39 pages • 1 hour read
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
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The Natural World as Inspiration for Economic Reform
The titular serviceberry serves as an all-encompassing metaphor for the importance of gift economies, embodying Kimmerer’s thematic focus on the natural world as inspiration for economic reform. The book itself opens with a florid description of the process of harvesting the fruit of the serviceberry, a process that Kimmerer uses to introduce her readers to more complex models of economic systems and human interactions. The plant itself is a product of a natural exchange of resources, while the harvesting of the fruit provides a framework for a sustainable economic model that, Kimmerer believes, will allow human society to thrive. Kimmerer predicates her book on the analogy of the serviceberry, encouraging readers to draw inspiration from its example just as she has, and uses it as a launching point for her broader advocacy for environmental causes and her critiques of capitalist systems. Just as her friends Paulie and Ed opened up their farm to the public, hoping that people would try the berries one time and return to the farm in the future, Kimmerer hopes that the serviceberry will motivate readers to implement the lesson of the text in their lives and communities, catalyzing grassroots reform. Nature inspires Kimmerer, but she hopes that it will inspire other people to take up her causes.
Though the serviceberry gives the book its title, Kimmerer presents many other aspects of the natural world as sources of inspiration. In her other works, such as Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer took inspiration from the natural world to discuss how society thinks about science and scientific methodologies. The Serviceberry focuses on the eponymous plant but also refers to similar natural wonders as Kimmerer did in her previous work. The discussion of the natural spring, for example, shows how Kimmerer uses basic human needs to create sympathy for her positions. The need to drink water is one of the most fundamental aspects of humanity. Whatever the particular identity of her readers, she can be sure that they will need to drink. As such, the spring becomes an inspiration for Kimmerer’s political message. The sharing of the clean, drinkable spring water becomes evidence of a gift economy in action. People are not just sharing with one another but with the natural world itself. In contrast, threats to the clean, drinkable water of the spring are threats against the natural world. The threat of poisoned or contaminated water is as close to a universal cause as can exist, allowing Kimmerer to show the benefits and perils of various economic models through the way in which they protect or threaten fundamental human needs. The spring is a font of inspiration for Kimmerer because she can use it to convey the universality of her message. Many people many not have tried the berries, but Kimmerer can be sure that her message about the importance of clean, drinkable water will resonate. This is the power of natural imagery and why Kimmerer is so adept at wielding the inspirational potential of the natural world to reach her readers.
Kimmerer warns about the way in which modern economic models threaten or corrupt the natural world, but she does not believe that the natural world should be left alone. She is so inspired by nature because she is so invested in the traditional Indigenous understandings of the coexistence of humanity and nature. Whether sharing Indigenous folktales that are inspired by nature or showing how traditional Indigenous teachings help to preserve the natural world, Kimmerer is a believer in the significance of Indigenous relationships between people and their environment. Humans are not apart from the natural world, she suggests, but equal players in a natural world. This inspires Kimmerer but also invests her with a level of respect for the world around her and the lessons taught by her ancestors. She cares and protects the environment precisely because it inspires her so much.
The Tension Between Cutthroat Capitalism and Communal Reciprocity
The Serviceberry’s advocacy for gift economies as a viable economic model includes implicit condemnation of the current models of extractive capitalism prevalent throughout the Western world. Though the book centers the benefits of Kimmerer’s favored models, her scathing view of the current capitalist systems undergirds her desire for reform. Through implication, subtext, or explicit condemnation, Kimmerer frames these systems as the antithesis of her arguments for gift economies. While gift economies build communities, she believes that capitalist economies alienate people from one another. Gift economies focus on the mutual benefit of the community as a whole, while capitalist economies exist to create profit for a few individuals at the expense of the many. Gift economies are built on generosity, while Kimmerer views capitalist economies as fundamentally selfish. Kimmerer presents these arguments as a dichotomy, deliberately juxtaposing them to further her advocacy for the gift economy as the better, more sustainable and equitable system. She contrasts rich, sensory descriptions of the natural world with words that evoke ruthlessness, violence, and moral failing—such as “extractive,” “cutthroat,” “corrupt,” “corrosive,” and “alienating”—to describe capitalism. This rhetorical contrast between gift economies and capitalist economies makes Kimmerer’s argument clear and positions her work in an activist space.
Kimmerer predicates her critical framing of capitalism on the ways in which capitalist economies interact with the natural world. In describing the serviceberry as a model for gift economies, Kimmerer notes that the capitalist model of economics pollutes the water, extrapolating this metaphor to underscore the poisoning effect of capitalism on the world. As well as the brutal nature of environmental destruction, Kimmerer implies a broader spiritual corrosiveness rooted in capitalism. The process of commodification, she suggests, robs the world of the benefit of community. Since capitalism commodifies everything, human networks and communities are diminished by turning everything into a profit-seeking venture. In contrast, gift economies turn a point of exchange into the beginning rather than the end of a relationship. Decimated forests and poisoned springs are clear ways in which Kimmerer frames capitalism as inherently destructive, but she also alludes to the dangers of social alienation caused by the corrupting effect of capitalism and its tendency to treat everything as a commodity. Kimmerer’s critique of commodification forms a central tenet of her argument for the creation of gift economies.
Each of Kimmerer’s critiques of capitalism leads back to her advocacy for gift economies, Indigenous knowledge, and an optimistic belief in a better world. Kimmerer heavily criticizes the idea that even though so few people profit from capitalist economies, the task of dismantling the entire capitalist order feels Herculean. As stridently as she criticizes existing economies, Kimmerer also accepts that she is unlikely to bring about complete social change in her lifetime and offers a realistic approach to systemic reform. Rather than inciting a revolution, Kimmerer urges the readers of the book to erect small-scale gift economies that can run in parallel to the capitalist systems. She cites the examples of her daughter, her neighbors, Indigenous traditions, and online social networks as ways in which gift economies can exist within a capitalist framework. Throughout the book, Kimmerer works to pair the optimism she feels for the human spirit and the innate generosity of people with pragmatic acceptance of the entrenched nature of capitalism in contemporary society that makes her goals difficult to achieve. She emphasizes that the very elements of capitalism that she critiques make it an even more challenging foe. Kimmerer’s work often focuses on her relationship with the natural world, but it is her criticisms of capitalism and her practical solutions for coexistence that reveal her broader capacity to envision an alternative future for society.
Optimism as a Tool for Building a Better World
Kimmerer’s description of the way in which gift economies work references her belief that, deep down, human beings are naturally generous—a view that frames The Serviceberry as an essentially optimistic book. Kimmerer positions such optimism as an act of resistance against corrupt and corrosive systems of power. Human generosity, Kimmerer believes, creates a virtuous cycle—a feedback loop of mutual benefit that extends far beyond the exchange of money and commodities in a capitalist system. By insisting that human beings possess an innate capacity for benevolence and generosity, Kimmerer frames “cutthroat capitalism as fundamentally at odds with the human desire for community and a reciprocal relationship with the natural world. Kimmerer’s lens positions her criticism of capitalist systems as a radical assertion that those who participate in them are capable of better—a view rooted in optimism. The capitalist economic models that she condemns are—in Kimmerer’s view—merely a mask for a better, more fundamental version of humanity held back by the status quo.
Kimmerer’s optimism advocates for the deconstruction of capitalism as an unmovable monolith. Her knowledge and experience of Indigenous cultures has taught her that alternatives to the capitalist economic system existed for many centuries before the development of capitalism. She notes that while she and her readers likely grew up in capitalist societies, these systems have not always existed, nor will they always exist in the same way. Capitalism was created by people, Kimmerer asserts, and people can just as easily dismantle it and construct new, equitable, and sustainable systems in their place. What is made can be unmade, so the seemingly unassailable importance and strength of capitalist economies are not indomitable forces in people’s lives—shifting this culturally entrenched perspective, Kimmerer suggests, requires radical optimism. The Serviceberry deconstructs the permanence of capitalism to clear the way for an alternative in the future.
Kimmerer’s optimism is predicated on her belief in the human capacity for change, yet she lives in a society in which that change can be hard to imagine, making The Serviceberry a call to arms—a manifesto for an alternative economic model. The examples of how to challenge economic orthodoxy and build mutual aid networks of gift economies provide a template for economic change. Kimmerer’s note that gift economies organically emerge in the aftermath of crises, coupled with her fear of destructive climate change, frames her argument for gift economies as a potential solution to mitigate the coming climate crisis—which she suggests is caused by the capitalist economy. The Serviceberry provides a guidebook for a new future, one that can be built by generous people fueled by radical optimism. Underscoring the gravity of the current climate crisis makes Kimmerer’s call to action all the more urgent.
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