After reading some discussion on lemmygrad about veganism, I felt the need to share my thoughts in a separate thread, as comments weren’t appropriate for the wall of text I’m about to throw.
Before we start, very important precision. This is not about environmental veganism, only about animal-liberation veganism. Consuming less animal products will be a lifestyle change we must anticipate to limit environmental destruction. This is about the moral philosophy of veganism and its contradictions with materialism.
Intro
Veganism is often rationalised under the form of a syllogism : it is immortal to kill and exploit humans, and non-human animals are equal to humans, therefore, it is immoral to kill and exploit non-human animals.
Now, I must say, if one is to contest the validity of this syllogism as a basis for veganism I encourage them to provide one since it could drastically change my point of view.
Like many syllogisms, there is appeal and validity to it until you question the premises. Let’s review them under a materialistic lens.
Morality and materialism
The first premise is that it is immortal to kill and exploit humans. As leftists, we tend to wholeheartedly agree with such a statement, as it encapsulates our ambitions and dreams, however this cannot be pursued for a political manifest beyond utopian wishful thinking. Historically, killing has been justified as a high moral act whenever the one being killed was deemed worthy of death. The reason it is generally considered immoral to interrupt one’s life is because humans simply have to collaborate to survive, therefore every society has developed a social construct that allows us to live as a social productive species. But whenever a war enemy, criminal, or dissident person is being killed under certain circumstances, the killing becomes justified, morally right.
As materialists, we don’t base our interpretation of morality on a notion of some metaphysical, reality-transcending rule, and even less in relation to an afterlife. Morality is a human construct that evolves with material conditions. In that case, the relationship of human morality with non-human animals becomes more complicated than it seems. Humans do have empathy for other species but are also able to consume their flesh and products, a contradiction that has defined the construction of morality around non-human animals through history. This explains why it seems desirable for a lot of people to stop unnecessary animal cruelty while still wanting to consume their flesh, there is an act of balancing between empathy and appetite.
Equality of species and violence
Now you might have noticed that this framework is definitely human-centric. That brings us to the second premise, which is the equality of all species. By all means, it is absolutely outdated to maintain the idea of “human superiority” on all non-human species in the current times. As materialists, we should realise that humans evolved at the same time as other species, are dependent on the ecosystem, and that there is no fundamental variable that we have to consider as a criteria for ranking in an abstract “order of things”.
That said, the equality of all species doesn’t automatically mean the disappearance of inter-species violence. Firstly, we cannot stop unnecessary violence between fellow living beings that don’t share our means of communication (unless we exerce physical control over them, but that’s even worse). Secondly, there is an assumption that only humans possess the ability to choose to follow a vegan diet, which is extremely strange considering that it makes humans the only specie to have the capacity to be moral. Either non-human animals are excused for their chauvinistic violence against other species because they are seen as too limited, determined by their instinct, but it makes humans actually morally superior to other species. Or the animals must be held accountable for inter-species violence, which no vegan upholds, thankfully. Last option would be to consider that inter-species violence is part of life, which I agree with and think is the materialistic approach, but that means there is no reason to adopt a vegan diet.
Conclusion
So what does that let us with? Morality being a social construct with a material use in a human society, and humans being fundamentally empathetic, it is completely understandable that society will be progressing towards diminishing meat consumption to allow the minimization of animal suffering. But the exploitation of animals as means of food production doesn’t have a materialistic reason to go away (unless we’re talking about climate change, of course). The inter-species violence of humans against cattle and prey is part of nature, because we simply are a productive omnivorous specie just like any other.
This is mostly why I would discourage pushing people to abandon all animal products in the name of ethics. What should be encouraged is acceptance of every specific diet, be it religious diets, or animal-liberation diets. Strict vegetarianism must be a choice of heart that is based on profound empathy, not a superior moral choice or, worse, a moral imperative.
Veganism is often rationalised under the form of a syllogism : it is immortal to kill and exploit humans, and non-human animals are equal to humans, therefore, it is immoral to kill and exploit non-human animals.
I would like to argue that point because I’m having a problem with it. I don’t think “equal” is the adequate term here, it’s very broad and vague. Some people are tall, some are short. Some are strong, some are weak. Not every human is equal, so of course not every animal is equal. It may be right to say that they are, but it’s necessary to precise in what way. Maybe “equal in their ability to feel” would be appropriate.
Secondly, the syllogism you present assumes that the moral consideration extended to animals should directly correlate with the treatment of humans. However, many vegans, including myself, base our views not on comparison with human treatment but on the intrinsic value of animal lives. We believe that exploiting animals is wrong primarily because they are sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain, sadness, fear, and even depression. Your syllogism is focused on the physical form of the individuals, but that’s not what we think about.
An important point that we vegans advocate for is not justifying exploitation based on physical attributes. We believe it’s not acceptable to exploit someone because their skin is dark, or because they have female genitalia, or because they have hooves. The value of an individual extends beyond mere physical characteristics. Our moral perspective posits that inflicting intentional harm on sentient beings purely for our pleasure is ethically wrong. If a chair were sentient, hypothetically, it would deserve similar considerations.
So, if you want to use a syllogism, the correct one would be as follow: It is immoral to cause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings; humans and non-human animals are sentient beings; therefore, it is immoral to cause harm to and exploit both human and non-human animals.
The inter-species violence of humans against cattle and prey is part of nature, because we simply are a productive omnivorous specie just like any other.
I understand your point, but I don’t think an appeal to nature is a very productive type of argument. Our whole existence revolves around surpassing nature, that’s why we plant crops, harvest them with motorized tools, live in brick houses, etc… There is a reason the definition of natural is “as found in nature and not involving anything made or done by people”.
Moreover, many societal rules explicitly contradict what might be considered “natural” behavior. For instance, despite murder and rape occurring in the animal kingdom, human societies have made such actions illegal. Hence, relying on what’s “natural” as a guidepost for morality doesn’t seem consistent with the progression of our civilizations.
I think that as leftists, we should strive to abolish any kind of ideology that preaches the unjust discrimination and exploitation of others based on their physical attributes, whether it be speciesism, carnism, racism, sexism, ableism, and so on…
While I don’t agree fully with the original post, and especially with how it’s worded around what is “natural” I don’t agree with your line of argument here.
Not every human is equal
When we say everyone is equal, we mean that everyone should enjoy equal rights and responsibilities, not that everyone is identical. Marxism definitely recognizes and takes into account that every individual person is different.
intrinsic value of animal lives
What is the intrinsic value of any life? All of these concepts are socially and historically constructed and not absolute.
Your syllogism is focused on the physical form of the individuals, but that’s not what we think about.
The ability to feel or think is directly connected to and stems from the physical form. Consciousness is a part of our material reality and our physical bodies, our thoughts and feelings are not separate from it. We know, and are still learning, what and how different other species feel or think, but our human societies, while we are a product of nature, have reached a more complex level of social and historical relations in which we must operate in order to address these issues. We do place humans above other species, for better or worse, and that is not a relation that can change easily, if at all.
Our moral perspective posits that inflicting intentional harm on sentient beings purely for our pleasure is ethically wrong.
It is immoral to cause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings
The point is to move away from a moral argument, just how our critique of capitalism and similar systems is not primarily a moral one. Morality is, again, socially and historically constructed. People laughed and cheered at public executions in Europe in the 19th century. I do agree that the reduction of meat consumption in the west would be a good thing, and it’s good for any individual that is able to make that choice and does so, but a moral argument fails where a Marxist one is much stronger. We should strive to drastically change the west’s meat industry but that will not happen by individual choices made by consumers. Suggesting that people eating meat is a moral failing of the individual will not lead to anything. Systemic change is necessary which we will probably not see under capitalism, but the argument to be made for radical changes to our meat industry is much stronger when it comes from an environmental position, or a more general position of worker exploitation in the meat industry - an argument which can be applied universally without condemning any specific cultures or societies which consume and use animal products sustainably, and not a moral one which cannot be universalized. The only way widespread changes in human diet occur, and subsequently changes in our relations to these animals, is through changes to the mode of production in our meat industry. We know that any such radical changes do not come about from individual consumer action, but from organized class struggle and ultimately changes on the side of production.
I think that as leftists, we should strive to abolish any kind of ideology that preaches the unjust discrimination and exploitation of others based on their physical attributes, whether it be speciesism, carnism, racism, sexism, ableism, and so on…
Equating racism, sexism, ableism, etc. with human treatment of animals is quite chauvinistic and fails to take into account the material basis for any of these phenomena. Just preaching that these things are wrong doesn’t do anything. What can help is proper education which includes an analysis of the material conditions that brought about these phenomena and ultimately no real change can happen in these areas until the material conditions which cause them are changed.
When we say everyone is equal, we mean that everyone should enjoy equal rights and responsibilities, not that everyone is identical. Marxism definitely recognizes and takes into account that every individual person is different.
Thank you for the clarification, english isn’t my first language.
If that’s the case, then my point the he has the wrong syllogism still stands as vegans do not think that humans and non-human animals are equal in that definition. (Nobody thinks hens should have the right to vote for example)
The ability to feel or think is directly connected to and stems from the physical form
Yes it is, of course. My point was that it doesn’t matter to the reason we are against their exploitation. We aren’t against it because they are fuzzy and cute, but because they are sentient, they suffer and grieve the loss of their peers. Yes they can feel those because they have a central nervous system basically identical to ours with a few minute differences, but if they were sentient for any other reasons, we would still be against their exploitation.
Consciousness is a part of our material reality and our physical bodies
Well, that’s debatable but it’s not the subject here. Consciousness being a part of material reality is more of a belief than a fact, and there is a lot of research done by assuming that consciousness is fundamental, and material reality exists within it. You can look up the work of Donald Hoffman for example, it’s very interesting.
Currently we do not know what’s the nature of consciousness and reality, but whatever the answer is I think it’s totally irrelevant to the way we live and it’s just mental masturbation. At the end of the day we evolve in a material manifestation of the universe and that’s what we should focus on.
We do place humans above other species, for better or worse, and that is not a relation that can change easily, if at all.
I realize that, just the same way we placed white men above women and black people for a very long time. I don’t believe any of those assumptions about the value of an individual are helpful to today’s society, and also I don’t think that even if we decided that a group of individuals was inferior based on arbitrary criterias, it would be a good justification for making them suffer for our pleasure.
The point is to move away from a moral argument
The point of OP’s post was to question the morality of veganism. That’s why I’m addressing his syllogism in that way.
However, even though I agree that the material arguments to abolish animal exploitation are much stronger from a rational point of view, let’s not forget that we humans are emotional creatures first, and so emotions have a much stronger potential to provoke us to review our ideas and actions. It’s no coincidence if every propaganda (even Marxist one) relies on emotional and not rational appeal.
Also, in a communist society where people will undoubtedly be more slanted towards solidarity, cooperation, and compassion, the number of people who will be concerned for moral reasons by the exploitation of animals will grow exponentially, creating tensions and infighting. This will need to be addressed, and the most likely way it will be done is by abolishing it since there is no material reason to support it.
Equating racism, sexism, ableism, etc. with human treatment of animals is quite chauvinistic and fails to take into account the material basis for any of these phenomena.
Well, calling that chauvinistic is needlessly aggressive, especially in the abscence of any kind of argumentation. But it would be interesting if you could expand on that, and explain why you feel that way if you have time.
If that’s the case, then my point the he has the wrong syllogism still stands
I’m not arguing that the OP’s syllogism is perfectly constructed, I’m arguing against your critique of it because I don’t think it’s valid either.
Well, that’s debatable but it’s not the subject here. Consciousness being a part of material reality is more of a belief than a fact
This is plain Idealism, and it’s something that’s demonstrably, scientifically false. We as Marxists are dialectical materialist and reject Idealist interpretations of reality. That is the broader problem in your comment, which probably I should have stated directly in my first reply. Your base assumptions here lead you to argue from and for an idealist position which is not compatible with Marxism, and in many cases in general goes counter to reality.
whatever the answer is I think it’s totally irrelevant to the way we live and it’s just mental masturbation
This is also false. The philosophy we take as the basis of our entire worldview has large effects on how we live our lives, especially with regard to political theory and practice. This is the whole point of Marxism and the scientific communist movement. It’s the basis on which Marxism is uniquely differentiated from other political ideologies like Liberalism or Anarchism, and it’s the reason for it’s wide success both in theory and practice.
just the same way we placed white men above women and black people for a very long time
The reasons we did, and still do, these things are material and primarily stem from our material conditions in various historical situations. The reasons these are improving are because the oppressed classes are gaining ground through class struggle. The material reality is changing which is affecting the way our ideology changes, not the other way around. Societies don’t become less racist or sexist because they just decide it’s morally wrong, changes in the material conditions improve the social and economic standing of these groups which in turn enables the societal changes in what’s considered moral. This is achieved by the political struggle of these and related groups.
let’s not forget that we humans are emotional creatures first It’s no coincidence if every propaganda (even Marxist one) relies on emotional and not rational appeal
I would not agree that we are emotional creatures first, as that view disregards the material basis of our emotions. Our emotions are not disconnected from our material reality and we are not as irrational as you suppose. We are complex social beings and a multiplicity of factors go into forming our ideologies, however, the material conditions play a large and primary role, as is taught by Marxist theory, and demonstrated in Marxist practice. People do come to Marxism for moral reasons, but successful practice which results in long term material gain for the oppressed classes comes from a dialectical materialist understanding and analysis of concrete historical situations. The basis and substance of our movements is material, we don’t preach morality and focus on choices of individuals. Marxist propaganda, even if it incorporates emotional appeals, is still grounded in material analysis and is expressed as such.
the number of people who will be concerned for moral reasons by the exploitation of animals will grow exponentially
You cannot know what will happen in the future, especially once a communist society is achieved. In any case, this is not an argument that can affect our current reality.
since there is no material reason to support it
This is also patently not true, people that eat meat benefit from eating it, similarly how even the poor proletarians in the West still do benefit from the imperialism conducted by their countries. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, especially environmentally, our current modes of animal farming are unsustainable and destructive and need to be radically changed, but there are reasons that most people today still eat meat. No real change will come about from preaching to consumers about their individual choices, especially in the current system. We do benefit from exploiting animals as we receive food and other products fairly cheaply and abundantly, not to mention the economic benefits of the bourgeoisie which owns the meat industry. To effectively challenge and change this, we should focus on the production side with a concrete materialist analysis, and not form our strategy around the moral condemnation or praise of individual consumer choices. There is nothing wrong with being vegan for moral reasons, but it alone doesn’t inform practice and offer concrete practical solution to the problem of capitalist animal industry.
Nowadays, for example, we largely condemn antisemitism and have laws in place against it, however that wasn’t the case throughout even much of the 20th century. The USSR, at the time of its foundation, was the first country to effectively challenge antisemitism and its practices which were common throughout Europe at the time. Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders made many speeches condemning it and educating the population, in addition with enacting laws against it. Their arguments were focused on the material basis of antisemitism, its roots and effects. The change in attitude in large sections of the entire Western population, not just that of the USSR, was ultimately the result of concrete policies and laws, and the spread of education to counter the material realities of antisemitism which was primarily done in the socialist world, but spread to the capitalist West in certain ways. Similar things happened with many other social aspects we now take for granted. With the current decline of material conditions in the West we see a resurgence of antisemitism, and especially sinophobia, which is a manifestation of the same phenomenon. The point is that it is very difficult, if not impossible to change peoples’ positions on issues which align with their material interests with moral arguments alone.
Well, calling that chauvinistic is needlessly aggressive, especially in the abscence of any kind of argumentation.
It’s not aggressive, I’m not calling it chauvinistic as a personal attack against you, it’s just my critique of your statement with, in fact, argumentation provided. Equating the positions of oppressed human groups with our treatment of animals and subsequently preaching, on equal ground, that all are absolutely bad is the definition of chauvinism, especially when those human groups are still oppressed with disastrous consequences in many situations. In my view this is sort of similar to the “all lives matter” arguments. Expanding on the argument - taking our western views and morality (which is largely influenced by our privileged material position in the world) and supposing that it’s the clearly correct solution everywhere and that everyone should abide by our standards is by definition chauvinistic. A widespread example are the excuses provided for the “human-rights” imperialism perpetrated by the West all over the world. Socialists are, of course, not a priori removed from this, as evidenced by conflicts between socialist states and the chauvinistic views taken in such cases by the stronger socialist powers in relation to the weaker ones, informed by national interests while ignoring the specificity of each country’s conditions. This again highlights the weakness and small scope by which the moral arguments against any such position are limited. If we instead use material analysis of concrete situations in their proper context, we can identify problems particular only to specific situations and find local solution to them. A one size fits all solution is not the answer, as demonstrated, for example, by the differences in socialist construction in different countries around the world.
I do think that in the current mode of production is an unsustainable amount of meat. I’m not opposed to meat in of itself and I think have meat produced from sustainable grazing, but that would lead to an overall reduction in meat consumption. I’ve read a bit on how the plains natives of Turtle Island did produce meat of buffalo for centuries, perhaps millennia, till the settlers came. They maintained the land so that buffalo could graze.
There is a reason that the settlers of turtle island mass slaughtered the Buffalo herds in the west in order to subjugate them to a more capitalist unsustainable mode of agriculture, which lead to massive fires and the dustbowl in the west side of Turtle Island(United States). Even today, not all land is arable for crop agriculture, but still has pleanty of grasslands that can use less water than avocados, almonds, wheat and rice.
I wouldn’t say that going vegan or vegetarian is a bad thing to to as an individual. I’m just not entirely convinced that it meaningfully changes our food system. I perhaps could agree with you that abolishing factory farms, also change land use to not make so much animal feed in order to feed more people. I suspect that peoples with histories of pre capitalist food production should be given BLM land.
Unfortunately, in order to do any of that we’ll most likely need to seize the means of production from the bourgeoisie state.
I’m not vegan myself as I occasionally eat some meat or egg, but I think at some point we’ve reached a point where most animal suffering, specially that of animals closer to us like pigs and chicken, is getting very superfluous. I think the issue here is not abolishing of all animal violence, but rather abolishing that animal violence as part of our economy.
But domesticated animals are not humans, they have little capability to either survive in the wild or self-determination. Vegan moral absolutism implying that animal violence is equal to human violence flies directly in the face of trying to exist in a world with animals beyond the control of laws or language. It is why we constantly get conversations with liberal vegans such as “is it vegan to kill bugs?” or “is it vegan to keep using my old leather stuff?” while ignoring that just by living they are causing some impact on both their environment and that of where their products come from.
I’m not particularly fond of CWs for meat things being strongly enforced though, as at that point we’d be doing more CWs for non-human animals than actual human issues. A human corpse should not get the same treatment as a cooked chicken leg that has been a staple food of many communities worldwide, much less boiled eggs. I also think that there are many hypocrisies within meat-based societies such as refusing to accept eating dogs or religious cannibalism of natural deaths, not on the health and safety grounds but on moral ones, that should be brought into question. As others have said, socioeconomic veganism and specifically livestock feed crop dominance are the way to go IMO.
Edit: Also the vegan comm there has some weird ideas, like somebody stating that vegans are more persecuted than queer people. Or advocating for going directly into veganism, which in my experience has been the way most people gave up on. This thread has more comments than they have active users though, so we might be making a fuss over nothing.
Vegan moral absolutism implying that animal violence is equal to human violence flies directly in the face of trying to exist in a world with animals beyond the control of laws or language.
Yes that’s a good way to put it!
I think it’s interesting to see how much veganism is discussed in places like this, but I’ve never heard of it discussed as policy in an AES project or in Marxist theory.
It’s considered as more of a priority in western spaces from what I’ve seen. The overwhelming majority of users here and in most English speaking spaces are westerners. That’s not to say it isn’t important to discuss, it just doesn’t rank high in the discourse of developing/non-western politics.
I think this is partly because the west consumes way more non-vegan products in a particularly unsustainable way.
I don’t know for sure if that’s the case, a lot of the biggest importers of animal products, and specifically meat, are in the global south. The lack of discussion is probably due to other issues being more pressing. From personal experience, trying to discuss veganism or anything of the sort in my own local community or to people I know is quickly branded as trying to follow a “privileged” lifestyle.
So, I’d like to preface this by saying I myself am vegetarian, and I respect anyone’s choice to be vegan, or to be neither vegan nor vegetarian.
With that out of the way, I do have to disagree with the idea that harvesting animal products such as eggs and milk is inherently exploitive and that it can be a mutually beneficial relationship for both humans and livestock animals.
We must understand that in no way are livestock animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. a product of natural selection. The modern versions of these animals are the descendants of thousands of years of guided evolution by humanity. These animals cannot be returned to the wild, for they have not been wild animals in tens of thousands of years.
I bring this up to first illustrate that these animals’ very existence is intertwined with ours. With this in mind, I’d like to conjecture that livestock animals have far better lives than most wild animals. They have access to guaranteed food, modern medicine, shelter, and protection from predation by other species. In return for these things, we receive products such as eggs, milk, wool, and more.
Secondly, many of these animals produce extra products as a result of the genetic manipulation. Cows make more milk than they need to nurse their young, hens produce eggs even when they are not making chicks, sheep grow wool to the point it needs to be removed to prevent complications.
I don’t disagree that farming these animals on the scale we do today leads to a lot of unneeded suffering on their part, and tons of animal product getting dumped simply because it would be unprofitable to sell it. I’d like to think that in the process of scaling back production of these products, we can offer all of our livestock animals much more humane living conditions. The US doesn’t need to produce 23.5 billion gallons of milk a year, especially considering how many cannot even consume dairy products.
Again, I respect anyone’s dietary choices for whatever reasons they may have, and I do think there is much productive discourse to be had in regards to how we approach our livestock friends.
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Imagine 2 boxes. One has an armed mouse trap inside and one has a chocolate bar. There are signs on the box explaining what is inside. You and an infant must each put your hand inside one of the boxes and retrieve its contents . In your understanding of “equal”, both you and the infant are considered equal in this scenario when you, an adult capable of reading and reasoning, have a clear advantage on determining the outcome of the box test.
The thought that humans and non humans are equal too broad of a statement. We of course have advantages over non humans. What should be said instead is: humans and non humans have an equal right to live.
There’s nothing special about us in the grand scheme of things that puts our lives above the life of anything else. Of course humans consider human life as the most important just as an ant would consider ant life the most important, but there’s no universal accountant keeping a list here.
But, as far as we know we’re the only creatures with morals, ethics and empathy. We understand that pain is felt by any creature with a nervous system. We understand emotions can be felt by many creatures with brains. We can’t truly call ourselves equals but we must be obliged to reduce the amount of pain we inflict on others because we’re the only beings who can.
We’ve reached a point in our understanding of the environment and dietary needs where we can sustain ourselves without needing to enslave other species. The fleeting joy one experiences from eating a Big Mac is not worth the torture of the cow the meat came from.
In your understanding of “equal”, both you and the infant are considered equal in this scenario
What should be said instead is: humans and non humans have an equal right to live.
Thank you for bringing this up, it’s true that “equal right to live” is a better way of expressing the vegan position. Although the definition of inter-species equality that you attribute to my original post is not the one I intend at all. If I edit my post and replace the “equal” by “have an equal right to live” then my take would be the same.
Again, humans and non-humans alike don’t have a right to live if you look at the ecosystem as it is. When the first homo sapiens developed the first tools and proto language, there were no right for anything to live. Now the homo sapiens have accumulated a great deal of learning through language. What changed? In order to organise our lives as bigger and bigger collectives we developed tacit rules. The very first rule is, don’t go and kill someone because you like to, only kill the people who harm the community.
So that’s why…
But, as far as we know we’re the only creatures with morals, ethics and
empathy(Actually non-humans have empathy that’s a common argument for veganism)
Humans have developed morality. Because that’s useful. For us, the collective craft-based language-based species. That’s part of the collective life of humans. Other species though, as you put it, cannot take part of it, they don’t share the language or the crafting ability.
So, when you say equal right to live, my question is, in front of whom? Humans have a right to live when other humans recognise their right to live. Humans aren’t slaves when other humans recognise that they have a right to be free. So other species have a right to exist and be free in front of the humans who think they do.
So basically, we could adopt moralistic veganism as a basis for society, the question is why would we? And again, I’m not talking about climate change. Imo to tackle climate change we need to use the grass area for grazing because that’s better than mono crop agriculture. We need “slaves animals” in practice, even if we only consume them very rarely.
I have always found moralistic veganism far weaker than environmentalist veganism (which I am). Not that it matters why you are vegan as it’s a net positive either way.
Considering the amount of land waste, water waste, energy waste, environmental damage, pointless production on ‘feed crops’ over human food, there’s no materialist argument in favor of carnist production.
So even if you turn your eyes away from the immense suffering of our animal comrades, then you’re still left with no materialist arguments in favor of carnism.
Some images outlining the materialist case against carnism:
This comment being full of data reminded me of this that I have saved: https://web.archive.org/web/20221116142647/https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-Sankey-flow-diagram-of-the-US-feed-to-food-caloric-flux-from-the-three-feed-classes_fig1_308889497
The big takeaway is that the amount of edible calories that we get from factory farming is 7% of what we feed them. 93% is wasted basically.
I should also state that I am not a stats guy but saw this posted on reddit at some point when I was first moving over to a plant-based diet.
True, as I said, I was arguing against moral veganism not environmental veganism
Well just like people often become communists for moral reasons, outrage against the suffering of humanity, ppl also come to veganism through the same route, outrage against the suffering and commodification of our animal comrades, and a desire for their liberation.
I just don’t understand why ppl attack the moral route to veganism specifically, especially since there are zero materialist reasons to justify carnism.
I wouldn’t say anyone here is attacking the moral route to veganism, especially on an individual level, but I think we as Marxists shouldn’t rely on it. The materialist argument is much stronger and more widely applicable. Moral veganism can also turn into a form of chauvinism directed towards various societies, especially in the third world, which do consume some animal products but aren’t part of the capitalist meat industry and get all those products from animals they keep or hunt locally.
That to me forms a big distinction. On the one hand, denouncing all animal products as bad and, on the other, focusing the problem on the capitalist meat/animal industry. The moral argument doesn’t lead to useful practice because it implies problems in individual choices of consumption and not systemic issues stemming from the production side. Many of us do come to communism for moral reasons initially but then we learn the proper materialist arguments for it which turn communism from utopian to scientific and inform practice.
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Especially red meats, those are by far the worst ones for your health
Your point on the first is wrong because communists kill only when there is no other choice. We kill in a revolution because we don’t control the prisons. Why kill the animals then? They are not cops, they are not imperial soldiers, they are not bourgeois or aristocrats. Farm animals don’t pose any danger to us.
You cannot just compare as 1:1 the societal relations during a revolution and the human consumption of meat. We do not kill and eat animals because we think they pose a danger to us. As the original post says, our relations to other species are defined socially and largely determined by our material reality - consider the difference of pets, working animals or food animals, or even non-animal species. Again, these relations are different in different human societies.
For millions of years humans have eaten other animals and plants. For most of history humans didn’t moralize about this, they just did what they had to to survive and ate what they could get their hands on. As our societies developed, and we started practicing agriculture, our diets changed and most people ate a largely more uniform plant-based diet. In modern times the meat industry developed to a massive extent under capitalism. Most people today eat meat simply because it is there and accessible, and importantly, good alternatives are not present everywhere. Diets are also not uniform in today’s world and we shouldn’t take a western-centric view and abstract it onto every society on the planet.
Any such individual choices, as we know, don’t have impact on the system and communists certainly don’t preach about individual morality. If our material conditions change and we develop in a way that reduces the meat industry (which can probably only happen in a socialist society) our diets will change along with it and because of it - even our societal moral relations to these animals might change with this. However, we cannot force these changes in reverse order due to moral considerations. Not to mention that more humane and sustainable farming practices would be much easier to implement under socialism with the priority of the food industry being to feed people and not to make a profit.
We as Marxists can certainly be vegetarian or vegan, but preaching veganism as a moral good is not compatible with Marxism, and the idealistic, liberal ideology and political movements of veganism - which just presuppose any use of animal products in the abstract as moral wrongs and are thus quite chauvinistic in their expression - are not compatible with Marxism. We don’t want to impose these concepts onto people from above and plenty of human societies consume and have consumed meat in environmentally sustainable ways. The problems here are those of agricultural and industrial practices which are problems due to capitalism, and not due to eating meat or using animal products as such.
We as Marxists can certainly be vegetarian or vegan, but preaching veganism as a moral good is not compatible with Marxism, and the idealistic, liberal ideology and political movements of veganism
Yes, this is what I meant when writing this thread, very well put comrade!
Thank you for this point, it invites more useful precisions.
Communists do act morally in struggle by only resorting to killing when necessary. But why? Do communists all belive in afterlife, or do they obey to idealistic imperatives? Not at all, firstly communists understand that vicious and cruel actions, immoral killings, will alienate them from the masses and undermine the struggle. Secondly, they understand that a society where cruelty isn’t considered immoral isn’t a society worth fighting for. Again : morality is socially useful, it serves a purpose. Parts of it are in the interest of all and other parts solely in the interests of the ruling class, so we keep adhering to the parts that are in the interests of all, obviously.
Now, if morality is socially useful, we should ask ourselves, is animal cruelty a useful thing to forbid? The answer is yes because humans have a sense of empathy that causes dread at the sight of animal suffering. But how about the exploitation of other species?
If you would consider animals to be part of the human society, I can only say that this is widely unrealistic for the reason that we don’t function in the same way as other species. We can’t eat grass, cattle can’t build tools to farm land, we can’t sleep outside, cattle can’t build houses. At every points of human life, there is teaching through language and production by the hands. Other species cannot contribute to human society in a free way, either we use them as means of production, either we stop interacting with them.
So given the material fact that non-human species cannot be included in the framework of human societies because of their wide physical differences, then the problem morality of using them is upon us.
So finally, your point was that we don’t have to kill them, it’s not obligatory. It’s true, but I’m not saying we have to kill them, I’m saying we just can, there is no god or rule of existence to tell us that we shouldn’t. Contrary to killing random people for pleasure, exploitation of other species doesn’t collapse human society. There is no use in depriving ourselves of it if we stop the capitalist death machine demanding always more meat for the burgers. We can be empathetic towards other living beings but we have no imperative to stop using them.
For your second point, I propose adding a new class. The animal class. It’s below the human class (proletariat). The same way bourgies don’t understand why Engels would side with the proletariat, we don’t understand why vegans would side with the animals. The same way communism is about liberating the proletariat, veganism is about liberating the animal class.
This is a hypothesis I just made up, so everyone please tell me if there are contradictions.
Classes describe concrete socio-economic relations in human society. We can’t just add or remove them as we please or apply them to any concept or relation in general.
