Radical anticapitalism and veganism: the problem is still demand

There's been a strange rumour floating around on the American left since the 1990s that smashing GAP windows from Boston to Buenos Aires is seriously anticapitalist activity. No political economist takes this kind of stuff seriously (not even Hardt and Negri). Working people don't see their struggle reflected in this kind of activity in my experience, and so, as an anticapitalist advocate, I tend to think little of it. Instead, it seems to be the waking fantasy of a professional class of jet set activists.

Radical anticapitalism is not about ending the supply of commodities; it is a matter of creating the public demand for socialism. After all, Lenin didn't try to win the public with "OMG SMITE THE CZAR!!1", he won the public with "Bread, peace and land!" Whether anyone agrees with Leninism or not, he was a master of propaganda and he knew very well that he was addressing an issue of demand.

But there's an equally strange claim going around in the vegan community these days that striking fear into the hearts of agribusiness CEOs is going to do something to change the material drivers behind animal use as a phenomenon of Capital. This is misguided, for a lot of reasons, and in this blog, I'm going to address only some of them. But, in short, abolition and animal rights are not a matter of attacking suppliers or supply. Abolition is a matter of creating the public demand for an end to the property status of nonhuman animals, and the abolitionist animal rights position, more generally, is about rearranging social relations in such a way that we are not using others as though they were our property.

But let's clear some intellectual clutter first. The prospect that frightening a few CEOs is anticapitalist and will solve the problem posed by the institutionalized slavery of nonhuman animals required by the widespread demand for animal products seriously misapprehends both anticapitalist work and the economic drivers behind the property status of nonhuman animals.

First, leaving aside the moral objections, terrorizing CEOs by trying to twiddle their bottom lines with economic sabotage, personal threats, etc., is not a meaningful anticapitalist activity, I'm sure the CEO of SONY is troubled by the economic losses that Nintendo is inflicting on one of his many business lines, but that doesn't make the CEO of Nintendo an anticapitalist. As anticapitalists, we should never confuse the struggle against a particular business, the struggle between businesses or even the struggle against a whole industry with the struggle against Capital. Targeting a particular industry (e.g., agribusinesses) is not an anti-Capital activity in and of itself, any more than protesting fur is the same as promoting veganism.

Furthermore, as a general matter, many CEOs do well whether their business does poorly or not. There are exceptions (e.g. high technology startups). But generally, CEOs continue to profit whether a company is successful or not, and whether the CEO or the whole company is unsuccessful, it still has no affect on demand. Loss of profits, threats of violence or even actual violence have done almost nothing to curb organized crime businesses that respond to illicit demand. Finally, economic losses, even if they could be inflicted, would just be passed onto regular working people in the form of higher prices or in the form of lost jobs. I'm surprised I have to write this, but hurting the interests of the working classes should never be so high on any anticapitalists to-do list.

Second, terrorizing CEOs is also not a meaningful activity to help nonhuman animals. Agribusiness, as an industry, tends to be driven by economic conglomerates with deep pockets and consider public backing. Of course, there are lots of small businesses: butcher shops, furriers, etc. But let's not mistake putting the corner store out of business with putting an industry out of business.

Furthermore, even putting a small supplier out of business, if it's possible, will barely put a scratch on the industry as a whole. Instead, is likely to consolidate demand with larger, more successful suppliers. As a general matter, there's no value to nonhuman animals for advocates to thin the field of suppliers to only the most successful. Further, many of these larger businesses already receive significant government subsidies in one way or another. Profit margins are thin, but there is already a very powerful agrico-industrial complex at work in most post-industrial countries, as well as a complex global supply chain. The idea that government would not step in if the industry were in danger to satisfy public demand is very far removed from reality.

But even if that were not the case, convincing one employee to quit his or her job only means that another person will take his or her place. Close one business, demand will just be met by another. Close down an entire industry in one country, and demand will just be met somewhere else. Reducing demand by attacking supply is just not a game that animal advocates could possibly hope to win in a global economy, and it will only alienate the public. Finally, there's almost always someone who will do something if there's enough money on the table. In short, where there is demand, there will always be supply, and that's part of the reason that human slavery continues to this day.

So, with that cleared up, can we finally talk about addressing demand?

But what about �created demand�? is often the standard reply, and this reflects yet another misunderstanding of the relationship between economics and morality. Although it may be a matter of intellectual curiosity for us, it does not matter substantially how that demand is created to our work. There's a lot of interesting social science around why people buy, whether they are social buyers (e.g., with running shoes) or whether they are rational buyers (e.g., energy efficient appliances), whether the nature of the goods makes any difference, and so on. But we're still dealing with a matter of demand.

In fact, it's likely that the only demands that aren't "created" either through socialization, advertising or both, would be for oxygen and breast milk. The idea that luxury and ordinary goods are meaningfully distinguishable in terms of our activism is also mostly misguided. The demand for a fetish commodity (e.g., a $2,000 personal espresso machine) or a regular commodity (a shot of espresso) is still a general matter of a demand for espresso. Attacking suppliers of high end espresso machines will have no meaningful effect on the demand for espresso at large. But more important, attacking those suppliers cannot be culturally understood as meaningful in an society where the demand for espresso is perceived to be utterly normal.

Advertising may shape demand for particular brands, or encourage someone to spend more on the fur coat than on wool, or more on calf leather than regular, more for "humane" meat. However, the demand for animal products and labor goes back thousands and thousands of years, is cross-cultural, and has much more powerful social influences and economic drivers than simply "advertising". In short, Capital's exploitation of nonhuman animals is a lot more complicated than "I saw a commercial and now I want a burger!" Trying to reduce the cultural complexities involved with animal use to a matter of advertising misunderstands both economic and social theory.

But, even if we believed that it was "just a matter of advertising", the problem would still be one of demand. If it's a twitter link, an infomercial, a dream, a bus ad someone's word of mouth recommendation, demand is still demand. The problem it poses is still a matter of curbing the demand involved, and as important, creating demands for alternatives through our own education efforts. Reduced advertising for illicit drugs, alcohol and cigarettes haven't had all that much of an effect on the sales of those products. But even if we pose the problem as a matter of eliminating advertising, we would still have to create a mass public movement to eliminate or curb that advertising, and that strikes me as a beyond odd thing to do when we might as well cut to the chase and create a mass public movement to eliminate the demand instead.

In short, a problem of demand always has been, is now and always will be a problem of demand. The solution will always be a matter of addressing demand by creating mass movements that demand something else.

And the best way to address a problem of demand is not to attack their suppliers, but to convince them that their demand is wrong and that they should demand something else instead. In fact, all meaningful social justice movements rely on mass movement to bring about social change. The first and most important task in all mass movement building is education. The most meaningful anti-capitalist activity for human animals is socialist education. The most meaningful anti-capitalist activity for nonhuman animals is vegan education. But if you're anti-capitalist and vegan, there's good news. These don't even have to be separate activities.

Regardless, wage slavery is meaningfully different from chattel slavery insofar as, even within Capital, rights-holders (you and me!) can (at some times at least) use the law meaningfully in defense of our interests. Chattel property (e.g., nonhuman animals) never can, and that's why, as Francione argues, welfare reforms are meaningless to nonhuman animals. However, Francione's views go further than ending the property status of nonhuman animals.

Having written that, however, Capital does organize all of us as instruments for the accumulation of capital for its own sake. That is, you, me, the cow, the pig, the chicken, the seeing eye dog, are all tools for a system that sees us primarily as tools to create value. The difference between me and the pig is that her entire life is a matter of market demand, whereas only my labor is. Capital acts in different ways to limit my personhood, but forcing me to sell my labor is both the most obvious and the most constraining.

But I still get to go home at night and type blog posts, drink coffee, read a book and look out my window. The pig will live a life entirely in slavery until she is used up and murdered for someone's bacon. That's poses us with a very important moral and tactical difference, even if the problem is fostered by similar social forces. Other human beings do not have the luxuries that I may, of course, and there are many obvious cases where human beings are chattel property even if they have legal rights on paper (and I have blogged about this previously). But abolitionists are opposed to all animal use, including human animal use. More important, whether it's my wage slavery, the chattel slavery of a child in Liberia forced to product chocolate, a chicken on a farm, a lion at the zoo, etc., these all remain phenomena that involve demand. Attacking supply won't have any meaningful affect so long as demand remains powerful.

Finally, we do not need to end Capital to end the legal property status of nonhuman animals anymore than the United States needed to end Capital in order to free African Americans after the Civil War. As an anticapitalist, naturally, I believe that we should also end Capital, but as Gary Francione argues, that's very different from posing these things as dependent on one another. Some have complained that this is not anticapitalist enough or somehow 'abstract'. First, ending the property status of nonhuman animals is not the sum of Francione's thought. Second, Francione's proposal that all animals have a right not to be used as property is radically anti-Capital. I don't know how this could be more concrete: all animals (human and non), have a right not to be used as property, as our resources, our instruments or our tools. It proposes not only an immediate end to all chattel slavery, but also a rearrangement of social relations in a world-historical way the scope of which is unmatched in human history. And we each have an immediate duty to act on those rights insofar as we can today, whether the revolution comes tomorrow or in 1,000 years.

That's radicalism.

If you want to make a difference to slavery (whether human or non, wage or chattel slavery), I can tell you, concretely, to put away the balaclava, the brick and the bolt cutters, and pick up the pamphlets, the presentations and don't be afraid to crack a book. Changing the world is a matter of education and you don't need a PhD in political economy to start. But if you want to learn more about theory, then read either of Francione's excellent works: Animals, Property and the Law or Rain Without Thunder, or Bob Torres' Making a Killing. These books can help you to better understand how the demand for animal products reflects an intersection of enculturated speciesism as well as economic profitability.

Most of all, though, if you're not vegan, take the rights of nonhuman animals seriously and go vegan today!