In the interests of full-disclosure, I never took a business class in university. I did, however, wash windows over some of my summers as a teenager with my father (Gene) and a friend of his (Ron) for street-level businesses in Chicago as a "family business": Casey Brother's Window Washing. Now, they were neither brothers, nor were they Caseys. But they could both wash windows and that's what really matters in a window washing businesses. I'm sure you can imagine that lots and lots of people needed their windows washed in Chicago. Early mornings spent washing the windows of coffee shops and greasy spoons were my primer on political economy. Demand drives supply, and while many business owners are somewhat economical with the truth, they all respond to demand or they go out of business.
When I write that it is 1,000 times more powerful, that's not an exact calculation (so, don't quote my math). But the basic economic truth remains: if advocates waste time getting one employee of one agribusiness to quit (in an industry of billions and billions), or even one small business to close, demand would hire another employee, demand would open up another business, demand would move to another neighbourhood or to the Internet and open up a business there. Demand would just keep going. It's actually more probable that that demand would just be subsumed by a larger, better organized and more powerful agribusiness that offers better economies of scale, lower prices for customers perhaps, better margins for advertising dollars perhaps, or perhaps both. And yet, some advocates tell me this is a good use of time.
Furthermore, some of the advocates I've met in the last few years in particular have criticized veganism as unnecessary or not meaningful, and often this springs from a misconception of what veganism is. Many advocates, even militant ones, don't even necessarily mention the fact that they're vegan. Frankly, I think that's a shame. Personally, I'm not embarrassed for people to know that I am vegan, nor do I particularly care if anyone is offended by my making that plain. Other advocates have, mistakenly, suggested that veganism is an economic boycott to hurt agribusiness financially or a way to reduce suffering, and both of these views misunderstand that veganism is neither of these things although it may often have these affects.
Being quiet about our veganism while we praise apologists is not radicalism, and neither is wearing our veganism like a Che Guevara t-shirt while we threaten someone's mother in front of press cameras. Fred Hampton, Sr's legacy, for example, was not defined by confrontations and violence on his part or by bad faith and half-commitment to change through meaningless reforms. It was defined by the education he gave others, the leadership and encouragement he provided as a Black Panther and as a human being, and the breakfast program he started for children and their families. He didn't spend his time trying to get the local clerk down at the local branch of the Chicago police department to quit by standing outside his house shouting nonsense. He was too busy working. His legacy remains powerful, at least in Chicago, because of the positive work he convinced others to undertake. People who don't understand that don't just misunderstand militancy; they misunderstand work and change.
First and foremost, as Gary Francione reminds us, veganism is about the rights of nonhuman animals not to be used as property and our taking that right seriously. Feminists don't avoid raping people as an economic boycott, and anti-racists don't avoid lynching people in order to reduce suffering. They do these things because they are the right things to do. They do these things because to do the wrong thing is inimical to them. Veganism is also, and remember this phrase because it should guide all of our actions, the right thing to do if we feel even the tiniest bit of solidarity for the cow, the pig, the goat, the horse, the elephant or the seeing eye dog forced into slavery. The very least we can do is say "no" to that slavery consistently with both with our words and our works by adopting veganism; how we spend our dollars are only a fragment of the consideration we owe them.
Vegan education is not a matter of telling people what not to buy. It is a matter of telling people that slavery is wrong. That we should take it seriously, that we should understand it, and that we should struggle against it in ways that are meaningful. It is a matter of explaining to them that, just like us, all nonhuman animals want to live their lives, deserve to live their lives without our interference. It is a matter of explaining that the simplest, most basic, the easiest thing they can do is avoid animal use (whether they buy it or not) as an act of clear and unequivocal solidarity with the oppressed.
Too many advocates still confuse talking about burning the plantation with undoing the shackles. They're still confusing helping the oppressed with getting some petty revenge against 'the oppressor'. Animal adoption, educating others about veganism, writing a play about nonhuman animals and what we owe them, just educating others factually about nonhuman animals, teaching a cooking class and creating vegan alternatives to the status quo are other steps, and powerful ones. I'm not telling anyone to stop working. I'm says let's push on the weight-bearing walls of nonhuman animal slavery rather that fussing over its wallpaper.
Of course, veganism is the most important step, but that doesn't mean that that's the only thing that anyone should do. It's just the first step, and as the first step, it's the most important. But we also need advocates who can educate, advocates who can bake, advocates who can talk, advocates who can cook, advocates who can build, advocates who can write books, advocates who can teach, advocates who can buy, advocates who can sell, advocates who can do TNR, advocates who can start sanctuaries, advocates who can do the math better than I can, advocates who can lead, advocates who can draw, advocates who can give speeches, sweep floors, walk dogs, and also advocates who can organize. But, in short, we need advocates who can work and not just talk trash, market their own books or make fists in their pockets.
Getting back to topic, my point remains: opening an abolitionist vegan business would be 1,000 times more powerful than closing a nonvegan one. Why is that? To be clear, I don't mean vegans should go out and start another Sprawlmart. I'm not proposing that we replace Capital with a vegan version, that we profit off of the needs of regular people and divert that cash to our retirement funds. Most of all, I'm not proposing that we should sell indulgences the way that regulationist groups do. But the fact is, people have to eat, and it would be better for a vegan co-op that respects the rights of its employees and nonhuman animals to sell us our produce than an apolitical megastore to do so.
I also mean that veganism is not an economic boycott. It's a refusal to collaborate, insofar as we can, with the systemic harm of nonhuman animals, but also a commitment to lay the groundwork for change. It's not a matter of just tearing down the old house; it's a matter of building the new one. Lopping off one head of that chimera so that another will grow back or another will grow more powerful redefines waste of time. But taking economic power into our own hands, building the economic infrastructure required to lay the groundwork for social transformation, making vegan alternatives readily available to others, now that's something serious. We can't buy our way to revolution, but rearranging our social relations in the present, even within the limited choices of the present, is not merely an economic activity, it is a socially transformative one.
One of the most powerful things any advocate opposed to slavery can do is to remind people that alternatives are right next door or down the street. If cotton was the economic engine of human slavery in the American South, then getting one overseer to quit would have been ridiculous. But opening up a linen co-op right next to the local plantation, giving away free linen shirts right next to the plantation, reminding people that what happens on that plantation is morally wrong and that there are alternatives to what happens on that plantation, right next to the plantation, would have been doing something 1,000 times more powerful than just getting one overseer to quit or even burning the whole plantation down.
In my experience, what stops many people from going vegan, once they understand what veganism asks them to do (and many of them are miseducated about what veganism is) are practical questions. They don't know where to buy deodorant. They feel they need leather shoes for work. They're not sure how to cook vegetables or they don't like the taste of tofu. They either can't see why they should or how they could go the extra half an inch. How much more powerful would it be for one vegan to help all of those people keep moving than for a bunch of "vegans" to convince one security guard in one science lab to quit? I'm willing to ballpark it at 1,000 times more powerful, but that's probably an understatement.
If you want to undo your own shackles and help start the work of undoing the shackles of others, you should go vegan today. If you're already vegan, and you want to work for abolition, put down the rhetoric of molotov cocktails. Pick up some real skills that will help our community build the economic independence that it requires to mount a serious challenge to the existing ways things are getting done and to help nonhuman animals get free.
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