Commenting on the federal grand jury indictment of KBIC Tribal Council President Fred Dakota, Fight for Justice attorney Alan Clarke noted that a number of tribal leaders have recently been convicted of corruption-related offenses. [Daily Mining Gazette, Friday, June 28, 1996] Without prejudging the outcome of the Dakota prosecution, Clarke's observation raises a disturbing question: Why is it that corruption (conjoined with political repression) appears to have flourished within a number of tribal governments?

"Corruption" and "government" are inextricably intertwined. Corruption is defined as the abuse of discretionary power, and government is defined by the discretionary power associated with (and only with) its monopoly command over the exercise of "legal violence" (as opposed to the "illegal violence" of the common criminal). That monopoly of legal violence permits government to compel individuals to do certain things (pay taxes, obey speed limits, ...) and to desist from doing other things (commit what the government defines as crimes, engage in any regulated activity without benefit of governmental permission, ...).

By its very nature the existence of this discretionary power invites its abuse. For a price paid to corrupt officials, government can protect one business from the competition of others or transfer income (via taxes and subsidies) from some citizens to others. Successful prosecutions, of, for example, Michigan House Fiscal Agency functionaries, Michigan Tech Ventures' officials, Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker and former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, represent only the the unintentionally and unavoidably exposed tip of the disparate submerged mass of endemic corruption which is a defining characteristic of government, hardly confined to Indian governments.

Further, endemic corruption inevitably is accompanied by overt or covert political repression. Whether that repression takes the subtle forms observed in "civilized" communities (the malicious discrediting of critics, blacklisting, imposition of other economic sanctions) or the more brutal forms characteristic of more honest communities (death squads, imprisonment on trumped-up charges), political repression is necessary if corruption is to be perpetuated.

The challenge of government design (constitutional formulation) is to limit opportunities for the corrupt and repressive abuse of power and to maximize the likelihood that such abuses, should they occur, are identified, terminated and punished before corruption and repression can become selfperpetuating.

In the U.S. the federal and state constitutions attempt to meet this challenge in two ways: First, they mandate a separation of powers, as a result of which the various branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial) constitute a system of reciprocal checks and balances. All power is not concentrated in one governmental entity, and each branch scrutinizes and disciplines the others.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the U.S. Constitution and those of the states restrain corruption by limiting the scope of governmental action. To prohibit governmental intervention in any domain is to prevent corruption in that domain. For example, because the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion, officials have little opportunity to corruptly foster one religious sect over others. Religious frauds and charlatans may appear, but these rely for their success on the voluntary gullibility of their followers, not on the coercive power of government.

Corruption and repression flourish when formal separations of power are largely absent, when nominal checks and balances are rendered ineffective through the concentration of power in one governmental entity, and when limitations on the scope of governmental action are nonexistent or are effectively evaded.

Haiti under Papa Doc Duvallier enjoyed a nominal separation of powers. In fact, however, Duvallier controlled not only the presidency but also the legislature and the judiciary. Officials who did not do his bidding were eliminated by his Tonton Macoute, which also intimidated the electorate into acquiescing in his stranglehold on power. And no facet of life was too trifling not to be exploited by Duvallier both for purposes of his enrichment and the enrichment of those who kept him in power and as a means of repression.

The situations of many of our sovereign Indian nations seem not dissimilar. Tribal constitutions may provide for a nominal separation of power, but checks and balances are weak and often informal. As a result tribal authority becomes concentrated, unaccountable and selfperpetuating. Further, there are few limitations on the spheres of life into which tribal governments may not intrude, creating many opportunities for the selfserving abuse of power and for the intimidation necessary for the retention of power.. The implications of the "discovery" of tribal gaming only worsened this situation. When Indian Country was a largely impoverished territory, with few opportunities for profitable graft, corruption was at most a low-level affair. Gambling has radically changed this situation, as tribal leaders have suddenly been presented, by the Gambino, Genovese and the Marcello organized crime families and others, with opportunities for substantial personal profit.

Fight for Justice and dissident groups on other reservations would do well to consider the underlying source of the problems they confront. If they fail to do so, one corrupt regime will simply be followed by another.

In one respect, the situation of Indian dissidents is weaker than that of Haitian dissidents. Duvallier's son, Baby Doc, discovered that there were limits to corruption. When corruption had rendered the lives of the great mass of Haitians intolerable they resorted to armed rebellion. Thanks to the U.S. government, recourse to arms is virtually foreclosed to tribal revolutionaries. The U.S. government may tolerate the use of "legal violence" by "duly constituted" tribal authorities, but it can be counted upon to react swiftly and forcefully if violence is employed for revolutionary ends.

We non-Indian Americans might also contemplate these issues. As government, and especially the federal government, intrudes ever further and more repressively into all facets of our lives, we run the grave risk of replicating the experiences of the Soviet Union. My Russian friends used to argue that the principle difference between the "socialist" USSR and the "capitalist" US was that, in the USSR, "everything is for sale." While the USSR no longer exists, the scope of the "corruption market" in the US becomes ever wider. If the malignant extension of government is left unchecked, it is we and our descendants who will be contemplating revolution.