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The repeated outbreaks show that animal rights are a class issue

Even though our alienation from nature was at the heart of Marx’s writing, the commodification of non-human life is rarely taken seriously by the left — but from Covid to Sars, it’s time to see that this is a dangerous mistake, argues DAWN EVANS

THE rights of animals and their correlation to a healthy, sustainable environment have over recent years become a critical issue which is no longer viewed as a niche preoccupation of the middle classes who have the luxury of time to engage in quirky interests.

The cause of animal rights and species discrimination is now gaining acceptance as being a matter of survival, and not just for non-human animals. It is now widely understood that the continued existence of the human species is intricately linked to a healthy ecosystem which is dependent on a flourishing animal and insect population.

However, this is an issue that the political left has yet to fully engage with and understand as the existential matter it is. And like all matters involving health and wellbeing, the negative impact and fallout resulting from extreme animal exploitation disproportionately affect the poorest in society. It is a class issue.

In many of his works, Karl Marx wrote vociferously about capitalist agricultural practices and the resultant alienation of labour, and he identified the fundamental source of this alienation as enforced estrangement from nature.

He pointed to the enclosure of common land which began in the 18th century as the primary cause of this estrangement, which resulted in rural people being evicted and disenfranchised from their land leaving them with no option but to sell their labour to the new industrial capitalist class, which incarcerated them (and animals) in factories.

In his 1844 Philosophical Manuscripts, Marx acknowledged the spiritual needs of people, and the devastation caused by the loss of a way of life rooted in a relationship with nature. He also extensively covered this issue in his most famous work Capital.

In Capital Volume One he wrote: “Capitalist production collects the population together in great centres…it disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth, ie it prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; hence it hinders the operation of the eternal natural condition for the lasting fertility of the soil… all progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress… not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil… Capitalist production, therefore, only develops….the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth — the soil and the worker.”

When the Covid pandemic first kicked off in early 2020, this latest zoonotic disease seemed potentially more serious and wider-ranging than previous ones such as HIV, Sars, Zika, Ebola, Mers, swine flu and bird flu. One of my earliest reactions was that I wasn’t surprised — followed rapidly by a hope that this would wake humanity up to the consequences of treating the animal world as a lifeless commodity.

In my mind, I visualised the massive industrial, metal hangers crammed with suffering creatures — chickens, pigs, calves, mink etc all bred purely for their flesh, secretions, skins, or fur.

Conveyor belts crammed with live chicks, male chicks considered valueless by the monolithic, capitalist meat and dairy industries; a relentless onward procession of living beings moving mechanically towards a massive electronic shredder.

And I knew that all this was just the tip of the iceberg; it was too mind-boggling to take in the full extent of the insanely cruel practices being inflicted on sentient creatures.

I was never a vaccine conspiracy theorist, and I did not doubt that scientists would come up with something effective to combat the effects of Covid-19 — but I also thought that society would surely now realise that a vaccine could only be a temporary fix, and would not cure the causes driving the zoonoses of microbes spilling over from animals and infecting humans — and that the rise of zoonotic diseases would continue to proliferate until they would reach unmanageable levels soon.

The only prevention is to address the root cause: our horrific mistreatment of the animal world. Looking back at my naivety at the beginning of the pandemic and my belief that it would be the wake-up call that humanity would finally and positively respond to, now startles me.

Nevertheless, it is apparent that a fundamental shift does seem to be occurring, all be it at a reluctant and semi-conscious level, evidenced by the ubiquitous expansion of the plant-based produce shelves in supermarkets, as more and more people try out dairy and meat-free alternatives and begin gradually incorporating them into their daily diets.

Of course, as with all revolutions, it is the young that lead the way. They are the embracers and drivers of change. Campaigns initiated by movements such as Animal Rebellion do not always get it right, but their commitment and willingness to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of the future is inspiring. As a person in my late sixties, I recognise youth-led revolutionary movements when I see them — having myself been a part of the radical cultural changes of the 1960s and ’70s.

Consequently, as a socialist, I have endeavoured to engage with animal rights and other similar movements — and have found them to be robustly anti-capitalist and very open to socialist values. The left and the labour movement, in my opinion, need to embrace and connect with these campaigns: they are a rich source of intelligent, progressive energy.

So, as we humans face with some trepidation the commencement of another new year and another move forward into the unknown, hopefully, we, and particularly those of us on the socialist left, will actively seek an affinity with the other species we share this world with and will campaign for their rights as though our lives depend on it, which they do.

And with a fierce determination to put an end to the grotesquely cruel, intensive capitalist animal-agricultural system, to vanquish forever the enslavement and torture of animals, in the full realisation that class consciousness and species consciousness are inherently linked. Happy New Year to all Earthlings.

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