Loss of political autonomy means the loss of control over cultural as well as environmental resources. Many tourist organizations exploit native cultures as exotic attractions while ignoring the actual quality of life that the people in that culture are experiencing, including discrimination against them, loss of land, unemployment, underemployment, and lack of educational and economic opportunities. Often Native Americans and other indigenous peoples find that outsiders appropriate their cultural resources for economic gain. Such cultural knowledge, especially including information about plants, medicine, and arts, has commercial value. According to the concept of indigenous intellectual property rights, each group has the right to determine how this knowledge and its products should be used and the appropriate level of compensation for such use. Nonnatives are using their stories, designs, and rituals; this kind of exploitation in the fine arts is exemplified by German-born artist Sibylle Szaggars, who uses post-abstract expressionism to interpret Hopi katsinam, earning as much as $23,000 for each of her canvases.

State and local governments resent federal protection of such Indian rights as the ability to tax, to control subsistence resources, and to generate income through casino gambling. Indian gaming has ignited considerable conflict between tribal and state governments, primarily because state governments are afraid of losing revenue from their lotteries to Indian-owned casinos. The struggle began in the 1980s, when the federal government began to cut back severely on funding to tribes. Tribes, especially those without natural resources or sizable tax bases, such as the Cabezon Band of Mission Indians of California, began to sell tobacco at cheaper prices and set up bingo enterprises. In response to court action against the Cabezon from neighboring Anglo communities, the federal government eventually enacted the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Designed to mediate between the economic interests of tribes and states, this act allocates regulatory jurisdiction over different classes of gaming among tribal, federal, and state governments. Although Indian gaming is not a permanent or complete solution for tribal economic independence, it does continue to stimulate economic growth in many tribal communities, where gaming revenues are being used to create economic ventures that will become self-sustaining or where gaming revenues are being used to improve housing, education, and medical care. Indian gaming has made possible the continuation of federal programs that the government has cut as well as the creation of tribal scholarships, nursing homes, new housing, and cultural centers.