Should Australian Aborigines Succumb to Capitalism?
For more than 50,000 years Aborigines1 successfully inhabited the rugged land of Australia without much change and with little contact from the outside. In a mere fraction of that time, little more than 200 years, foreign invaders/settlers forever changed the Aborigine reality, introducing diseases, invasive species, western institutions, and a capitalist culture. Motivated by the vast cultural gaps that exist between Aboriginal Australians and modern capitalist values, this paper asks the question, "Should Australian Aborigines succumb to capitalism?" The underlying question is, however, "What path should Aborigines take to preserve their culture, mitigate social ills, and enjoy economic and social contentment?" Ultimately that question is best answered by the indigenous people themselves, but evidence suggests that a largely self-contained system, with carefully selected points of contact with non-indigenous institutions, would promote Aboriginal interests.