This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Serviceberry" by Robin Wall-Kimmerer. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Are there any economic systems that prioritize generosity over greed? What if nature itself offers a blueprint for creating more sustainable and equitable communities?
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry presents a compelling vision. She explores how natural systems such as the serviceberry tree demonstrate gift-based exchanges that could transform our relationship with resources and each other.
Continue reading for an overview of the book The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.
Overview of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (2024) presents a life-affirming alternative to modern capitalism. According to Kimmerer, a Potawatomi environmental biologist, modern capitalism converts the Earth’s abundant gifts into commodities, which has created cascading crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. But in nature, she says, we find examples of gift economies, where goods and services circulate freely and sustainably through relationships based on gratitude and reciprocity. Kimmerer argues that gift economies, epitomized by the role the serviceberry tree plays in its native ecosystem, are the answer to the ecological and social challenges capitalism has created.
The Serviceberry expands on the wisdom that made Kimmerer’s best-selling essay collection, Braiding Sweetgrass (2015), an unexpected phenomenon during the Covid-19 pandemic. She also entranced readers with her first book, Gathering Moss (2003), about lessons learned from the simple lives of plants. This overview of the book explains how Kimmerer answers three essential questions: What are gift economies, why do they matter for ecological and social well-being, and how can we cultivate them in our world?
What Are Gift Economies?
In The Serviceberry, Kimmerer presents gift economies as an alternative to conventional market economies. To understand her vision, we’ll first explore how market economies operate, then examine the principles of gift economies, and finally see how natural systems like the serviceberry embody gift economy principles.
The Status Quo: Market Economies
Kimmerer explains that modern society operates primarily under a market, or money-based, economy. In market economies, resources (like land, energy, food, and water) are viewed as scarce commodities to be privately owned and exchanged for profit according to the laws of supply and demand. Under this model, compensation is immediate and quid pro quo (meaning “something for something”)—you measure the value of your transaction and exchange that amount of money to receive a good or service.
According to Kimmerer, market economies are driven by competition between self-interested individuals, with wealth and status determined by how much one accumulates. This leads to two significant problems: First, the wealthy tend toward overconsumption, which depletes the Earth’s resources. Second, individual prosperity is prioritized over collective well-being, which erodes the social fabric of communities and weakens the bonds between people.
A Better Model: Gift Economies
According to Kimmerer, nature presents a better alternative to market economies: gift economies. Gift economies are systems where goods and services circulate through a network of relationships rather than direct transactions. Compensation works differently, too: Gift economies operate on delayed and generalized reciprocity. When you share a resource, you do so with a gift-giving attitude. You don’t demand immediate repayment but trust that your generosity creates a resilient community that will support you when you need it. The “compensation” you receive in a gift economy is your belonging to a web of mutual care rather than a direct return.
In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and social status is determined by one’s generosity with others rather than by their accumulation of resources for themselves. Because those who have abundance share with those who have less, everyone’s needs are met.
Gift Economies in Nature
Kimmerer uses the serviceberry tree to illustrate how gift economies work in nature. Serviceberry trees produce abundant fruit that feeds birds, who then disperse the seeds. At the same time, the serviceberry’s flowers provide nectar to pollinators who enable the tree’s reproduction. These natural exchanges don’t operate on scarcity or immediate payback, but on mutually beneficial relationships that sustain the entire ecosystem, creating abundance for all participants.
Kimmerer also contends that we’re ethically obligated to model human economies after gift economies in nature. Using the serviceberry as an example, she argues that resources like food are gifts from living beings with agency and purpose, rather than mere commodities. Since they’re gifts, we should receive them with gratitude and respect—that is, we shouldn’t simply extract and consume as much as possible without considering the needs of other beings and future generations. This perspective, Kimmerer explains, fundamentally changes our relationship with the natural world—when we recognize resources as gifts rather than commodities, we naturally develop ethical constraints on how we use them.
Why Do Gift Economies Matter?
Kimmerer argues that gift economies aren’t just theoretical alternatives to human economic systems. Rather, humans naturally understand and want to participate in gift economies. She notes that many Indigenous languages reflect this worldview—for example, in Potawatomi, the same root word means both “berry” and “gift,” encoding an understanding that the natural world freely offers its bounty. This linguistic connection suggests that gift economies represent not a radical innovation but a return to ways of relating that are deeply embedded in human cultures and experience.
Since humans naturally gravitate toward gift economies, Kimmerer suggests there must be inherent wisdom in these systems. In this section, we’ll explore why Kimmerer contends we should adopt gift economies and the benefits they offer for both human communities and the Earth.
Reciprocity Creates Sustainable Human Communities
Kimmerer explains that all components of an economic system are interconnected and mutually dependent. She compares economies to the serviceberry ecosystem: The serviceberry relies on birds, insects, and microbes for pollination, seed dispersal, and nutrient exchange, while these organisms rely on the serviceberry for food and habitat. Similarly, human economies only thrive when they create balanced relationships between different participants. Reciprocity fosters resilience and longevity in economic systems. When all participants in an economy build relationships of mutual support and share abundance, the economy can continually renew itself, meeting everyone’s needs without becoming unbalanced.
In contrast, when participants take without giving back (as in a market economy), resources become depleted, creating scarcity that leads to conflict and threatens environmental collapse. Kimmerer distinguishes between natural scarcity (like drought or resource limitations) and manufactured scarcity that’s artificially created to drive profits. Natural scarcity has always required communities to adapt and share limited resources, but manufactured scarcity transforms the Earth’s abundant gifts into privately owned commodities, creating shortages where none need exist.
To illustrate the value of reciprocity, Kimmerer points to the Windigo, a monster figure in Potawatomi tradition. The Windigo takes too much and shares too little, personifying the pathological relationship with abundance that market systems encourage. The Windigo’s hoarding of resources represents both an economically unsustainable choice and a moral violation—a sickness that threatens the natural balance in community and ecology.
Reciprocity Supports a Healthy Environment
Reciprocity enables economies that are sustainable not only for humans but also for the Earth. Kimmerer explains that gift economies align with ecological principles that have sustained life for millennia. She observes that as ecosystems mature, they follow a predictable pattern: For example, a young forest begins with fast-growing, competitive pioneer species, but it eventually develops into a diverse, cooperative community where nutrients cycle efficiently. Kimmerer contends that human economic systems could evolve along this same path, moving from competitive extraction to cooperative circulation.
Currently, we’re in the “competitive extraction” phase of this development. Market economies are self-defeatingly extractive—they deplete the very resources upon which all life depends. And because market economies prioritize short-term profits over long-term sustainability, they encourage overconsumption that harms ecosystems while also failing to provide for everyone’s needs equitably. But if we embraced a gift economy, this could change. Gift economies shift our focus from selfish impulses to shared interests, encouraging cooperation toward mutual well-being that includes the more-than-human world.
So, just as symbiotic relationships develop among trees, fungi, and other organisms in a mature forest, mature human economies could develop sustainable exchanges that benefit all participants while maintaining ecological health.
How Can We Cultivate Gift Economies?
Kimmerer acknowledges that market capitalism may not disappear anytime soon, but we can create parallel gift economies that exist alongside it. This approach lets us build more sustainable and ethical economic relationships now, without waiting for a complete system overhaul. By nurturing gift economies within our current context, we can mitigate the harms of extractive capitalism in the present and lay the groundwork for a more fundamental transformation in the future.
Kimmerer offers a concrete example of how gift and market economies can coexist through the example of her neighbor’s farm. Her neighbor lets community members pick serviceberries for free, and this generosity creates multiple forms of value: Community members develop a relationship with the land, they experience the joy of harvest firsthand, and they learn about a native food they might otherwise never encounter. Because they enjoy these benefits, they develop a stake in protecting local farms and food security. They might also return to purchase other products, attend events, or advocate for policies that support local agriculture—not merely as consumers but as community members invested in the farm’s wellbeing.
Kimmerer explains that to cultivate parallel gift economies, we need to adopt three practices: gratitude, reciprocity, and interdependence. We also need to make small, everyday efforts to foster a gift-economy culture. Let’s explore each of these strategies in more detail.
Strategy 1: Gratitude
Gratitude forms the foundation of gift economies. Kimmerer explains that before we can reciprocate, we must first recognize the resources we receive as gifts rather than entitlements or commodities. This means developing an awareness of the countless ways both human and non-human beings contribute to our well-being—for example, by giving us clean water, fertile soil, and the food on our tables.
When we see these resources as gifts, we develop a sense of responsibility that guides how we use them—we become less likely to waste or hoard them, more inclined to share them, and more conscious about using them in ways that honor their origins. This shift from treating resources as mere commodities to honoring them as gifts creates a fundamentally different relationship with the material world.
Strategy 2: Reciprocity
Kimmerer contends that receiving gifts creates an obligation to give back, not as a burden but as a natural completion of the circle of exchange. Giving back isn’t about immediate repayment to the original giver but about sustaining the systems that support all life. This requires us to consider our relationships with both human communities and ecological systems and to make conscious choices about how we impact them. For example, giving back might look like participating in environmental restoration, fair economic practices, or community service—all activities that strengthen rather than deplete the systems that sustain us.
Strategy 3: Interdependence
Gift economies thrive on circulation rather than accumulation. Kimmerer explains that the health of any system—whether ecological or economic—depends on the continuous movement of resources throughout the community. Just as nutrients in a forest must cycle between plants, animals, and the soil to maintain ecosystem health, wealth in human communities must circulate to prevent stagnation and ensure everyone’s needs are met.
Practices like sharing, bartering, gifting, and reusing embody this principle of circulation. By keeping resources moving rather than hoarding them, we create resilience and abundance. This approach recognizes our fundamental interdependence—that none of us can truly thrive unless we all have enough.
Strategy 4: Everyday Efforts
To cultivate a gift economy culture more broadly, Kimmerer suggests starting with small but meaningful daily practices. When we share a homemade meal with neighbors or volunteer our time for community projects, we’re not just being nice—we’re actively building alternative economic relationships based on generosity and mutual care. These small actions, practiced consistently, help shift cultural values away from individualism and accumulation toward community and reciprocity.
Kimmerer also encourages supporting larger structures that embody gift economy principles. Public institutions like libraries exemplify the gift economy in action by providing access to shared resources based on need rather than ability to pay. By supporting such institutions—through advocacy, participation, and public investment—we strengthen the gift economy aspects of our society that already exist alongside market systems. Over time, this may shift the balance of our economy toward more sustainable, equitable exchanges.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Serviceberry summary:
- An alternative to our market-based economic system
- How to nurture reciprocal exchanges in your community
- How the economy can function like the serviceberry tree
