Alternate link: https://mronline.org/2018/08/28/18-theses-on-marxism-and-animal-liberation
This can be read in a sitting, so please read it!
"We do not exploit animals because we deem them to be inferior, rather, we deem animals to be inferior because we exploit them."
-Marco Maurizi
:vegan-liberation-rad: :vegan-liberation-rad: :vegan-liberation-rad:
“Beasts of Burden" an influential socialist-animalist pamphlet from 1999
Marxism and the Animal Question
by Maila Costa
Beyond Nature: Animal Liberation, Marxism, and Critical Theory, by Marco Maurizi
"In Beyond Nature Maurizi tackles the animal question from an unprecedented perspective: strongly criticizing the abstract moralism that has always characterized animal rights activism, the author proposes a historical-materialistic analysis of the relationship between humans and non-humans.
"By contrasting the thinking of Hegel, Marx and the Frankfurt School with classical authors in the field of animal rights (such as Singer, Regan, and Francione) this text offers an alternative, social and dialectical theory of animality and a different practical approach to the problem of animal suffering. The hopes for change placed in veganism, liberationism and animal activism are here assumed in a political, revolutionary perspective, in which human and animal liberation finally cease to oppose each other."
-- https://brill.com/view/title/56579
Archive of vegan leftist theory
(Zines, journals, print media, etc)
Another archive of vegan leftist theory
Non-human animals within contemporary capitalism: A Marxist account of non-human animal liberation
Abstract: Many intellectuals, various social movements, as well as all manner of individuals from around the globe who are critical of the ills of global, expansionist capitalism have written, spoken out about, and called for everything from minor changes to radical changes to the existing social, political and economic order. Moreover, many of these groups and individuals have used the tools of Marx’s critique of capitalism in order to advance their positions and calls for change. While most critics of the existing social, political and economic order advance their critical examination of capitalist-spawned injustices with the hope of providing a foundation for us to explore ways to resist, disrupt and replace them, with few exceptions, usually this exploration is confined to (or at least focused on) human communities. However, in this essay, using some key concepts in Marx’s oeuvre, I examine how the global expansion of capitalism, together with its requisite increase in structures of power and domination, are responsible for the intensification of similar injustices for non-human animals, which, according to Marx’s own theoretical commitments, I argue, should also be resisted and, indeed, eradicated. On the flip side, in addition to arguing that a proper understanding of some of Marx’s most fundamental commitments requires us to fight not only for human but for non-human animal liberation, I also argue that genuine animal liberation requires the radical disruption of capitalism and that the more common, less radical animal liberation movements are insufficient for bringing about this end.
Carnists suffer under false consciousness.
Abstract: Despite the strength of arguments for veganism in the animal rights literature, alongside environmental and other anthropocentric concerns posed by industrialised animal agriculture, veganism remains only a minority standpoint. In this paper, I explore the moral motivational problem of veganism from the perspectives of moral psychology and political false consciousness. I argue that a novel interpretation of the post-Marxist notion of political false consciousness may help to make sense of the widespread refusal to shift towards veganism. Specifically, the notion of false consciousness fills some explanatory gaps left by the moral psychological notion of akrasia, often understood to refer to a weakness of will. Central to my approach is the idea that animal exploitation is largely systemic and the assumption that moral motivation is inseparable from moral thinking. In this light, the primary obstacle to the adoption of veganism arises not so much from a failure to put genuine beliefs into action, but rather in a shared, distorted way of thinking about animals. Thus, common unreflective objections to veganism may be said to be manifestations of false consciousness.
The bourgeois meat hegemony: a contribution to explaining the persistence of animal super-exploitation in capitalism (Gramscian veganism)
Abstract: This paper develops programmatically the concept of meat hegemony with recourse to Antonio Gramsci’s notions of the integral state and of hegemony. It conceptualizes meat hegemony as a reciprocal interplay between (a) the state monopoly on the use of force (which guarantees private property in animals and the exchange of meat-based commodities), and (b) the manufacturing of consent within the working and middle classes towards the accumulation of meat capital. This is achieved, first, by the politico-ideological and organizational unification of meat capital and, second, by economic concessions to subaltern class fractions, a carnivorous mode of life, and pro-meat ideologies. The meat hegemony is rooted in the capitalist socioeconomic relations between capital and labor (capital relation) and capital and animals (capital-animal relation). They produce a contradiction between capital on the one hand and wage laborers and animals on the other which needs to be regulated politically, culturally, and ideologically in order to guarantee the economic reproduction of meat capital.
Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era, by Sarat Colling
"There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard."
-- Arundhati Roy
"The concept of animal resistance is now reaching a wide audience across the social media landscape. Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era offers an overview of how animals resist human orderings in the context of capitalism, domestication, and colonization. Exploring this understudied phenomenon, this book is attentive to both the standpoints of animal resisters and the ways they are represented in human society. Together, these lenses provide insight into how animals’ resistance disrupts the dominant paradigm of human exceptionalism and the distancing strategies of enterprises that exploit animals for profit. Animals have been relegated to the margins by human spatial and ideological orderings, but they are also the subjects of their own struggle, located at the center of their liberation movement. Well-researched and accessible, with over fifty images that aid in understanding both the experiences of and responses to animals who resist, Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era is an important contribution to scholarship on animals and society. The text will appeal to a broad audience interested in the relationships between humans and the other animals with whom we share this planet."
And some more reading and discussion:
I also found an interview about the 18 Theses here (use your browser or something to translate):
http://yenie.net/marksizm-ve-hayvan-ozgurlesmesi-birlik-hayvan-ozgurlesmesi-sorunu-marksizm-geleneginde-mevcut
And this cool article discussing and building on the Theses:
http://yenie.net/hayvan-ozgurlesmesi-ve-marksizm
One thing I like about this article is how affirming it is about the contributions of other leftist tendencies towards developing animal liberation theory, in a way acting as stepping stones towards its realization in a Marxist theoretical framework. It also has a cool discussion about the place of ethics in scientific Marxism. I won't quote all of it, but here's a tiny bit:
The contradictions we face or witness in life push us to take an ethical position, and then - if it happens - this attitude embraces a scientific method. Che gives the best answer to those who think that ethics has no place in Marxism: "The revolutionary is the one who feels the slap of another person on his face."
:che-poggers:
Marxismus & Tierbefreiung (Marxism & Animal Liberation) org:
https://linktr.ee/mutb
https://mutb.org/categories/interviews
Note: I'll keep updating this post.
I just can't believe it's literally illegal for schools to offer milk alternatives or say that milk is anything but awesome, and yet we live in a world where people insist it's the vegans who have too loud of a voice. This country was colonized by cattle ranchers and cowboys, and it's obvious they've held onto their power, shaping our system to their benefit through laws like this, through ag gag and the AETA, through anti almond propaganda, etc