Sure do wish more people were talking about this book instead of the one focused solely on abundance that came out recently. Said differently: it’s the reciprocity, stupid! The existence of abundance is meaningless without reciprocity as a means of dealing with it. Kimmerer writes that “recognizing ‘enoughness’ is a radical act in an economy that is always encouraging us to consume more” (p. 27). This “enoughness” exists not just in terms of food, but also wealth and security. She helpfully calls those who hoard the excess Darren, after Darren Woods, who has been the CEO of ExxonMobil since 2017. One hopes that this name becomes genericized as shorthand for insatiably capitalistic white dudes.
The serviceberry is one of the models Kimmerer uses to explain how reciprocity operates. As a member of Potawatomi Nation, one of the Anishinaabe peoples of the Great Lakes region, she shares that the etymologies of gift and berry in Potawatomi are remarkably similar (pp. 19-20). So the berries are a gift from Earth to us, and they can be a gift from one person to another. She compares two exchanges that might result in her receiving berries. In one case, she can go to the market and buy them. She exchanges money for goods and that’s the end of the relationship. In another case, she goes to the field and picks the berries herself, then shares them with a neighbor or friend. The relationship doesn’t end there, as her friend might have a great recipe for berry pies that she can share with Kimmerer (or others). They can also have a conversation later on about the quality of the berries they shared or the deliciousness of the pie. Kimmerer contrasts this exchange with the hypothetical discussion of berry pie or jam recipes with the clerk at the store a week after completing the financial transaction. Although it wouldn’t be the most unusual thing to discuss, the clerk has a different relationship to the berries because money and labor are involved. What reciprocity means in this kind of relationship is unclear. A system that alienates workers from their labor also alienates the workers from each other.
Instead of reviewing ambitious technosolutions that support her position on the importance of reciprocity as a means of distributing abundance, Kimmerer looks to nature as a model for how we can get along better with each other and the world. An instructive story comes from an anthropologist seeking to understand how one member of a hunter-gatherer community dealt with excess meat from a recent kill. Given that such a great deal of food might be hard to come by again, the researcher is shocked that the hunter doesn’t save any for later. Instead of scarcity, the hunter turns to community and hosts a feast for the neighbors. The researcher still can’t help it and asks wouldn’t it be better to store the extra meat in a freezer or in salt for a later date. “I store the meat in the belly of my brother” is the bewildered reply (p. 56). Why, even when there is scarcity, should we keep our gains from everyone else? Sharing them means we will be likely to receive shared goods in the future. Seems so simple.
There’s not a grand proposal for how this gift economy might replace our mixed economy, but it does help us think about different ways of being. I appreciated imagining along with her the idea of an “Empathetic Mutualist Human” as a response to Adam Smith’s “Rational Economic Man” (p.73). There is plenty to critique about traditional economic models, and this reframing of one of the basic tenets of economics is a strong start. She continues this critique by explaining how a focus on scarcity (instead of abundance) means that the “rational economic man” wants to hoard wealth, food, security and opportunity. In a time of crisis, the hoarders “would not save themselves from the fate of extinction if their partners did not share in that abundance. Hoarding won’t save us either. It won’t even save Darren. All flourishing is mutual” (p. 111). Although we might be conditioned to think that hoarding abundance will protect us, the abundance is useless if we cannot share it with others. The implicit critique here is that there is no one to help you make use of or partake in the abundance. Because “all flourishing is mutual,” we need to give in order to grow. There’s no way to have accumulated abundance without having taken it in the first place. It’s not just a moral act to share; it is vital for our survival as a species.
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