Dances with Wolves: Commerce Averts Conflict
A film directed by Frederic Bastiat (in spirit).
In the 1990 Western set in the latter half of the Civil War, Lieutenant John Dunbar elects to be posted at a remote army outpost on the frontier. Dunbar discovers the base abandoned, the soldiers who preceded him having been killed by Native Americans. Undeterred, Dunbar takes stock of the outpost, builds a pen for his trusty steed Cisco, maintains a daily journal (can I compare my Substack blogging to this?), and slowly befriends a wild wolf whom he names “Two Socks.” Before too long, Dunbar is discovered by the nearby tribe of Sioux, many of whom regard John as necessarily hostile given his nationality, race, and military affiliation. Not an unreasonable assumption! However, it turns out not to be true.
Kicking Bird, a holy man with the Sioux tribe, regards Dunbar as noble for holding the outpost all on his lonesome and for standing up to their fiercest warriors, namely Wind In His Hair, when they try—on no less than three occasions—to steal Cisco. Kicking Bird and Wind In His Hair tentatively visit Dunbar and are immediately offered coffee, sugar, and other goods the likes of which they had never seen. Wind In His Hair is not yet deterred in his skepticism toward John Dunbar but continues visiting him with Kicking Bird, who offers him a Buffalo pelt for the winter. We learn in this “good trade”1 that “Tatanka” is Lakota for “Buffalo”; the Sioux and John don’t just exchange goods and services, but culture, language, and understanding.
After a horde of buffalo/tatanka stampede near Dunbar’s outpost, he saddles up on Cisco in the dead of night and rushes to the Sioux village to alert them of their whereabouts. The Sioux are so elated by this gift of information—a kind of immaterial trade—that they invite Dunbar, to whom the children lovingly refer as “Loo-ten-ten”, on the hunt. That is, in exchange for information, they offer John a share of the kill. Upon returning from the hunt and saving one of the Sioux children from a charging tatanka, Wind In His Hair finally accepts Dunbar as his equal and friend, offering him his Sioux regalia in exchange for John’s army jacket. Shortly thereafter, Wind In His Hair brokers peace between Dunbar and another Sioux who found John’s army hat that he lost in the plains. How does Wind In His Hair accomplish this? You guessed it: he demands that the Sioux offer Dunbar his hunting knife in exchange for his hat.
The pacifying effect of gift exchange, commerce, and trade is the motif of the movie. The threat of conflict and actual warfare arise when propery rights aren’t respected. Assuming John wouldn’t respect their claim to the land, the Sioux nearly decide to kill him. When the Sioux have stores of Buffalo the Pawnee desire and are unwilling to trade for, a massive conflict erupts between the two groups. Finally, when a detachment of the Union army returns to John’s outpost to find him dressed as a Sioux, viewing Native Americans as inferior to themselves, the soldiers arrest John for treason and, after he escapes, stop at nothing to kill him and eradicate the Sioux. To avert such a catastrophe, John Dunbar leaves the Sioux, but not before exchanging traditional Sioux pipes with Kicking Bird: one final “good trade.”
The choice the movie presents us is collectivism and conflict or pluralism and trade. In the immortal words of Frederic Bastiat, “When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will."
I know which option I’m choosing.
A recurring statement uttered by Dunbar, Kicking Bird, and other characters throughout.