In the final chapter of The Serviceberry, Kimmerer marries the theory and practical implementation of the previous chapters with a broader plan for long term activism. She frames her book both as an exploration of gift economies as a vestige of the Indigenous cultures of America’s past and as a fierce advocation for gift economies as a viable and necessary remedy to many of the issues that plague modern society. Citing social alienation to destructive climate change, Kimmerer emphasizes the need to rethink the dominant Western economic model as a whole, underscoring the idea of The Natural World as Inspiration for Economic Reform. To that end, she closes the novel with a description of the immediate action that people can take to implement her ideas in their lives. Contained within this advice is the tacit acknowledgement that a full dismantling of capitalist systems of power in the world takes time. Kimmerer may not live to see the changes she wants to implement, nor does she believe that she has the power to bring her advice to as broad an audience as necessary. Instead, she outlines a potential synthesis of her theories that centers Optimism as a Tool for Building a Better World. For example, she encourages readers to embrace ways to implement and participate in small gift economies within larger capitalist systems, offering examples of ways they can coexist. Like the natural analogies of which she is so fond, Kimmerer shows how great change can be born from a small seed. By drawing attention to the way society thinks about economies, Kimmerer aims to shift readers’ perspectives, encouraging a synthesis of her ideas with existing economic models.

The building of communities and networks remains essential to Kimmerer’s vision of a future in which gift economies are prevalent. In the context of her book, this desire to build is fundamentally optimistic. Even though The Serviceberry provides a scathing critique of the modern capitalist economies, Kimmerer emphasizes her belief in the fundamental generosity and goodness of people. She notes that capitalist economies were built by people, so people can also build something different. Gift economies have existed for centuries, so they can be rebuilt in the future—a perspective that relies on her extensive knowledge of both ecological and human history. 

In the book’s conclusion, Kimmerer links her optimistic view of human generosity with her exploration of The Tension Between Cutthroat Capitalism and Communal Reciprocity to incite her readers to action, positioning The Serviceberry as a polemic. Kimmerer uses every rhetorical resource available to urge her readers to go out into the world and enact the changes that she has outlined. Her vision for a better, more natural, more generous world is utopian in nature, but she leaves her plans up to the readers to achieve. Actively pushing back against the image of herself as the grand architect of a brave new world, Kimmerer ends the novel with a rhetorical question that positions herself and her readers in solidarity—noting that it’s a question “we answer” (105). Because gift economies involve the building of communities, the building of gift economies must be a communal effort. The necessity of an author as a sole leader is put aside, with Kimmerer urging her readers to join in a collective effort to achieve a better world for everyone.