Growth: Reciprocity or Profit?

As I walk across the farmland tended by an Anishinaabe tribe, I gaze upon the golden kernels of corn growing atop the tall, green stalk. Below them, reddish-brown beans shimmer under the sun, their vines wrapping around the stem. At the base, plump orange pumpkins rest upon the soil, their broad leaves forming a blanket, shading the Earth and locking in its moisture.

Together, these crops make up what is known as the “Three Sisters,” a traditional agricultural practice that has been utilized by Native American groups across much of North America for thousands of years.

It's an indigenous practice that highlights the extensive knowledge that Indigenous people hold of nature and the surrounding land. The corn stalk provides support for the bean vines, allowing them to wrap around it as they grow. The beans maintain soil health through cooperation with Rhizobium bacteria which live on the roots of legumes. The bacteria pull nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it into a usable form that plants can absorb. The leaves of the pumpkin or squash provide shade for the soil, retaining moisture, and create a net that repels other plants trying to occupy the space. The ingenuity of Three Sisters farming sustained Native American people for thousands of years, even when it was thought impossible to cultivate crops on the land. It provides food for communities over long periods of time because it emphasizes sustainability and respect for the land.

The Three Sisters (corn/maize, beans, pumpkin/squash) are planted together. Digital and pencil drawing by Anna Juchnowicz.

In Indigenous culture, the purpose of growth is not accumulation but rather promoting the prosperity of humans and the rest of nature. It involves responsibility: the Earth provides us with sustenance, and we owe it the duty of stewardship to maintain the cycle of reciprocity that ensures the flourishing of all. True growth must never benefit one at the expense of the other. This is particularly true in an interconnected system where humans are deeply reliant on the flourishing of plants for their own well-being, as the degradation of nature inevitably leads to the degradation of humanity. Thus, it is incredibly important to respect and care for nature rather than seeking to dominate or exploit it.

The desire and feeling of entitlement to dominate nature is an attitude which philosopher Karen Warren believes is rooted in what she calls the “logic of domination,” which is a form of hierarchical thinking that is used to justify the subjugation of one group by another. According to this logic, because nature is considered inferior to humans, the domination and exploitation of it is considered natural. This view is what fueled the rise of capitalism and colonialism, systems that seek to dominate not only nature but also other people in pursuit of accumulation while disregarding the damage inflicted on communities and ecosystems.

This shift in thinking had extreme consequences. Once seen as symbols of life, healing and respect, the silent growth of plants developed a connection with the dominance of colonialism and capitalism. What started as a desire for nature’s gifts — tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), cotton (Gossypium spp.), sugar (Saccharum officinarum) and spices such as nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) — grew into a worldwide system based on expansion, exploitation and unlimited profit. The natural world changed in the eyes of European powers. Plants turned into commodities with markets determining their worth rather than ecosystems. Colonizers considered plants as resources to be mined, traded, and exploited. Land was property. Rivers served as business channels. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples respectfully cared for the land and saw them as relatives in a common circle of life. Once about sustainability and balance, the concept of growth has been “modified” into dominance and infinite accumulation. It became characterized as a pyramid rather than a circle, always striving for more and never satisfied.

But how did it all start?

European nations, driven by a desire for wealth and empire, searched the world for botanical riches, including spices to add taste to their food, cotton to weave their empires, and gold and silver to show their power. It became known as discovery. However, we should call it an invasion. They arrived in search of harmless flora, but they left behind storms that might drown entire planets. Plants, by their nature, grow slowly — rising upward in their own time of a season. However, capitalism was impatient. It ignored the earth’s natural cycles and required quick, limitless harvest. Growth has shifted from life-flourishing to exploitation at all costs.

Some of these storms, however, are silent and hidden from our modern eyes. As Amitav Ghosh reveals in The Nutmeg’s Curse, the search for the scent of nutmeg pushed violent Dutch colonialists to the Banda Islands. Growth, in this context, was not about nurturing but dominance. The Dutch expanded like aggressive roots fueled by beliefs that nature exists for a market benefit. Islands were destroyed for plantations, native people were slaughtered and wiped out, and entire cultures suffered the bitter taste of disconnection from the land and community for the sake of nutmeg’s market growth. And the nutmeg tree is not the only natural victim. Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton shows how in addition to providing clothing, cotton was used to glue together the capitalist system. Cotton linked plantation to factory, colony to empire, and profit to pain. The huge demand for the seed hair fibers from the fruits of a white and soft plant fueled the Industrial Revolution with controlled, enslaved labor and stolen lands.

Cotton bolls (fruits) ready to be harvested in the afternoon sun.

What was destroyed wasn’t just an ecosystem — it was knowledge. For centuries, Indigenous people learned to coexist with the land rather than take advantage of it. Their understanding based on respect and reciprocity might have provided another future. However, it was rejected. Silenced. Markets and monocultures took its place.

Now you might be thinking: That was then. Colonialism is over. Growth means something different today. But does it? Look closer, fresh soil lets the old roots twist deeper.

Today, we buy “sustainable” palm oil, ignoring the rain forests destroyed to make it. We drink “fair-trade” coffee grown on stolen land from Indigenous communities. We eat chocolate which is cultivated with child labor.

Colonialism never vanished because now we define growth as progress. Our hands do not heal — they harvest, consume and leave only emptiness.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Capitalism relies on perpetual growth of the economy, but only a fool would believe that infinite growth is attainable on a finite planet. The endless cycle of extraction creates the illusion of abundance through the accumulation of resources, which are unevenly distributed so that a few may rise to the top while the rest of the world bears the consequences of the destruction caused to generate the wealth in the first place.

But the land remembers what we have since forgotten, that true abundance is found in reciprocity, balance, and respect for the land that sustains us. These ideas predate colonial expansion and the rise of capitalism, yet they have been buried under these systems. Still, whispers of them persist in the traditions and practices of the Indigenous communities that continue to live in harmony with the land.

The hope remains, that one day, we will reflect upon our choices and reconsider the legacy we’ve created, drawing from the ancient wisdom that teaches us that abundance isn't found in what we take, but in how we give and share with others.

-- Natka Feduniak & Narcis Neacsu