A while back here at VF HQ, we received a review copy of Lee Hall’s Capers in the Churchyard: Animal Rights in the Age of Terror. I read the book immediately when I received it, but haven’t had the time to get around to writing up my review. With it being discussed over on our forums I figured I’d jump in with my thoughts.
In this book, Lee Hall1 presents a solid critique of mainstream animal movement organizations and a weaker critique of militancy in the animal rights movement. Hall sees the movement drawn in two different directions, each of which is flawed in similar ways. Hall argues that the problem underneath each school of thought—welfarism on the one hand, and militant action on the other—is that each makes arguments that are philosophically about the welfare of animals rather than about complete abolition. This is clear enough with mainstream organizations like the HSUS or PeTA, but the book also accuses ‘militants’ of the same kind of rhetoric. To prove the point, Hall draws on the SHAC campaign, noting that much of the discursive weight of their claims about animal abuse lies in an understanding of animals being treated poorly in lab conditions. In Hall’s analysis, this tactic mistakenly reifies the notion that animal welfare is what matters.
The other problem that Hall sees with campaigns such as those done by the SHAC is that they alienate, which has two main effects: First, they make it easy for any animal activist to be painted as a terrorist by association; and, second, they fail to educate in their radicalism, and in so doing, miss a key opportunity to challenge the hierarchies that are embedded in our society. A final by-product of the use of force or militancy, Hall argues, is that these tactics actually reproduce the dynamics of exploitation, dominance, and hierarchy.
I found Hall’s critique to be quite provocative, challenging, and thoughtful, but not without its problems. Before I get into my gripes, let me say that this is the kind of movement analysis that we need, in that it calls into question the entire structure of the movement, from what many would see as its most radical wing all the way over to even its most accommodationist. Having surveyed the terrain, Hall finds it all wanting, and instead proposes that we redouble our efforts towards real abolition, which the author sees as depending upon thoughtful education about how to overcome domination and hierarchy. The solution, Hall argues, is as simple as leaving behind the products of domination, and replacing the oppressive industries of exploitation with “life affirming” ones.
In principle, I like the renunciation of hierarchy that the book advocates, and I agree with Hall that it is time for us to leave behind welfarist advocacy. In a paragraph that typifies this critique, Hall writes:
By declining to bargain with industries for small changes, we avoid being placated by temporary and illusory gains. We decline to celebrate confusion. We know that business and media are willing to present us as winning if the status quo is reinforced; and we aren’t entertaining the offer. We know that exposing illegal cruelty satisfies the consensus that the use of animals can acceptably go on, managed and controlled and regulated, buttressing the image of a self-proclaimed advanced and caring populace as millions are served.
This sentiment is powerful, and its critique hits at the heart of the current structure of welfarism in the animal rights movement. On these points, the book is at its strongest, a potent tonic against the ineffective activism of the mainstream organizations which, as Gary Francione brilliantly analyzed a number of years ago in Rain Without Thunder, need such campaigns to stay alive and garner member donations.
Despite the strengths, I do think the book suffers from several weaknesses, which I’ll detail in order of importance.
The first real problem with the book is that its understanding of social movement theory is rather limited. Hall dismisses the idea that a diversity of tactics is appropriate, yet thinkers like Gramsci would urge a variety of tactics in pursuit of any movement that challenges power in a society like ours. To imagine that a movement as diverse as the animal rights/liberation movement could ever take on a single set of tactics for addressing animal exploitation is idealist to say the least. Indeed, I’m not even sure that this would be productive. Animals are exploited throughout the fabric of our social order, and different people need to be appealed to in different ways. Moreover, the power structures in our society need to be challenged on a variety of fronts, otherwise, the fight becomes too simple, too staid, and lacks dynamism.
My second critique concerns the way that Hall paints the hardcore scene. To say that Hall creates a straw man here would be too generous; indeed, the setup is one that smacks of argumentitive convenience above all, with the use of generalizations that do not become the rest of this analysis. Hall’s writing on this sways from fuddy-duddy to just plain wrong, and it seems clear that Hall has no idea about what Hall writes in the critique of hardcore (which the book mistakenly calls ‘metal’). To wit:
Some militants appear to view the animals’ cause as the latest countercultural niche. A new entrant into the militant scene can find a world entirely apart from the banalities of home life: metal bands, tattoos and body piercings, being locked together inside of Neiman Marcus to protest fur, occupying professors’ offices, seeing one’s name in the papers, hosting speakers, and being initiated into an activists’ circle by going on night surveillance trips and undercover investigations.
There are movement tourists who play the part, talk the talk, and who are looking for somewhere to belong. I think we’ve all heard the quip about people being straight edge until 21. Nevertheless, this ignores the ways in which punk and hardcore scenes can be educational for the majority of people that are involved. Music is as valid an outlet for ideas about animal exploitation as is a book, and the punk and hardcore scenes have a long history of challenging all kinds of exploitation, animal exploitation included. Many come to our movement from this avenue, and to dismiss it so easily shows that Hall does not understand what she’s talking about here. At best, Hall draws a rough caricature.(And plus, what’s wrong with tattoos and piercings, huh?)
My remaining problem with Hall’s book is a small one, but possibly significant if you think critically about class. Hall takes on a rather sloppy conception of class in the epilogue to the book, defining it loosely as “any position in an oppressive hierarchy.” This is not a helpful or rigorous definition of class, nor is it one that is significantly tied to the notion of capitalism. The book misses an opportunity here to examine how the problems of domination are reproduced in and through capital, and instead settles on this mushy conception of difference. Though I’m open to a generous reading of Hall’s intent here as one of challenging domination, the use of class in this way strikes me as a bit voluntaristic and sloppy.
In sum, this is a provocative book that I greatly enjoyed reading. Parts of it bothered me, got under my skin, and made me think critically about my positions, and other parts had me saying “hell yeah” out loud. I especially love books that make me reconsider the foundations of my beliefs about action, tactics, and approach, and I commend Hall for writing a book that swims so ardently against the tide. Even though I did not agree with some of the book, I recommend it highly for anyone who wants to think through these volatile yet deeply important issues. The one thing that unites both Hall and those that she critiques is a common desire to do the best for animals. In the spirit of that notion, you owe it to yourself to think carefully about the points that Capers in the Churchyard raises.
1 We were asked not to use pronouns in referring to Lee Hall, a request which I’ve honored here. If the writing is stilted or formal in places, it is because I was working around this request.
Posted by Bob Torres 
Filed under: “Power to act is duty to act.”—Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality
One common critique of veganism that I hear (usually, from my leftist comrades) is that it is just a practice of consumption. In other words, as vegans, we keep the idea alive that consumption is what matters most in society. And yes, I know, were we all to stop eating animals, animal agriculture would disappear, and along with it, 90+% of the exploitation of animals that goes on in the world.
Nevertheless, I think these critics are on to something. If veganism only means that you will or will not consume certain things, then you’re essentially arguing from a consumerist standpoint, that voting with your dollars (or euros, or yen, or whatever) matters most. Granted, voting with your dollars does matter, but it isn’t the kind of voting that’s going to bring down animal agriculture anytime soon. Sadly, our tiny boycott of animal industries alone is insufficient to make any noticable dent in animal suffering, which is why I think that veganism alone just isn’t enough, and also why I think that the critics who levy this argument are on to something.
As vegans, I think we have a duty not just to avoid products of cruelty, but also to educate and to be activists in our lives. The movement against animal suffering is broad and deep, and I guarantee you that there’s a place in it for you and your talents. Your boycott of animal products should be coupled with some kind of activism, outreach, or support in some way that you’re comfortable with. If you’re a musician, make music that educates. If you’re a teacher, teach about these issues. If you’re a geek, help maintain a server that does vegan outreach or support. If you’re an artist, make art to raise consciousness. Harness your talents in a way that is comfortable to you so that we can begin to chip away at this massive monolith of cruelty. None of this necessarily means that you should throw red paint on fur hags, (as tempting as that may be) or chain yourself to the doors of a slaughterhouse; it is only a reminder that we have the power to act, and if we believe Kropotkin, it is the duty to act as well.
“Anger is an energy!”—John Lydon, Rise by PIL
An additional point worth emphasizing is that actually getting out and doing something helps fight off some of the feelings of helplessness, frustration, anger, and dread that accompany your understanding of speciesism in our society. It isn’t that actually doing things makes those feelings go away—it just helps to redirect some of that anger, upset, or frustration into a productive end, rather than inward.
A final note: it isn’t that I think vegans are lazy. Look around: we’re doing all kinds of great work. But that’s only a smallish percentage of us. I guess the question that I’m hoping to get you to ask yourself if you’re not one of the more active folks is, “what are my talents, and how can I use them to fight animal exploitation?”
We know that they support euthanizing dogs and rabbits, so I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they’d give a proggy award to a gas chamber mouse trap.
Is someone over there smoking crack? I mean, between this clearly non-animal friendly trap and their declaring that Pat Buchanan had the strongest backbone in 2005 they clearly must be huffing glue or something.
Thanks to FoodFight for the link on the mousetraps.
If a man abuses his wife, do we ask him to stop, or do we throw our hands up in exasperation, saying that if he’s going to do it, he should at least not hit so damn hard?
Similarly, if a person is going to eat meat, do we ask him to stop, or do we throw our hands up in exasperation, saying that if you’re going to eat meat, at least eat free range?
My comparison will probably offends and anger some of you, but I assure you, that’s not my intent. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking seriously about the question of animal welfare activism versus a more abolitionist activism, and I’ve been torn. Just recently, I helped a few students at my school with the HSUS campaign to switch dining services to battery-cage free eggs. I was secretly torn from the start, but I helped despite my reservations. The real moment of cognitive dissonance for me came when I was actually in the position of relaying information about egg producers to the school, talking about extended shelf life and shipping time.
As I sent an email to one of the people in charge of dining services at my school with some of this information, I had a sinking feeling: here I was, actually facilitating the exploitation of hens by encouraging egg consumption. It made me think: I’ve committed myself to the abolition of animal exploitation and to veganism, and I was actually in the position of helping facilitate the consumption of eggs. I assuaged my conscience by telling myself that this was better for the hens, and that perhaps this was a step in the right direction of animal consciousness for people at our school. I also thought it important to back the students at my school who were taking tentative steps into activism. As I gave it more thought, though, I realized that this was exactly the wrong tactic, and that I wasn’t being true to what I believed.
Welfarism is accepting defeat before we’ve even begun the battle.
To me, welfarism accepts as a premise that our other activism and outreach—genuine vegan and abolitionist outreach—can’t be effective enough, and so trades this for measures which (though they may decrease suffering) actually reify the condition of animals as beings that we can exploit. In a twisted sense, then, welfarism encourages the consumption of animal products. It does nothing to challenge the notion that animals are ours to do with as we please, and it makes for odd bedfellows. We end up with groups that have stated abolitionist ideological positions teaming up with companies, firms, and producers who are in the business of exploitation. It makes us as a movement look contradictory when we’re calling for the abolition of animal exploitation and at the same time, encouraging the exploitation of animals. It is justifying slavery by asking for longer chains; it is asking the abuser to abuse more gently; it is not true to what we profess to believe.
Critics, of course, will accuse me of the comfort of putting my ideological purity ahead of the near-term interests of animals to be free of suffering. This, however, isn’t the case. If we’re to have a movement that means anything at all, we need to make the movement look like the end that we hope to achieve. We can’t simultaneously be anti-racist and hope to end racism by telling slightly less offensive racist jokes, just like we can’t hope to be effective anti-speciesists by simultaneously promoting nicer speciesism. The means to the end of abolition matter. If our means don’t look like our ends, we’re only helping to incrementally re-create a world that’s speciesist.
I know that the world won’t go vegan tomorrow, and I know that the welfare argument depends on incrementalism: for example, that we need to take small steps towards helping people see that animals shouldn’t be exploited. Incrementalism is a natural response to the overwhelming speciesism in our world now, and I understand it. But our incrementalism should be that of reduction of meat, eggs, dairy, honey, and other products of animal exploitation from our diets. Effective vegan activism could potentially mean more lives saved and greater strides for animals than measures which confine animals to slightly bigger cages, or more airy barns. Welfarism stalls incremental movement towards veganism, however. How many of us have met people that respond to our veganism with the hollow “Well, I eat free range…” argument? How many people actually get stuck there? And can we assume that welfarism actually works to limit the consumption and exploitation of animals? The evidence would seem to indicate that it doesn’t. Welfarism has formed the backbone of animal advocacy for at least the last two decades in the US, yet we’ve seen the numbers of animals consumed in that time rise by billions. If welfarism worked as promised to limit consumption of animals and spurn people into awareness, wouldn’t we see that number actually go down? If free-range and cage-free and all the other welfarist measures actually decreased the consumption of animal products, why would markets like Whole Foods base so much of their business on these lucrative niche markets?
In one of those odd moments of synchronicity, I also found myself this week preparing a book proposal and reading a variety of sources for that proposal. In reading the book Speciesism, I came across an argument that hits at the very heart of what I’m discussing here, and it helped me to clarify my thinking on this topic tremendously (I also spent an afternoon re-reading Gary Francione’s Rain Without Thunder which does an incredible job of examining the same dynamics). This quote caught my attention in the chapter about “old speciesist advocacy”:
“Some activists who consider themselves advocates of veganism condone eating honey or applaud people for limiting their egg consumption to “free-range eggs” and their cow-flesh consumption to “grass-fed beef.” Eating honey, eggs, or cow flesh isn’t vegan, so endorsing their consumption isn’t veganism advocacy. Veganism advocates urge people not to eat any honey, eggs, or flesh. Nonvegans need to phase out or immediately eliminate animal-derived foods, not substitute some for others. It’s easy to avoid eating honey, eggs, and flesh, including as ingredients. Suggesting otherwise impedes, rather than advances, veganism.”
She continues on to talk about how only one group—Friends of Animals—urged Whole Foods to phase out or end its sale of animal products after the CEO John Mackey announced that he became vegan. She wondered whether other groups thought the request too unlikely to succeed, or if others weren’t willing to speak against the welfarist standards instituted by Whole Foods and its suppliers. Dunayer emphasizes that “Such standards don’t advance veganism or nonhuman emancipation. They legitimize enslavement and slaughter. Only veganism respects nonhuman rights and rejects nonhuman enslavement.” (emphasis mine)
It is that last point that I agree with most heartily—veganism is the way to live abolition in your daily life. Veganism is a political act illustrating how the consumption and abuse of animals is not acceptable. Unlike welfarist measures, veganism is not at conflict with the ends of our movement: it is living what we want our world to be. On the flip side, welfarism turns us into advocates for people who would abuse and torture animals for profit, with the exception that these particular abusers are a bit nicer. Nice enslavement is still enslavement, and for all that welfarism has promised, we have little to show but more and more animals being consumed.
It seems time that we reconsider the odd logic of welfarism.
“Animals and humans suffer and die alike. If you had to kill your own hog before you ate it, most likely you would not be able to do it. To hear the hog scream, to see the blood spill, to see the baby being taken away from its momma and to see the look of death in the animal’s eye would turn your stomach. So you get the man at the packing house to do it the killing for you. In like manner, if the wealthy aristocrats who are perpetrating conditions in the ghetto actually heard the screams of ghetto suffering, or saw the slow death of hungry little kids, or witnessed the strangulation of manhood and dignity, they could not continue the killing. But the wealthy are protected from such horror….If you can justify killing to eat meat, you can justify the conditions of the ghetto. I cannot justify either one.”
—Dick Gregory, quoted in The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams
First, apologies for leaving the blog behind for so long. Things have become so busy with the podcast and our forums and new titles from Tofu Hound Press that we barely ever have any time to update around here. Fortunately, I think I see some space clearing, so hopefully we can give this blog a little more lovin’ and get our lazy asses back on track.
Okay, with that over with, let me get to what I came here to write about in the first place.
I recently picked up a copy of The Sociopath Next Door
Anyway, as I was reading the book, I found myself drawing some parallels to how meat is consumed in the United States and other industrialized societies. I don’t mean to say that meat eaters are sociopaths (though surely, some are). What I mean is that the way the system itself is structured allows us to consume just about whatever the hell we want without having to think too much about where it comes from and what it does to animals or people producing it. When the average omnivore walks into the supermarket and buys that pound of ground beef in the styrofoam tray, wrapped so neatly in plastic, she doesn’t have to think about the fact that some animal—some one—had to suffer the injustice of factory farmed confinement and inhumane, mechanized slaughter. Similarly, when someone buys eggs, they also don’t have to think about the millions upon millions of hens stacked on top of one another in ammonia-filled hen-houses around the country.
In this way, the system of production and consumption itself has set us all up to be sociopaths, at least on occasion. We can consume without regard to the consequences of our action, and worse than that, we’re rarely reminded of who suffers when we consume as we do. The beef wrapped in plastic is mentally a million miles away from the actual suffering and death involved in the production of that beef, and the system of production and consumption prefers it that way. If consumers don’t have to think about the potentially messy, upsetting, and real conditions of their consumption, well then they can go right on happily consuming. For those of you that are vegan out there, how often have you had someone ask you why you’re vegan and then immediately tell you that they’d rather not know, lest it put them off their dinner?
This basic concealment of the conditions of production is an essential element of capitalism. Marx called this the ‘commodity fetish,’ meaning that we tend to see commodities where instead we should be seeing social relationships of power, production, and exploitation. The brilliant part about only seeing commodities is that it helps us keep right on consuming those commodities without looking back. This is just as true for meat and eggs and dairy as it is for sneakers made with slave labor. Admittedly, this obfuscation is brilliant, and it works not only in the favor of the general human desire to remain blissfully ignorant, but also to help increase consumption.
I’m not saying we’re all sociopaths, because clearly we aren’t. Many people break through this and consider the origins of what they consume and what it means for others. Ethical vegans do this as a matter of course, and that’s a good thing. The problem is, the system itself produces a kind of passive ignorance that results in outcomes that might as well be sociopathic (economists call these ‘externalities,’ I think). We have to break through this separation, and at every turn, we need to remind people of the necessary linkages between animal suffering and the steak they’re eating.
I have no idea why it took me so long to get to this, but this is cool: Animal Ingredients A-Z for your iPod. All you do is pop the file in to the ‘notes’ directory on your ipod, and right there at the tip of your thumb, you have a nicely organized list of animal ingredients, including detailed entries and alternatives for each one.
This is the perfect solution for any iPod carrying vegan. Elegant, simple, fast, and free—what more could you ask for?
Thanks to dotism for putting this all together, and for his/her kind props to us on the site.
Okay, before we get to your (ir)regularly scheduled blogging, just one quick bit of shameless self-promotion….we’re like all famous and shit! Oh yeah, we’re in issue #10 of Herbivore Magazine, in the article about the “new faces of veganism” alongside genuine vegan celebrities Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Sarah Kramer. Fuck yeah! (And to think, all it took was a case of booze to the editor and a metallica mix tape….josh is such a push-over).
Okay, now back to your regularly-scheduled programming.
It feels like forever since I’ve posted here. Ummm, maybe because it has been forever since I’ve posted here. For better or worse, the podcast seems to eat most of my free time, and what little free time isn’t eaten by the podcast is consumed by the forums. But no matter, you don’t want to hear my wussy sob-stories and all that strum und drang or whatever.
Whining aside, I thought it was about time for me to write an entry on this flaky stuff that I see or hear every so often about “honoring an animal” by eating it. Though I’ve heard this before, it also came up most recently a few months back when we were on the Virato Live! show out of Asheville, NC. On the show, the host, Virato, related to us the story of a rabbi who was served pork at a dinner that he was invited to. Rather than shunning the pork, Virato told us, the rabbi went on at length about how the animal wasn’t killed specifically for him, and how it was likely a greater harm to refuse the ‘sacrifice’ of the animal. Thinking this, the rabbi then proceeded to consume the pork, and—I remember this pretty vividly—Virato told us that he let the juices run down his chin as he savored every bite, honoring the animal that was killed to provide the meal.
I’ve heard similar stories from flaky-lefty friends who’ve told me that some Buddhists will consume meat because it wasn’t killed specifically for them (thus, preserving their karmic integrity), or that other vegetarians have eaten meat when it was served to them, seeing a greater harm in refusing a host and wasting food than killing an animal.
Though none of you will be surprised to read this, I think this is a total load of crap.
If you want to honor an animal, the best way to honor it is by not eating it. And while I get it about being rude to hosts, I don’t think one should collapse on one’s ethics just to preserve social harmony. Very few animals are killed specifically for one person, moreover. The nature of contemporary meat production means that we’re distant from the meat that we eat; therefore, one could always excuse meat eating if all one is concerned about is the meat not being killed specifically for them.
In a sense, it is contract killing but without a specific target.
The best way to honor animals is to treat them as companions rather than wrapping some soft-headed new-agey crap justification around your desire to eat meat.
A few weeks back, I was re-reading the book Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia, and I was struck by this passage:
"She doesn't like to admit to herself that, despite all her activities, she sometimes feels lonely. Not the loneliness of previous years, of a reluctant life by the sea, but a loneliness borne of the inability to share her joy."
I immediately thought to myself that this really explains why many vegans feel lonely or isolated. Amongst many of the complex emotions that the notion of veganism brings out (sadness, horror, anger, peace), joy is definitely one of them, but many people would never suspect it. To the omni or the vegetarian, veganism seems like a hardship; it is a life of deprivation rather than abundance and fulfillment, of bitterness and sorrow rather than joy and serenity.
But vegans know otherwise. If you speak with a vegan (although I'm sure there are the odd exceptions as there is with any generalization), they will most certainly tell you that going vegan was one of the best decisions of their lives. They are extremely happy not to participate in what they consider to be horrendous practices of cruelty to other beings, they feel peace at mealtimes and going about their daily lives, and they are happy to have awoken to a new abundance of foods and flavors. This isn't to say that we don't feel sad or angry when we think about the realities of factory farming or other cruel enterprises, or that we don't sometimes get pessimistic about change for the future. Nevertheless, most vegans are extremely happy to be vegan, and want to share this experience.
Many times, we try to convey this sense of joy to others, but they just don't understand. Even if they can see our happiness at our decision, they can't participate in it because they have no sense as to how we can feel this way. Thus we get questions like "but don't you miss meat/milk/cheese?" No, not in the least. "But I want to enjoy life and eat whatever I want." But I do eat whatever I want and I do enjoy life - I just don't want to eat meat or dairy or eggs. Nothing had to suffer for my meal and that makes me happy. It is refreshing to me to talk to other vegans since I do not feel so alone in my joy for these things. Now we just need other people to understand this side of veganism so we aren't dismissed as the weirdo who has gone too far. I think simple things like sharing good vegan food and responding positively to queries about our veganism (when possible) can help.
Btw, Dreaming in Cuban is an excellent novel and I highly recommend it if you haven't read it before.
If there’s one thing that North American vegans love, it sure is Whole Foods Markets. This health chain stocks all kinds of vegan goodies, and many vegans that I know often commune with the Whole Foods Mother Ship a few times a week. Hushed, reverent tones are used to describe the goodies that one can find there, and if you ask most vegans, Whole Foods is, indeed, A Very Good Thing.
Well, I’m not most vegans.
Though I understand the convenience of a mega-chain stocking vegan foods of all kinds, I have some real issues with the public statements of the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey. In an interview with Animal Voices radio, John Mackey describes company initiatives in fundraising for animal welfare causes. Seems big-hearted, right? Well, maybe only if you’re willing to cut Whole Foods the benefit of the doubt. I’m not. And I’m not willing to because Whole Foods has every interest in selling meat, eggs, and dairy. If they can spend some money on making consumers feel better about the way that their meat and dairy is treated, they can sell more of it. What’s insidious about this to me is that the average consumer at a Whole Foods is probably even more attuned to food than the average supermarket consumer. The average Whole Foods customer is probably an easier person to talk to about the exploitation and problems of the meat industry. But if they think that their meat is coming from some really nice, sunny farm where the animals are treated well, then they’re going to be less likely to consider going vegan because they think that the animal “died happy” (as if that’s even possible). These welfarist measures don’t attack the root of the problem, and if anything, they continue the horrid and rampant exploitation of animals that is the norm. The only difference is that they make people with a conscience feel better about eating animals. To me, even if the slaves are treated well, it is still slavery. What I don’t get is why we’d even buy any of this for anything more than simple marketing designed to help Whole Foods sell more meat.
I’ve heard Mackey respond that Whole Foods needs to sell meat, dairy, and eggs to stay in business, as if this justifies the sale of these items (and to many vegans, it apparently does, satiated as they are by an abundance of Tofutti Cuties, fake cheese, and dark chocolate). To me, this sounds like the argument of a Southern plantation owner prior to the end of slavery arguing that cotton production is just plain too expensive without slaves. What is this except profiting from exploitation? If your business depends upon the exploitation of animals for continued profitability, how is this even remotely ‘vegan?’ And if your business makes people feel better about animal exploitation, I think you’re in the wrong business.
If a passable argument for any business is that it depends on animal exploitation to remain profitable, then we might as well give up right now on fighting animal agriculture of any kind, because they can marshall the same argument to their cause (perhaps even more convincingly). Animal agriculture is a huge industry, and one that couldn’t remain profitable without the exploitation of animals. Most of us see this as our #1 enemy. Yet, are we willing to cut Mackey some slack because he’s a vegan and because he keeps us flush in bourgeois organic pasta, SoyDream, and Follow Your Heart “cheese?”
MakingA Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights explores the intersections between human and animal oppressions and their relation to the exploitative dynamics of capitalism. Combining nuts and bolts Marxist political economy, a pluralistic anarchist critique, as well as a searing assessment of the animal rights movement, Bob Torres challenges conventional anti-capitalist thinking and convincingly advocates for the abolition of animals in industry — and on the dinner plate.
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we don't eat nothin' that farts. or anything with a face. or anything from anything that farts or has a face. Basically, vegans avoid animal products to the greatest extent possible, with the overall goal of abolishing animal exploitation. No eggs, meat, dairy, honey, wool, leather, etc. This sounds onerous, but trust us, it isn't. Why kill to eat when you don't have to?
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