Beyond Vegetarianism: Animal Rights

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Beyond Vegetarianism: Animal Rights

I am an animal rights advocate, but I eat meat. I recognize and abhor the cruelty and injustice done to animals in factory settings and elsewhere on massive, corporate-owned “farms.” We should be moved by these injustices in the same way we would have empathy for our dogs, cats or even goldfish. There is no difference with farm animals.

The tendency, however, is to choose vegetarianism or veganism in gut reaction to the brutalities we hear about the conditions animals face. But mere lifestyle changes are nowhere near sufficient for the kind of change that is needed. Changing one’s diet is a minuscule and surface response to the deep systemic problem of our agriculture industry. There has been a counter-revolution in the treatment of animals and the planet, and it takes equal measure in the opposite direction to create real change. I agree with Gar Lipow, a reputable environmental activist, who wrote, “After all, we did not get into this mess via individual consumer choice, and we won’t get out of it that way either.” The problem, as Lipow recognizes, is not a result of individual choices; it is the result of a system of food production, an entire industry that favors animal cruelty and destruction of the environment for sake of ease, efficiency and profit. He is right to say consumer choice will not solve this problem, as it does nothing to castigate the system that has fostered such injustices.

A good parallel to this problem of treating a political issue as a matter of individual consumer choice is the treatment of the issue of slavery in the 19th century. There was a movement at this time by abolitionists to create utopian communes that would produce their own cotton and avoid any slave-made products to combat the injustices of slavery. They fought injustice by abstaining from the slave-produced commodity market. On the other side of this fight were Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, both of whom wore slave-made clothing, but who made large and well-known strides to abolish slavery, actually freeing slaves and vehemently promoting the abolitionist cause through speaking and writing, respectively. Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass are well-known for a reason: they treated a deep systemic political issue through activism and promoting awareness, not individual consumer choices.

The political consciousness of the issue and the spread of this political consciousness far outstrips vegetarianism in its ability to rectify this systemic problem. If we could create a consciousness coupled with activism that demanded a) regulations be passed to stop corporate abuse of land and animals and b) greater subsidies for small, local, organic and ethical farming to make them sustainable and desirable, we could make real strides towards solving this problem. One need not stop eating meat to achieve this. We should be able to eat meat that is not the product of cruelty, and we should not allow unethical corporations to deprive us of meat because of their amoral activity. Rather, we should fight these corporations, keeping in mind a strong critique of the neoliberal capitalist system that favors profits and efficiency over sentient beings, ethical action and our very planet.

For those who wish to consume efficiently and frugally outside of this abomination, there are few to no options. People who want to eat meat that has not been the product of cruelty must spend more money and leisure time to do so. In other words, it is an option reserved only for the conscious upper classes, like college students. It is far too shallow a solution to change one’s own diet. The problem will continue to exist. We must create a movement that excoriates the systemic basis of this problem, one that lies deep in our neoliberal economic model.

Main source for quotation and info: socialistworker.org

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