TRANS-FARMING POINTS: The case for ‘socialist veganism’
'Corporate' veganism promotes the ideology of consumer sovereignty, where consumer choice is the key factor influencing producer output. It deepens animal suffering, human exploitation, and environmental destruction, in and beyond the food system. 'Socialist' veganism is an alternative way of conceiving of and attempting to transform the food system. While corporate veganism attempt to change consumption patterns, socialist veganism attempts to control the start-point of production (deciding what is to be produced and how), and how products are distributed.
BENJAMIN SELWYN: A paradox exists in the United States, United Kingdom, and other rich countries. Increasing numbers of people realize that the current food system is environmentally damaging. They are attempting to transform it by changing their diets, which they hope will influence corporate investment strategies. They are encouraged to do so by claims that shifting to plant-based diets represents the “single biggest way” to reduce our environmental impact.
The paradox is that many of the corporations that are expanding the plant-based food market have an enormous, immensely damaging environmental impact. Expansion into these markets does not portend a shift away from their environmentally damaging mass production of meat, dairy, and other environmentally ruinous activities. Rather, it represents a market expansion strategy combined with, and based upon, attempts at corporate brand greenwashing.
Such strategies reflect and reinforce market dominance by a few corporations. In the United States, for example, less than four companies control more than 75 percent of the market across a range of popular groceries. We call this strategy corporate veganism.
We argue that corporate veganism deepens animal suffering, human exploitation, and environmental destruction in and beyond the food system. Corporate veganism promotes the ideology of consumer sovereignty, where consumer choice is the key factor influencing producer output.
There is an alternative way of conceiving of and attempting to transform the food system, which we label socialist veganism. While consumer sovereignty entails “end point regulation” (changing consumption patterns), socialist veganism entails attempting to control the “start point” of production (deciding what is to be produced and how) and how products are distributed…
We conceive of socialist veganism as one element of shifting the balance of class power away from capital to labor, and of beginning to mend the metabolic rift between human (capitalist) society and nature. We argue that, given that billions of dollars are either subsidizing fossil fuel industries, and/or being directed into a corporate-dominated green transition, the time is ripe for socialist movements to argue that these funds be directed toward an ecosocially transformative political-economic agenda…
Socialist veganism does not mandate universal veganism for all. It does suggest how vegan food production can, through decommodification and democratization of social life, contribute to providing good quality and affordable food for the many, mitigating climate breakdown, and contributing to mending the metabolic rift. Socialist veganism should, we argue, be open-minded about the use of new technologies. If they are designed for socially just purposes and deployed under increasingly equalized social relations of production, such technologies can increase output, reduce the workload, and contribute to enhanced free time—all of which are key elements of the socialist project. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: