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I think people who clap back like this assume the indigenous groups were able to negotiate with full, symmetrical information and legal leverage. The article reflects history in this regard, suggesting that they did not.

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I don't know if you can draw that conclusion from the article. The questions I would look into would be whether or not the agreements were negotiated pre-Tesla or post-Tesla. If they were negotiated pre-Tesla I could see both sides with a very different picture of lithium demand than has emerged in the post-Tesla market place. The other question I would look into was the legal leverage. Generally these contracts are negotiated at the governmental level (which is pretty much all the legal leverage you can get) and while there are cases where the government negotiations might be questioned (like alleged Copper rights in Africa going to China[1]) it isn't clear that there is a ethical lapse in the Lithium case.

Finally of course there is the "So what" aspect of it, I don't think anyone seriously argues that the US or other strong powers simply mow down the sovereignty of countries because they abuse their own citizens. If you want to advocate for a single world government that is another issue entirely.

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Chinas-...

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