People I (Mostly) Admire

Episode 159: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Manifesto for a Gift Economy

Host: Steve Levitt
Guest: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Date: June 7, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Steve Levitt sits down with Robin Wall Kimmerer—botanist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and member of the Potawatomi Nation—to discuss her fusion of scientific knowledge with Indigenous wisdom. The conversation dives deep into how these worldviews inform her research, teaching, and radical ideas about economics, nature, and what it means to live well. Central to the episode is a critique of “scientism,” the market economy, and Kimmerer’s manifesto for a “gift economy” inspired by reciprocity in the natural world.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Marvels and Mysteries of Moss (03:05-09:39)

• Mosses: Ancient Survivors

  • Kimmerer describes mosses as “the most ancient of plants on the planet. They were the first plants to come out on land.” (03:15)
  • Mosses lack roots and internal plumbing; their strength is in “smallness”—an evolutionary advantage. (03:35)

• Sexual vs. Asexual Reproduction in Moss

  • Research focus: Tetraphis moss, which can reproduce both sexually and asexually.
  • Environmental density triggers different reproductive strategies: “When the moss gets really crowded… they turn on sexual reproduction... If there’s low density... they clone themselves.” (08:06)
  • Kimmerer approaches moss research as “an interview,” observing plant choices over time and through experimental manipulation. (07:13)
  • Notable insight: plants exhibit “behavior,” sensing and responding to their surroundings—challenging the perception that plants are static or unaware. (09:39)

• Plant Blindness

  • Kimmerer introduces the concept of “plant blindness,” the human tendency to ignore the complexity and agency of plants. (10:36)
  • Levitt notes a shift in his own perception after prior interviews with plant scientists.

Quote [03:25]: “Mosses are generally under an inch or two tall, but that smallness is actually where their power lies and why they have persisted for millions and millions of years.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer

2. Reconciling Science and Indigenous Ways of Knowing (12:06-17:33)

• Subjectivity vs. Objectivity in Science

  • Kimmerer describes being “corrected” of Indigenous views in academia: “In higher education in Western science, I was corrected of those notions—that they are indeed objects that we will learn about, as opposed to teachers that we will learn from.” (12:53)
  • She calls the scientific method both “powerful” and “limiting,” favoring minimalism at the expense of wonder and wisdom.

• Embracing Multiple Ways of Knowing

  • Indigenous knowledge acknowledges not only intellect and empirical data but also emotional intelligence and spiritual mystery. (15:40)
  • Kimmerer: “That true-false hypothesis testing… can never answer the question of what should we do? What is the right thing to do? For that, we need other ways of knowing… That’s this difference between knowledge and wisdom.” (16:46)

Quote [15:40]: “Western science is an incredibly powerful tool for certain kinds of questions, but not necessarily the most important questions.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer

3. Challenging the Dogma of “Scientism” (21:25-24:56)

• Defining "Scientism"

  • Kimmerer argues that “scientism”—the belief in Western science as the exclusive path to truth—is a form of “intellectual imperialism.” (21:25)
  • She finds students come alive when freed from rigid objectivity and allowed to use intuition and emotion in their fieldwork.

• Bringing Wonder Back to Science Education

  • Both Levitt and Kimmerer criticize science curricula focused on rote memorization rather than cultivating curiosity.
  • Positive scientific education could magnify wonder by connecting facts (like DNA mechanics) to underlying beauty and complexity. (24:00)

Quote [24:00]: “The way that science education is too often practiced is all about… memorizing facts as if science was about what is already known, not about what we could learn.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer

4. The Braiding Sweetgrass Phenomenon (27:21-28:48)

• Unexpected Bestseller
  • Braiding Sweetgrass was first published in 2013, but only entered the bestseller lists in 2020—the slow build reflecting a cultural yearning for its message. (27:30)
  • “They would come back a couple weeks later and buy a handful of them because they wanted to give them to other people. That’s really how it grew.” (27:30)
  • The book’s impact: readers see themselves reflected in a worldview centered on gratitude and “right relationship with the land.” (29:26)

5. A Manifesto for the Gift Economy: Lessons from the Serviceberry (31:58-43:07)

• Introducing the Gift Economy
  • Kimmerer’s new book, The Serviceberry, uses the tree as a model for an economy based on reciprocal giving, not accumulation. (33:21)
  • In nature, wealth (sunlight, carbon) is redistributed through mutual aid, resulting in health and abundance for the whole system.

Quote [32:52]: “Let’s collectively imagine an economy which doesn’t actively destroy what we love, but could in fact heal what we love.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Contrast with Market Economies

  • Levitt (playing devil’s advocate) reframes the serviceberry relationship in market terms—plants “paying” birds with berries.
  • Kimmerer counters: “It’s like a mutual aid society... that gift keeps moving through the ecosystem... The wealth... is continuously redistributed within that ecosystem.” (36:24)

• Anthropological Examples

  • Gift economies thrive in small, connected communities where abundance is shared rather than hoarded.
  • Memorable anecdote: “I store my meat in the belly of my brother”—food security through relationship. (38:50)

Quote [41:59]: “You’re never going to see the value of a gift economy then, because that’s the currency. The currency is gratitude. The currency is respect and relationship.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer

6. Property, Relationships, and Ecological Economics (44:17-47:50)

• Property Rights vs. Responsibilities

  • Western economics frames nature as “property” to be owned, incentivizing private stewardship but often failing communal or ecological interests.
  • Kimmerer’s Indigenous perspective: “a responsibility-based orientation—these were gifts... you then have an obligation, like those [handknit] socks from your grandma.” (45:03)

• Efficiency, Disconnection, and Hidden Costs

  • Levitt praises the sheer efficiency of the market economy, but notes it “takes away much of what feels good in life.”
  • Kimmerer: the problem is that modern markets “don’t count the real cost,” whether in environmental catastrophe or lost relationship to place. (47:50)
  • Calls for reconnecting the root words—and values—of “economy” (management of the household) and “ecology” (study of the household, meaning Earth).

Quote [47:50]: “What I marvel at is the economy of nature, where the wealth is diversity, where the wealth is life and the wealth is clean water and birdsong.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer

7. Finding Common Ground: Towards Change (51:42-54:22)

• Worldview Differences with Respect

  • Levitt admits his economic indoctrination but recognizes the value in “other ways of seeing.” (51:46)
  • Kimmerer: “We can really try to separate what are the stories that we have been told as if they were the only stories… there are other ways to conceptualize the world.” (52:12)

• Aspirational vs. Practical Change

  • Levitt is skeptical that a full-scale gift economy could underpin the modern world, but sees immense value in cultivating micro gift economies within communities.
  • Kimmerer agrees: “There has to be room for both... That micro gift economy, how do we nurture that within the structures we are bound to…?” (54:22)
  • “That wasn’t efficient, it wasn’t convenient… So inefficient. Exactly. And yet it meant everything.” (53:46)

Quote [53:46]: “We can certainly both agree that it’s worth people in their daily life investing in the communities and relationships around them to create something that feels much more like this gift economy…”
— Steve Levitt

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Indigenous Science:
  “Western science… is missing half of our capacity to understand the world.” (16:46)

• On Beauty and Science:
  “Why the world is so beautiful and how we keep it that way is of paramount, paramount importance. It includes human values, not excluding human values.” (19:04)

• On Receiving Gifts:
  “What if those socks were knit for you by your grandma... You have a relationship to them of tender care.” (43:07)

• On Economic Growth:
  “I think it makes me pretty unpopular. When I hear, oh, the economy isn’t growing, I’m going like, yes! Because… constant growth, unending exponential growth is a formula for ecological disaster.” (47:50)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:05 | The remarkable world of moss; sexual versus asexual reproduction in plants | | 10:36 | “Plant blindness” and why we ignore plants | | 12:06 | The divide between Indigenous knowledge and Western academic science | | 15:40 | Limitations of the scientific method; knowledge vs. wisdom | | 21:25 | “Scientism” and how it limits curiosity | | 27:21 | Braiding Sweetgrass’s slow burn and impact | | 31:58 | The manifesto for a gift economy; the Serviceberry as inspiration | | 37:58 | Gift economies in anthropology and Indigenous societies | | 43:07 | Property, relationships, and rethinking ownership | | 47:50 | The cost of efficiency; market vs. ecological economics | | 51:42 | Mutual respect for differing worldviews; possibility for change | | 53:46 | Embracing a micro-gift economy in daily life |

Conclusion

This episode offers an accessible, thought-provoking dialogue between two radically different, yet deeply curious minds. Kimmerer challenges listeners—and Levitt—to question the assumptions underpinning economics, science, and society, urging a broader, relational approach informed by reciprocity and gratitude. While wholesale societal change may be daunting, both agree: individual acts of care, gift-giving, and community-building are within reach—and vitally important.