Veganism and Capitalism

Some vegans and animal welfare advocates have placed their faith in the free market as the best way to mitigate the suffering of animals exploited by humans. However, capitalism is fundamentally inimical to the interests of animals. Since the only value that truly matters under capitalist relations is exchange value, animal exploiters seek ways to reduce their costs and to render production more efficient, without regard for the suffering inflicted on animals or for the devastating ecological consequences of commodity production. The capitalist state meanwhile serves the interests of the animal industry. In the context of these relations, veganism has an ambiguous or contradictory status. On the one hand, veganism is best understood as an ethical and political response to systemic contradictions in capitalist food production. On the other hand, because veganism is construed “voluntaristically,” that is, as individuals exercising their “lifestyle choices” as consumers, it is unintelligible to the public as a movement of collective action and universal liberation. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that individual choices in the marketplace alone can change deeply embedded economic and social structures. Existing definitions of the term “veganism,” for example, as conduct-descriptive or as a tactic akin to traditional boycotts, are thus incomplete, underscoring strategic weaknesses in the animal advocacy movement. A more plausible vegan politics would be explicitly anti-speciesist as well as anti-capitalist.