Urban consumers can exercise reciprocity indirectly through purchasing choices

Evidence

Cities are like the mitochondria in our animal cells—they are consumers, fed by the autotrophs, the photosynthesis of a distant green landscape. We could lament that urban dwellers have little means of exercising direct reciprocity with the land. Yet while city folks may be separated from the sources of what they consume, they can exercise reciprocity through how they spend their money. While the digging of the leeks and the digging of the coal may be too far removed to see, we consumers have a potent tool of reciprocity right in our pockets. We can use our dollars as the indirect currency of reciprocity. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 711

Categorization

• XREF: The mitochondria-consumer metaphor and dollars-as-indirect-reciprocity bridge directly to market/institution critiques in the Legal Systems course and to gift-economy chapters already extracted. — connects to: Consumers pay premiums for certified environmentally friendly goods. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 1011; Fair trade functions as consumer self-expression rather than supply-chain change. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 410
• DEFINE: Proposes spending money as a proxy form of the Honorable Harvest when direct harvest is impossible.

Broader Connections

• Fair trade functions as consumer self-expression rather than supply-chain change. #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 410