The defenders of commercial society have always had one answer for those sympathetic to the American Indians, and for anyone else who thought to complain of the corrupting effects of an advanced economy: no one forced the Indians to buy necklaces made of Venetian glass, ice chisels, guns, kettles, beads, hoes or mirrors. No one stopped them from living in tepees and made them aspire to owning wooden houses with porches and wine cellars.
