to defend their property, and the corporation was willing to spend a certain amount to take it, whoever spends the most wins, that’s supply and demand. Likewise, a shopkeeper is willing to spend as much on security as they think will maximize profits, shoplifting is a cost of doing business. Of course, if some legal system was in place to allow a governmental authority to prevent the unlawful taking without cost to the Na’vi, then that’s essentially considering the externalities of the harms to the Na’vi and/or to Eywa, which were not adequately being represented in the cost/benefit analysis of the corporation.
February 1, 2010, 6:02 amArkady says:
Indeed, I had this same thought one day as I was walking across Boston Common…
@Ilya
The last person you want to ask about the meaning of an artwork is the artist.
February 1, 2010, 7:24 amSharpshooter says:
Just who was it supported Kelo (on the Supreme Court) and who was against?
February 1, 2010, 7:34 amShag from Brookline says:
How might the various versions of originalism on constitutional interpretation be applied to Avatar? Consider the viewpoint of (1) the producer, (2) the director, (3) the actors, (4) the viewers, (5) the non-viewers who read reviews, etc. Just like a cigar may be just a good smoke a movie may just tell an entertaining story. The hermeneutic circle is so dizzying. [Full disclosure: I have not seen nor do I plan to see this movie until available at home.]
February 1, 2010, 7:38 amPersonFromPorlock says:
The Na’vi defense of their territory can be seen as a defense of individual property rights in the same way the Soviet defense against the German invasion can. Which is to say, not much. Property is a given, the real question is who owns it and the conservative answer is ‘me’. ‘him’, ‘her’ or ‘us’ (i.e., specific individuals); never ‘the group’.
February 1, 2010, 8:05 amdevil's advocate says:
I haven’t seen the movie, and one tangles with Tom Palmer at their own peril. But I think his arguments, while offering context, simply don’t qualify as more than window dressing for the drippingly leftist themes of Avatar.
Please spare us the notion that China banning this has something to do with a worry about property rights, as such. They obviously would be worried about the story of seemingly unempowered peasants overcoming an attempt to assert external jurisdiction through police or mercenary methods.
This is not to deny that certain property rights could be usefully held in common, but our understanding of this phenomenon in developed societies is that the legal contours of such customs may be developed through the common law and ultimately more formally instantiated in statute. This process once tended to incorporate or promote efficiency but of late is used to wreak havoc over developed institutions of property (mostly due to bizarre judicial rules making property rights the ugly stepsister of the constitution). Popular culture as depicted by Cameron can only bread less respect for property rights, not to mention that the focus on Kelo, while salutary, is somewhat exclusionary and has lead the perceived paragons of property rights to all but ignore inverse condemnation in public discourse.
Meanwhile the communalists use purported community property rights to negate our traditional property rights, e.g. , Sax and the unwarranted expansion of the ‘public trust’ and such luminaries of the anti-property rights movement as “The Community Rights Counsel“.
The obvious analogy to the immorality of displacement of native Americans by settlers, doesn’t necessarily elevate then existing forms of resource allocation as efficient or meritorious. The immorality is violent displacement.
The continuity of ‘Indian Law’ and ‘tribal sovereignty’ with communal property management, as some kind of token reparation for the callous terrorism of manifest destiny, is a cruel joke – subjecting people whose inheritance is a loss of freedom at the hands of colonial and then nationalist expansion to the further indignities of having their lives run by a soviet style block committees.
There is some hope though, Foxwoods just reached a deal with the first union at an Indian casino to raise salaries and make layoffs more difficult at a time of extreme financial stress for the gambling industry. Tribal government may be headed the way of the auto companies – one can only hope that Obama doesn’t bail them out.
Brian
February 1, 2010, 8:05 amRegardless of the propriety
ShelbyC says:
Guy, you can’t really determine what’s more efficient without comparing the value of the unobtainium to the sky people to the value of the sacred stuff to the Na’vi, which is, of course, impossible. Isn’t partially the point of property rights.
February 1, 2010, 8:12 amrbj says:
Um, have you ever heard of “joint tenancy” or “tenancy in common”. Indeed corporations own property — which is to say all the stock owners own property as a group. I have no problems with a society owning property as a collective, such as municipal/state/national park systems or freely entered into communes. I just think that individuals are able to own real property as well.
Now I haven’t seen Avatar nor do I plan to, even when it is on free tv, as James Cameron is in favor of eco-terrorism:
February 1, 2010, 8:16 amhttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2010/01/16/james-cameron-i-believe-in-eco-terrorism/
ShelbyC says:
I’m not sure how much it matters what was perceived, the fact is that the whole message depends of the viewer perceiving a property right that the Na’vi possess over the sacred tree, etc. by virtue of them having been there for a long time. If the corporation had already been mining, and the Na’vi had come in and decided the tree was sacred and demanded the folks stop mining, you have no movie.
February 1, 2010, 8:18 amShelbyC says:
So conservatives don’t believe in corporate property rights? News to me.
February 1, 2010, 8:21 amegd says:
Not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse here, but there is a significant difference between corporate ownership and communal ownership.
In the former, the property rights are to a well defined group. In the latter, there are no property rights because there is no actual ownership over the property.
In order for rights to exist in the property, there must be some concept of ownership.
February 1, 2010, 8:46 amShelbyC says:
Correct, and the Na’vi’s right to the sacred tree seem to be pretty clearly an example of the former, not the latter, correct?
February 1, 2010, 8:59 amDavid Boaz on Avatar as a Defense of Property Rights « Daniel Joseph Smith says:
[...] David Boaz on Avatar as a Defense of Property Rights [...]
February 1, 2010, 9:09 amBob_R says:
I’d be interested is seeing a link to one critique of Avatar that claimed that RDA corp. were within their rights in taking the land.
Seems to me that the reason there is so little comment on the property rights issue is that everyone tacitly agrees with the idea. RDA is taking the land from its rightful owners by force. If I’m wrong I’d like to see examples.
February 1, 2010, 9:11 amA. Zarkov says:
“Conservatives see this as anti-American, anti-military and anti-corporate or anti-capitalist. But they’re just reacting to the leftist ethos of the film.”
You missed the biggest “anti.” Some conservatives accuse the film of being anti-white.
Avatar obvious metaphor for the European invasion of the New World complete with the anti-factual portrayal of the natives as peaceful. In reality the North American pre-Bronze-Age aboriginals were anything but peaceful. They were in almost a constant state of brutal and sadistic warfare. In some tribes captured warriors were fattened and eaten. Even children were subject to cannibalistic practices. We know that from the saw marks on young bones. In his book War Before Civilization, Keeley provides copious evidence of what the natives were really like.
February 1, 2010, 9:28 amArkady says:
Isn’t there a missing step in that argument, viz., the assertion of communal property rights must fail because a community is not “well-defined” (and ownership can only be asserted by a well-defined group)? That seems suspect. Is there any reason why a community, say, a tribe, cannot be as well-defined as a corporation? How do you understand ‘well-defined’?
February 1, 2010, 9:35 amMuskrat says:
I love the fact that some people here seem to think that the Navi can’t “own” the land because they don’t have a deed that meets RDA/Federal Government/Belgian Congo standards. The argument seems to be that our system of property ownership is the only that can ever be legitimate. Anything else is just a bunch of savages making a mockery of our sacred system. They’re really just begging to be put on Trail of 3-D Tears because by golly they don’t have deeds that look like our deeds.
Reminds me of the old Eddie Izzard take on colonizing the New World: “What do you mean you claim this land, it’s ours!” “Yes, but do you have a flag? Hmmm?”
The Navi don’t have a flag, so they can’t own anything.
(No, I haven’t seen the film. Maybe they do have a flag. It’s a metaphor.)
February 1, 2010, 9:42 amArkady says:
All of them? Are we, then, justified in characterizing white Europeans as bloodthirsty, genocidal maniacs on the basis of the actions and policies of certain white Europeans in the middle of the last century?
February 1, 2010, 9:44 amKen Arromdee says:
Some comments in the Slashdot discussion suggest that the China ban is a media exaggeration. China normally limits foreign movies, period, and Avatar was limited as part of that, not because of its content, and had its full run. The 3D version was extended and the 2D version wasn’t.
You’d think if they actually wanted to ban it, they’d ban the 3D version too.
February 1, 2010, 10:33 ambyomtov says:
Not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse here, but there is a significant difference between corporate ownership and communal ownership.
In the former, the property rights are to a well defined group.
A corporation is not a “well-defined group” any more than a city is. It’s less well-defined than a tribe, since group membership – presumably the shareholders – changes constantly.
By the way, couldn’t Cameron or somebody come up with a better name for the stuff than “unobtainium?” That is pathetically unimaginitive. (Maybe there’s a reason. I haven’t seen the movie.)
February 1, 2010, 10:43 amKen Arromdee says:
A movie depicting 1930′s-40′s white Europeans as a single peaceful culture, in the manner that Avatar depicts natives as one, would be intensely stupid. And yes, one reason it would be stupid is that it leaves out the genocides. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you could fix it by just sticking in some genocides and changing nothing else, since it would be stupid for several reasons.
February 1, 2010, 10:45 amorca says:
I checked with a friend in Shanghai who reports tickets for Avatar are available on the black market for $150 a pop.
February 1, 2010, 10:47 amJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
I saw Avatar … my first 3D movie and I liked it. It was entertaining.
Who cares about the natives being a communal society. They were there first. The humans were invaders.
The tree in question is unique. There is not another one like it. The mining would presumably done harm to the tree. The tree is also the home/dwelling of the natives.
Plain and simple, the humans were an alien, invading force. The humans in the movie were in the wrong and evil.
February 1, 2010, 11:00 amyankee says:
I don’t buy that it’s inconsistent for a film to be both a defense of property rights and “anti-American, anti-military and anti-corporate or anti-capitalist.” The U.S. government, the U.S. military, American corporations, and the actual capitalist system have been in the business of forcefully expropriating other people’s property for private gain since this country was founded (except for corporations, which barely existed at the time). The most notable example is of course the obvious analogy to the American Indians, but various foreign wars for the purpose of assisting American business profits are involved as well.
I haven’t actually seen the film, but I doubt this property rights message is a sound interpretation. Native peoples’ collective rights to the land they live on and use is very different from the institution of private property generally. The idea that large amounts of property are rightfully owned by everyone in a society as a collective is more of a socialist concept than a capitalist one.
February 1, 2010, 11:06 amJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
The Na’vi seemed to own their hunting gear. I do not recall that they had to take their kill to the commune to be distributed.
The Na’vi also “married” to one mate, for life.
So, it seems to me, that the Na’vi understood property rights and private contract.
Also, there were other natives in the planet that were willing to help the Na’vi against the attacking humans. Those groups resided in other areas and recognized as different from the Na’vi.
February 1, 2010, 11:07 amLarryA says:
Actually the tree “belonged” to Eywa. The Na’vi seemed to be tenants.
Actually, I think it works the other way around. When a group of people settle down and acquire permanent property they will then develop a “well-defined” group with a more comprehensive government.
February 1, 2010, 11:15 amIf you have a group of people (tribe) who lives in a certain place, some sort of property rights will normally develop. They will build permanent homes, which will usually be passed down by some sort of inheritance. Families and individuals will accumulate all sorts of personal property, including furniture, cooking implements, clothing, grooming items, storage containers, etc. Communal property, for instance a water well, requires management by some sort of government, which in turn requires keeping records. That government may take different forms; a monarchy, elected, religious, traditional, but it will be there. “Ownership,” however, will vary. The theory of the middle ages was that the monarch, appointed by God, owned everything, everyone else was a tenant. The other end of that scale is individual ownership, as seen on the early U.S frontier. Most societies have something in between.
OTOH if you have a tribe that’s nomadic, they will pitch their tents wherever they stop. What little personal or communal property they have must be entirely portable. The idea of owning land will be entirely foreign. Government will be limited, both because nomads can’t afford to haul a lot of records around and because it’s too easy to leave.
Which were the Na’vi? Not shown. Did families have specific areas of the tree to live in, or did people just sleep wherever they wanted? The tree was a permanent home, so I would expect the former. However, there was very little shown in the way of personal property, which would indicate the latter.
The fact that they actively communicate with Eywa makes it obvious the Na’vi will have a different form of civilization than the humans expect. The first strong indication of this comes when Neytiri throws away Jake’s most basic human tool, fire.
Too bad they didn’t have a story that really explored any of this.
Assistant Village Idiot says:
Jaime and Bob_R, it was a movie, remember? It didn’t actually happen. The artists – writers, directors, actors – set up the scenario, zipping in whoever they wanted as the heroes and villains. They can make whoever they want look good or bad by how they set up the plot. Imagine, say, a movie coming out in 2011 that focused on a beleaguered Russian official in Hungary in 1957, being discriminated against by landlords, waiters, and prospective dates. Within the context of the movie, one could easily play up how badly that sweet old guy was being treated and just how mean those Hungarians were. Within the context of the movie only, your moral equation holds. But the artists intend for this to have a larger meaning and manipulate the symbols accordingly.
February 1, 2010, 11:23 amShelbyC says:
Perhaps from the Na’vi’s perspective. Our sympathy for the Na’vi dervives from the fact that we view them as the rightful owners of the tree. If the miners had been there already, and the Na’vi came from, say, outer space, and demanded that the mining stop because the tree was sacred to their goddess Eywa, the story would have been about a bunch of blue crap getting splattered all over the place and nobody being very bothered by it.
February 1, 2010, 11:25 amMike S. says:
It isa very hard to take the plot or characters of that movie as signifying anything but an organizing theme for the special effects. Certainly the discussion that I heard leaving the theater and among my family was entirely about the latter. The movie was great fun in the theater; however, I doubt anyone would enjoy watching it on a 12″ TV screen.
February 1, 2010, 11:33 amArthurKirkland says:
Spoiler Alert!!
Did someone take a pee break during the entire final 40 minutes of the film?
February 1, 2010, 11:46 amArthurKirkland says:
What did they think of trial by physical ordeal?
February 1, 2010, 11:48 amLumpy says:
Aren’t most the “conservative” critics of this film actually neocons?
February 1, 2010, 11:51 amGoldmund says:
The idea that the Na’vi “understood property rights and private contract” is quite a stretch. The Na’vi of Pandora are clearly inspired by the indigenous people of Earth confronted by the madness of our modern, corporate-dominated world, a story that has repeated itself countless times since the dawn of the industrial revolution. Indigenous people have no concept of private ownership because the idea of “owning” the land we walk upon and calling it “mine” is as absurd to them as the idea of owning the water we drink or the air we breathe. They view the natural world as a place of abundance, not scarcity, so accumulating wealth makes no sense either. To indigenous people true wealth is measured by the richness of one’s relationships, not the ceaseless accumlation of objects, and every living thing is our relative. They believe there is a deep, spiritual connection between us and the natural world and so what we do to that world we do to ourselves- poisoning the earth, the air and the water is the same as poisoning ourselves, our children and future generations. Thus the conflict between indigenous people and we prisoners of the modern, corporate-dominated mindset- we who have severed this spiritual connection, who view the natural world only in terms of profit-making (i.e.”resources” to be clear-cut, strip-mined or hunted to extinction), and whose personal relationships have been narrowed down to contracts and deal-making, leading inevitably to unbearable loneliness and despair- will continue to rage until we return to the cooperative, loving, creative and joyous human beings we were meant to be.
February 1, 2010, 12:14 pmLaura Victoria says:
Here in Mexico some collectivist ownership of land by peasants still persists in the form of various “Ejidos.” The problem has been as the land has appreciated in value, it could not be monetized by the collective, without a unanimous vote. There are now all sorts of CLE type courses that focus on the byzantine techniques necessary to convert an Ejido into a form of ownership that allows the collective to sell it to developers absent unanimous consent.
One might also think about condominium homeowners’ association collective ownership of the common areas. Seems the key as is often the case is a clear-cut, enforceable contract governing the property rights.
February 1, 2010, 12:27 pmegd says:
Not really, the Na’vi aren’t a well defined group. The implication in the movie is that there is no ownership over the land, so there is no one with whom the humans can negotiate to buy the land. There’s not only the interests of the current inhabitants, but also those of future generations who have an interest in the land.
Again, without a concept of ownership, there’s no way to “buy” the land legitimately.
How about they weren’t humans and therefore have no rights in the land? We don’t ask for a bear’s permission before building a highway through the forest.
(I brought this up in another Avatar thread, it’s kind of a difficult position to support, unless you’re comfortable with bright lines in the sand. But it is a legitimate (IMO) position.)
Well defined means that there is a concrete group of individuals capable of acting in concert. There are no future shareholders who have interests at stake.
But membership at any point is known. Additionally, the shareholders generally don’t need to act in concert to dispose of property, that can be done by the central authority. If they do need to act in concert, the corporation can notify all shareholders (or a quorum thereof) of pending actions.
Finally, future shareholders have no interest in how the property is divided. However, when land is ‘owned’ by the community, there is some expectation that future generations have an interest in the land.
February 1, 2010, 12:32 pmDustin says:
I agree that this premise seems pretty weak. I think about as strong a case could be made that the message is a Nazi one(Na’vi–coincedence?? Just joking), since the Na’vi appeared to display a shocking lack of racial diversity, and were uniformly fit, attractive, and intelligent. I doubt that message was intended any more than a defense of personal property rights.
February 1, 2010, 12:46 pmrbj says:
I don’t know. The Rule Against Perpetuities seems to imply that future generations will have an interest in land.
Not having seen the movie, I don’t know how well defined the Na’vi are. But even nomadic American Indian tribes seemed to confine themselves to various areas — along the lines of “this is our buffalo hunting area, yours is over there” and there would be wars between tribes over exactly where those “borders” (for lack of a better word) were.
February 1, 2010, 12:47 pmJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
Assistant Village Idiot:
And I quote myself: I saw Avatar … my first 3D movie and I liked it. It was entertaining
Do not disagree with the rest of your post.
Another point of the movie: The scientist (the character played by Ms. Weaver) dicovered that there was a biological information network in the planet. A twist on the animistic beliefs of the Na’vi. The Na’vi tails, the connecting “whatever they were called” of other critters, which allowed the Na’vi to connect. The planet itself has self-awareness of some sort.
Egd” The natives were sentient beings.
February 1, 2010, 12:48 pmKen Arromdee says:
He wanted a link to a critique–that is, some evidence that people actually do say that it was okay for the company to take the land, not merely that you could make such an argument.
February 1, 2010, 12:53 pmMichael Ejercito says:
Communal property rights are acknowledged to exist.
Having taken classes in real estate, I learned about the concept of joint tenancy.
The Na’vi are a well-defined group in the example of Avatar.
For a real-life example, there is Camp Pendleton, a United States Marine Corps base thirty miles north of San Diego. No one individual person owns Camp Pendleton. And yet, few people would deny that a well-defined group owns Camp Pendleton.
the Na’vi had tribal and clan organizations.
The humans could have negotiated with the leadership of the tribe or clan that controls the land around the tree.
There is no indication that the Na’vi were anarchic.
February 1, 2010, 12:55 pmAaron says:
Most people seem to be in favor of property rights, at least for individuals they identify with. For individuals they don’t identify with, it seems almost anything is fair game for making a distinction. This results in such responses as “But they don’t view property the same way we do!” or “But it would be so inconvenient to not be able to take their stuff!”, or perhaps even civil forfeiture laws and eminent domain…
February 1, 2010, 1:02 pmAaron says:
Just about everything with a nervous system is sentient (having senses and perceiving). Perhaps you are looking for the handy word “sapient” or perhaps merely “conscious”?
February 1, 2010, 1:08 pmbyomtov says:
But membership at any point is known.
Actually, membership is not known, or even really knowable, in any practical sense. Microsoft has a different set of shareholders right now than it did half an hour ago.
Additionally, the shareholders generally don’t need to act in concert to dispose of property, that can be done by the central authority. If they do need to act in concert, the corporation can notify all shareholders (or a quorum thereof) of pending actions.
Tribes don’t necessarily need to act in concert either. Clearly some decisions are going to be made by a central authority – the chief or some sort of council. I imagine the scope of these decisions varies from tribe to tribe.
Finally, future shareholders have no interest in how the property is divided. However, when land is ‘owned’ by the community, there is some expectation that future generations have an interest in the land.
I fail to see the relevance of this point. Anyway, to the extent that future shareholders are heirs of current shareholders they have the same interests as those born into the tribe in the future. It is only potential future buyers who lack such an interest.
February 1, 2010, 1:23 pmA. Zarkov says:
Nearly all of them. Keeley says 90%. The wars in civilized Europe were episodic in contrast the nearly continuous warfare between and among the North American Indians. While the individual wars in Europe were costly, they were fortunately very rare. Life was far more dangerous for the Indians because they were fighting nearly all the time. BTW the Indians also stole land from one another.
February 1, 2010, 1:24 pmArkady says:
A tribe is not a concrete group and its members cannot act in concert because?
And I have no idea what this means
February 1, 2010, 1:30 pmin this context:DE says:
Of course it’s OK for the corporation to take the land. Just use some simple contrafactual logic.
If it were not OK when it happened, then it would still be just as not OK 500 years in the future. As we can tell from American history, the European invasion of America is accepted as OK 500 years after it happened. Therefore, the European invasion must have been OK when it happened. Therefore the corporation’s actions in Avatar must be OK, too.
QED
Obviously, this is all from the cultural perspective of today’s “Western” civilization, but as that’s the cultural perspective of the corporation in the movie, too, we can eliminate that variable from consideration.
February 1, 2010, 1:31 pmArkady says:
Well, I suppose we’ll just have to say that quality trumps quantity, OK? I mean, do you have any figures re body counts? I’ll go out on a limb and say that all the intra-Indian wars combined did not kill as many people as the fewer wars of the civilized Europeans.
February 1, 2010, 1:37 pmA. Zarkov says:
You are out on the limb. Keeley does give some numbers: the Indian wars with one another were far more costly. I can find my copy and look it up if you are really curious.
February 1, 2010, 1:42 pmyankee says:
Is this supposed to be a serious argument or some kind of parody of conservative moral relativism? I can’t tell.
If it’s serious, you can count me as one who doesn’t accept the European invasion of the Americas as OK. Some number of Europeans could have settled while respecting the inhabitants’ rights, but that is not what happened. The first Europeans to arrive in the Americas robbed and enslaved the people they met. When the Haitians proved to be poor slaves, the Spanish killed them and imported new slaves. The story of European takeover is a story of hundreds of years of murder and genocide.
There is nothing we can do to right the wrongs of hundreds of years ago, but we are not required to celebrate them.
February 1, 2010, 1:52 pmbyomtov says:
While the individual wars in Europe were costly, they were fortunately very rare.
That’s why they are known by names like the “Once in Blue Moon War,” rather than, say, The Thirty Years’ War, or the Hundred Years’ War.
Life was far more dangerous for the Indians because they were fighting nearly all the time.
When did they hunt or grow food? And speaking of danger, in WWI alone combat deaths for the major European powers were 2-4% of their population. That doesn’t include the wounded. But the Indians were savages.
February 1, 2010, 1:55 pmKenvee says:
The Na’vi weren’t portrayed as peaceful. There was a long discussion at the beginning of the movie about how quickly their various weapons would kill. The main bad guy bore a scar from a Na’vi weapon and explained how he got it. The Na’vi were perfectly willing to kill the main character for coming into their territory, except Ehwe intervened.
I also don’t see how you can claim the Na’vi as lacking in government. They were organized into various clans or tribes, which all united eventually against a common threat but definitely weren’t the same group as resided in Home Tree. Within the clan, they had a clearly defined structure of a secular leader and a religious leader who shared power. It was also an inheritance-based structure, as the daughter of the two co-leaders would become the next religious leader and her mate would be the next secular leader.
February 1, 2010, 1:55 pmConnie says:
I thought the scar was from one of the animals, but hey, I watched the movie for enjoyment, not as a treatise on property rights. For those above who say that an agreement to land rights could have been reached, there is a statement near the end, right before the battle, to the effect that the humans have nothing the Navi want. Ergo, no bargain is possible–except the engagement made, that of life for the desired land.
February 1, 2010, 2:00 pmyankee says:
Hrm, let’s see. We’ve got the crusades, which occupied nearly three centuries, then the Hundred Years War that engulfed most of the continent, then a series of religious wars, including the Thirty Years’ War, then the Great Turkish War which occupied the eastern and central parts of the continent. Then there was a period of (relative) peace in the early and mid 18th century, broken by the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Revolutions of 1848. The whole history was punctuated by various lesser wars such as the English Civil War, the French and Indian War* the wars of Italian unification. After that come the world wars. There are lots of others too.
* This one took place in the Americas but I count it because it was a war between European powers.
February 1, 2010, 2:39 pmMatthew Carberry says:
Claiming that Native Americans were less “savage” than Europeans due to the latter’s historical frequency and longevity of major conflicts and higher body counts (vice constant low level raids) ignores the long-standing superiority in Old World technology and agriculture, which led to higher population density and more efficient weapons technology (metal from copper to steel and then firearms). When faced with conflict over resources even hunters and gatherers among themselves will kill as quickly and thoroughly as their technology allows.
If the various waves of stone-age tech Asian “invaders” of the New World had been able to develop similar technology to even that of the ancient Euro/Med/M.E. region then their history would have resembled ours even more closely. As was demonstrated when tribes with comparative advantages in population and tech grew or moved into areas where they had conflict with others over the “abundance” of the continent. Also as demonstrated by the actions of the various tribes who quickly recognized and adopted superior Western tech (horses, steel, firearms) and sought alliances with the European newcomers against their local enemies.
People are people, that the Native Americans developed societal and warfare practices congruent to their cultural and technological limitations and resource circumstances doesn’t make them “noble”, just intelligent human beings.
February 1, 2010, 2:40 pmAlan K. Henderson says:
I haven’t seen the film, but I think I know enough to say this: it is a film about a specific sort of property rights infringement: wars of theft. Invading other countries just to take their stuff is something that both liberals and conservatives frown upon.
(There’s less unanimity over the use of the military to steal from domestic sources, as Fidel Castro’s popularity in certain American circles illustrates.)
The controversy lies in that James Cameron uses the film to portray Iraq War II as such a war.
February 1, 2010, 2:41 pmegd says:
Irrelevant. Humanity is about self-preservation. The only rational argument for environmentalism (as exemplified in the mainstream AGW movement) is preservation of the species.
There is no reason to apply human laws or rights to non-human beings on an isolated world who can be eliminated without consequence to humanity.
Did those individuals have the authority to make that decision on behalf of the rest of the world? I don’t think that was ever explored in depth.
February 1, 2010, 2:44 pmArkady says:
Yeah, I’d like to see those numbers. I am curious if they would exceed the 50 million killed in WW II. Plus the 30 million in WW I. And that’s in one century. It is estimated that the Indian population of North American never exceeded 18 million:
February 1, 2010, 2:49 pmMichael Ejercito says:
It depends if they shared ownership of the tree with the rest of the world.
February 1, 2010, 3:09 pmDotar Sojat says:
Greatest special effects ever; barkingly stupid story. That’s about it.
February 1, 2010, 3:44 pmJaimeInTexas (Jam) says:
The movie reminded me of the transcontinental railroad and the war against the Plain Indians, and of the Treaties signed and violated by the Federal Government.
The story was not that bad. It could have been made much better and more complex, if split into a series a la LOTR.
It was entertaining and I loved the 3D. There were a few instance that it was out of focus but it could have been related to me having to wear glasses (near sighted).
If only the remake of “Clash of the Titans” be made in 3D also.
February 1, 2010, 4:12 pmOren says:
This depends on whether you believe the rights are conferred by contract or naturally. If the latter, it’s hard to imagine how natural law would distinguish between humans and a distinct but essentially-human species.
February 1, 2010, 4:20 pmMichael Ejercito says:
For me, the plot reminded me of the Spanish conquistadors.
If I had been the casting director, I would have had an actor of Incan descent portray the Space Marine colonel, and inserted a reference of the colonel being of Incan descent, in order to add a dimension of irony.
February 1, 2010, 4:22 pmArkady says:
I was trying to head off the claim that they were more savage.
February 1, 2010, 5:16 pmShelbyC says:
Er, do you think absolute numbers are the right way to adress the question?
February 1, 2010, 5:22 pmArkady says:
I was responding to Zarkov’s claim that intra-indian wars were more costly to them than our wars were to us. Supposing you disagreed with the claim, how would you respond?
February 1, 2010, 6:07 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Arkady,
It is estimated that the Indian population of North America[n] never exceeded 18 million
Is that “North America” as in everything from Mexico on up? Or just what later became the US? (I ask because the book cited is titled Native Americans in the United States, and because the Aztec/Mexica civilization was IIRC huge.)
February 1, 2010, 7:07 pmorca says:
I doubt the Native American casualty figures come anywhere near 20th century war casualties.
Every year, about 16,000 Americans are murdered by their own “tribe” and millions more are robbed, beaten and raped by them.
Is this what Keeley would call “constant war?”
February 1, 2010, 7:18 pmA. Zarkov says:
The issue is not total body counts but the rate at which people die from warfare. Keeley provides tables in the book’s Appendix. Table 6.2 is particularly revealing. Google books won’t get to Table 6.2, but it does give Fig. 6.2 which encodes the information graphically see here. Note that the percentage of deaths due to warfare in non-state and primitive societies is gigantic compared to Europe. For example male deaths from warfare in Jivaro is 59%! Compare and contrast to U.S. and Europe in the 20th Century where the corresponding figure is less than 1%.
Table 2.1 here. Shows frequency of warfare for bands, tribes and chiefdoms, and states. Note that 80% of tribes experience continuous warfare. Continuous warfare means just that, the tribes are always at war with something. That’s why such a large fraction of the male population die from warfare.
On page 88 Keeley writes,
It’s very dangerous to live in most primitive societies, and this includes the North American Indians, which Keeley also discuses in detail.
February 1, 2010, 7:29 pmShelbyC says:
Well, I can’t say I’d disagree with the claim unless I had reason to believe that per-capita casualties were higher. After all, 1 million war casualties would be more costly to a population of 2 million than to a population of 100 million. And I have no idea whose per-capita casualties were higher.
February 1, 2010, 7:48 pmArkady says:
Very well, I accede to your argument re relative costs. However, what I was, and am, concerned about, as I mentioned earlier in response to someone else, is what I took to be implicit in your argument, that Native Americans were more savage than their European conquerers and thus, in some sense, deserving of their dispossession. If that’s a misapprehension, then I apologize for that.
February 1, 2010, 8:16 pmA. Zarkov says:
The Indians were more savage than their European conquerors. That fact is confirmed by the evidence presented Keeley’s book. Moreover their aggressive behavior was typical of non-state societies through out the world. Civilization civilizes. This is not to say the Europeans were particularly peace loving. But compared to the Indians– no contest. The details of what tribes, bands and chiefdoms did to one another are absolutely ghastly. As far as deserving their dispossession, I never wrote anything like that. I simply said that Avatar promulgates the myth of the peaceful Indian, and it does. Dispossession is a fact of history. Their have been invasions and dispossession for thousands of years.
The good news is people are becoming less aggressive. I suspect aggressive primitives had a higher rate of reproduction in their societies. Civilization selects for different traits. Look at Genghis Khan. He was certainly aggressive and it paid off for him genetically. Something like 8% of the men in Asia trace their origin to The Khan. He got around all right.
February 1, 2010, 8:47 pmMatthew Carberry says:
While the peaceful “noble savage” idea is romantic crap, I’m not sure that I can go along that native tribes in the new world were any more brutal than their old world counterparts, nor even the European settlers.
Slavery, torture and atrocity, organized and unorganized, as part of war aren’t/weren’t unknown anywhere and I can’t think of anything I’ve heard of being done by Indians that wasn’t recorded as also done (given technological differences) by their more “civilized” Euro contemporaries to their fellow civilized brothers.
Maybe less eating of (parts of) the enemy, but I wouldn’t call that “common” to all Indian tribes.
February 1, 2010, 8:58 pmJohn Moore says:
In general, this is true. In specific, there were some relatively peaceful tribes – which is to say, they were in places nobody wanted.
One reason the Spanish so easily conquered the Aztecs was the alliances formed between the Spanish and the various tribes subjugated to the Aztecs. Those tribes, whose members were used for ritual suicide, cast their lot with the Europeans, and chose the European religion (which didn’t involve human sacrifice).
Sometime back a paper was published hypothesizing that the Plains Buffalo were able to survive (unlike a lot of other large mammals farther north) because the constant warfare among the Plains Indian tribes created interconnected “no-man zones” where hunters feared to travel, and the buffalo were relatively safe.
Back to the subject… the tree was only “unique” in the sense that every mountain peak, river, spring, etc here in Arizona is sacred to one tribe or another. In the scene where they rounded up the other clans, each clan seemed to have its own tree.
One thing I liked about the movie was the interconnected planet. It took what would have been a boring Gaia sort of religious thing and turned it into science fiction.
Oh… speaking of property rights… how many noticed that the whole flying critter thing was lifted, rather accurately, from Anne McCaferty’s dragon novels? Yeah, I know, it was a fair use – they took the idea, not the actual content.
February 1, 2010, 9:11 pmShelbyC says:
What we had was everybody, European and Indian alike, running around killing each other and taking each other’s property. The Eurpoeans ended up on top because they were better at it.
February 1, 2010, 9:17 pmA. Zarkov says:
According to Keeley, the Indians were better warriors than the Europeans. They had to be because they were at it all the time. Practice makes perfect. The smooth bore muskets the colonists had were so inaccurate, they had no real advantage over the Indian’s arrows. What really did the Indians in was the European diseases. War does not deplete populations unless the women also get killed, and the diseases killed off the women as well as the men.
Later of course the Indians got better weapons. Some historians argue that in the Battle of Little Big Horn, the Indians were armed with repeating Spencer, Winchester and Henry rifles, while Custer and his men had to make do with the single shot Springfield Model 1873 carbines, which overheated and jammed. However archaeological excavations seem to contradict this theory. The History Channel and Wikipedia (which I generally don’t trust) don’t agree on this issue.
The Indians did take property from other tribes. In some cases Indians held slaves including black slaves. Some tribes practiced cannibalism. It’s going to take many years to correct the myth of the peaceful, noble savage. Movies like Avatar don’t help.
February 1, 2010, 10:24 pmTatil says:
Oh, so, it is OK to massacre them, as they were savages already. You are writing as if the arriving Europeans were quite peaceful among themselves. Why is it that when somebody points out the savagery of western cultures against the less developed ones, one feels the need to justify it as the natives were not that good to begin with. Are you advocating that as no culture is perfectly good and just, it is OK to do evil things as long as you have the power to do so? Why cannot we just admit that what was done was evil, regrettable, inexcusable, unacceptable, unwhatever etc.?
February 1, 2010, 10:38 pmTatil says:
Just like it took many centuries to correct the myth of godless subhuman savages in the first place?
February 1, 2010, 10:39 pmRational says:
The thing is that the Navi are based so obviously on tribes particularly in America, that you have to think this was the last thing on their mind. One of the fundemental problems we had with the native americans was they didn’t even comprehend the idea of owning property. it was an alien concept. More than likely then Cameron figured that equally the navi didn’t even understand what was being asked of them.
Anyway, let’s face it, avatar just isn’t a very well thought out movie. If you want a sophiticated take on similar themes, i suggest you read Orson Scott Card’s work. indeed, i think it was in Alvin Journeyman, that the auther imagines John Quincey Adams denouncing calabresian judicial activism.
Mmm, i shoudl blog about that. one big theme on the blog i am building up is piercing other people’s bulls—. and calabresi is piling it on pretty thick.
February 1, 2010, 10:52 pmElmer_Stoup says:
Great post. At first, I totally dismissed the movie as yet another “Dances with Wolves Goes to Outer Space,” but I had not focused on the property rights issue. [I haven't seen the movie.]
February 1, 2010, 10:57 pmorca says:
I can’t bring myself to read his stuff since he turned Full Metal Wingnut.
February 1, 2010, 11:09 pmyankee says:
The idea that the American Indians had no concept of property has its genesis as a 17th and 18th century rationalization for dispossession. After all, if they don’t claim to own the land, you can’t be stealing it from them, right?
In reality, the thousands of peoples scattered across the Americans (or even just the continental U.S.) had varying systems of property rights. I’m not aware of any that didn’t recognize personal property. Rights in real property varied by region and lifestyle, but the concept of rights in land was hardly an alien concept. I’m sure some found the fee simple absolute to be alien, but “they didn’t comprehend the idea of owning property” is simply not accurate.
February 1, 2010, 11:24 pmA. Zarkov says:
You need to read through my comments. I never said it was ok to do anything. The North American Indians like most pre-state people were extremely aggressive and outdid the Europeans in terms of violence. That’s all. Movies that glorify the “noble savage” are misleading and designed to exploit the emotions of the audience. They are another form of anti-white propaganda.
February 1, 2010, 11:25 pmAlanDownunder says:
Yes, but Avatar is still anti-American because it cherry picks American examples of disregard for other peoples’ property rights, and because it assumes that respect for property rights is a universal value rather than an American value.
February 1, 2010, 11:27 pmRicardo says:
Yet even when the Cherokee did just about everything to adopt the trappings of civilization — from having a legal system with a constitution and legislature to living in houses and practicing sedentary agriculture — they were still booted off their land to make way for gold miners. I hope everyone can agree that this was a profound injustice and had nothing to do with Native Americans’ inability to grasp the concept of private property. That was theft pure and simple and of a kind that various Communist and totalitarian regimes have practiced.
February 1, 2010, 11:28 pmShelbyC says:
It is, of course, a complete rip-of of Dances with Smurfs, written by a Glen-Beck-esque Eric Cartman.
February 1, 2010, 11:30 pmRicardo says:
More on Native American property rights: in Johnson v. MacIntosh, the Supreme Court held that any land title (even one held by a white person) that originated in any tribal claim on land was invalid. Some Native Americans did try to adopt some system of property rights and land ownership following the arrival of Europeans.
Yet according to the law, this was irrelevant. Instead of following a Lockean understanding of property rights where land that was owned by whomever was mixing his labor with it (which was effectively adopted in law with the passage of the Homestead Act), the early U.S. government instead adopted a feudal model of property rights where all land was originally owned by the state and parceled out to its citizens. Native Americans were simply tenants who lived on the land at the government’s pleasure. Even if they were making productive use of their land, they had no right to sell it and could be removed by the government at will.
February 2, 2010, 1:36 amA. Zarkov says:
Romanticizing the American Indians is old fare. We saw this kind of thing in Dances with Wolves, a 1991 Kevin Costner movie. Richard Grenier wrote a review for Commentary. Here’s the abstract. Too bad the full article is behind a pay wall. Grenier actually bothered to do some research on Indians. If someone can find a link to the full article please share.
February 2, 2010, 6:30 amRobertF says:
I think you all might be missing the other message of this movie. The movie is NOT about “private property” rights, and even if you think it is, the bigger problem is the other message that is sent based on WHO the villains are, not just what they do. The villains are all proxies.
Bad corporation wanting to steal land = ALL corporations are bad = Capitalism is bad.
Bad men with guns functioning as an army = U.S. soldiers are baby killers..
If some communist makes a movie that portrays Milton Friedman as a Nazi advocating genocide and Noam Chomsky as the hero who prevents it, are we’re going to say, “Oh, great movie! It’s against genocide” ???
February 2, 2010, 6:51 amthirdeblue says:
RobertF,
I can’t honestly understand your hostility to this film. If the film had completely reversed the situations and had aliens blowing us up to steal our stuff for the exact same reasons, would you still have a problem with it?
Avatar has many analogs in Earth history, but has been mentioned in this thread, the closest one would be the East India Trading Co. and British control of India although there certainly is some analog’s to the plight of the Plain Indians in North America.
As for the idea that Cameron somehow was implying that U.S. soldiers are baby killers, I don’t know what to say. There must be an outrage and an insult around every corner for you, I suppose. That the movie has ruffled so many feathers means it must be doing something right…otherwise it would’ve just been ignored.
February 2, 2010, 8:19 amKen Arromdee says:
By this reasoning if he had simply said that Jews eat babies, he would have really been doing something right. Also, Osama bin Laden was obviously doing something right by attacking the World Trade Center.
February 2, 2010, 10:14 amA. Criminal says:
Without Kelo? ‘Stealing’ was a fine and honorable art in many tribes, and if someone stole your stuff, then he was k3Wl and you were a chump and deserved it.
Pretty much and sort of. Humans everywhere are bloodthirsty, etc., at least when it suits them to be. And if a culture glorified warriors, it’s because they had a lot of wars.
As for Amerindians, I’ll mention Thwaites “Early Western Travels” which is on google books and in good/big libraries: writings from 1748-1846, in 30-something volumes. Quite fascinating.
Венгры черти
February 2, 2010, 1:27 pmRational says:
Guys, you are mistaking my description of the issues for advocacy of genocide.
Of course it was stealing. You don’t have to understand ownership for it to be wrong to steal. as long as you understand its theirs its wrong.
And yeah, the cherokee example is both extremely f–ed up, and shows the hypocrisy of the people who took their land from them. I mean the cherokee were so “civilized” by southern standards, they even held slaves. Yike.
February 2, 2010, 2:00 pmMichael Ejercito says:
They understood the concept of territory. They may not have understood the concept of leasing or transferring territory.
February 2, 2010, 3:49 pmJB says:
The last 40 minutes of the movie were essentially the whole plot of Independence Day. Aliens attack, the natives implausibly jury-rig their technology to defeat the aliens.
February 2, 2010, 4:45 pmT Sawyer says:
Biznewz Dateline 2/10/2154
February 2, 2010, 7:00 pmRDA Mining Company spaceships returned to Earth today with first hand reports of the massacre perpetrated by the savage Na’vi creatures who inhabit Pandora, where the company holds a World Congress mining grant. Corporation spokesman Parker Selfridge said miners were overwhelmed by a hoard of Na’vi terrorists while the company was developing a new lode of Unobtainium,, a world security resource. Order was nearly restored by the company’s security team, when the terrorists somehow directed wild animals into the fray.
The survivors were unable to recover the bodies of Dr. Grace Augustine or Colonel Miles Quaritch. World CEO, G. W. Bush VI, announced that the corporate Medal of Honor would be awarded posthumously to Colonel Quarithc and Dr. Augustine for valor in battle.
Bush had been criticized for not allowing the use of neutron weaponry in interspace conflicts. “That must change.” said Selfridge.
Stock prices on RDA ticked up 3 points on the announcement by Bush that security forces would return immediately to Pandora and establish peace and order within the year.
T Sawyer says:
February 2, 2010, 7:02 pmConnie says:
Well, in five years (the time it takes to get there). Also, note it took five years for news of the massacre to get to earth.
February 3, 2010, 10:49 amTokyoTom says:
Well said. Land thefts by governing elites from essentially disenfranchised indigenous peoples are still occurring today on a fairly massive scale throughout Latin America, Africa and SE Asia – fuelled by market demands for oil&gas, timber, soybeans, beef, ore, hydroelectricity, biofuels, carbon offsets, and biodiversity preserves and parks.
As free-market environmentalists have documented, you are also right that Indians had fairly sophisticated property rights systems applicable to a wide range of resources. The deliberate breaking of these systems by settlers and governments – and the privatization or socialization of what were once commonly managed resources – is at the root problems that we now see in crashing fisheries and related politicized battles where resource users have no property rights and cannot manage the resource or accommodate differing preferences.
There has been an Avatar post up the Ludwig von Mises Institute also; my comments on it and on present-day parallel are here: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=avatar
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