According to Robin Wall Kimmerer, reciprocity isn’t just a nice idea; it’s the foundation of sustainable relationships between people and the planet.
This is the driver behind gift economies. From serviceberry ecosystems to the physics of energy flow, the evidence suggests cooperation outperforms competition. Keep reading to discover how embracing reciprocity could transform our communities and heal our relationship with Earth.
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Robin Wall Kimmerer on Reciprocity
According to Robin Wall Kimmerer, reciprocity powers gift economies. In The Serviceberry, she explains that, 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.
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.
(Shortform note: Archaeological evidence offers context for the idea that we naturally gravitate toward gift economies. Ancient North American societies (~11,000-3,000 years ago)—ancestors of today’s Indigenous nations—exchanged materials like colorful stones for tool-making through networks spanning hundreds of miles. These exchanges weren’t just practical but carried deep meaning, building relationships and connecting people to ancestral lands. But resource sharing wasn’t always peaceful. In her research on rituals, archaeologist Cheryl Claassen has found evidence of violence in some prehistoric Indigenous communities, suggesting gift-based sharing existed alongside other forms of exchange that sometimes involved conflict over resources.)
Since humans naturally gravitate toward gift economies, Kimmerer suggests there must be inherent wisdom in these systems. 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.
| The Universe’s Economics: Energy and Reciprocity The idea that economies function best when components are interconnected mirrors one of physics’ most fundamental laws: the conservation of energy. Just as energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another, resources in a balanced economic system cycle through different participants, changing form but maintaining the economy’s overall balance. Both ecosystems and economies operate as complex networks, where energy and resources circulate rather than accumulate at endpoints. When Kimmerer describes the serviceberry’s relationship with birds and pollinators, she’s identifying a natural system that demonstrates this perfect energy transfer. Modern physics has shown that reality itself is perspective-dependent and contextual. There’s no single perspective that captures the full truth of any system—only multiple valid viewpoints, each tied to participants within that system. Similarly, Kimmerer’s gift economy recognizes that value isn’t an objective, fixed property, but something that emerges from relationships between participants. The “wealth” of a community exists in the strength of these connections rather than in accumulated resources. Just as quantum theory has transformed our understanding of the universe from consisting of isolated particles to interconnected fields, gift economies invite us to see resources as manifestations of relationship-based systems. |
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.
(Shortform note: To see how manufactured scarcity disrupts natural reciprocity cycles, consider Oishii’s “Omakase Berries,” strawberries grown in climate-controlled vertical farms and sold for up to $50 per box. Though this method uses less water and no pesticides, it severs the ecological relationships that make strawberries important to Indigenous groups such as the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) people. The Oishii company’s bees pollinate in isolation rather than in wider ecosystems, while AI and patented technology harness natural resources for private profit. Rather than strengthening communities through shared abundance, these berries have become status symbols that reinforce social hierarchy through artificial scarcity and exclusivity.)
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.
(Shortform note: Stories about the Windigo in Anishinaabe cultures transmit values about maintaining balance and prioritizing community wellbeing over individual accumulation. The concept has been misrepresented in popular culture, where critics say inaccurate depictions trivialize what remains a sacred element of living spiritual traditions. Yet Indigenous thinkers have used the concept to analyze systemic threats to community and ecological wellbeing. In Columbus and Other Cannibals, Jack Forbes describes a “Wétiko disease” of exploitation to compare colonialism to a form of cannibalism that consumes the lives of the exploited, while Winona LaDuke cites “Wiindigo infrastructure” as the root of ecological destruction.)
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.
| Economic Systems Need Renewal, Not Just Maturity Ecologists add nuance to Kimmerer’s comparison of market and gift economies to young and established ecosystems: Even “mature” ecosystems require periodic renewal to maintain health and diversity. This suggests that economic systems, like forests, may benefit from cycles of renewal rather than a one-way progression toward an idealized mature state. The aspen forest lifecycle illustrates this complexity. While young aspen stands feature intense competition as thousands of saplings vie for resources—similar to Kimmerer’s description of “competitive extraction”—mature stands gradually shift toward cooperation and complexity, supporting diverse wildlife and understory plants. But, without periodic disturbance from fire or selective harvesting, these mature stands don’t maintain their cooperative state indefinitely—they’re eventually replaced by other species. This ecological reality raises important questions about Kimmerer’s economic vision. If gift economies represent “mature” economic systems, they too might require periodic disruptions to maintain their vitality. What might a healthy “disturbance” look like? Perhaps regular redistribution of accumulated resources, intentional questioning of established patterns, or cultural ceremonies that renew commitment to gifting principles that strengthen rather than exploit the community. |
Explore Further
To better understand Kimmerer’s ideas about reciprocity in the broader context of gift economies, read Shortform’s full guide to The Serviceberry.
