The material incentive to raise meat for slaughter is that people buy it. You remove that incentive by not buying it, fewer people will raise meat for slaughter.
Joseph Stalin himself described boycotts as a viable means of political activism.
The material incentive to raise meat for slaughter is that people buy it. You remove that incentive by not buying it, fewer people will raise meat for slaughter.
Joseph Stalin himself described boycotts as a viable means of political activism.
the issue is that veganism as a method of disincentivising meat production through boycott is ineffective not because boycotts are ineffective, but because it is not a boycott.
you are not withholding your purchase until they meet a set of conditions at which point you will resume purchase.
you are removing yourself from their list of customers entirely. your only demand to the meat production company is that they cease to exist, which obviously precludes them further selling you a product.
that is both fine and good, but it is not a disincentive to meat production.
A lot of food gets thrown away in different parts of the supply chain, but ultimately the amount of a food that is produced is largely determined by how much of it will be bought. If supermarkets are faced with significantly fewer customers buying meat, they'll reduce the amount they buy from suppliers, and ultimately the farms will be forced to downsize how much they produce (or some will go out of business). That's how it acts as a disincentive.
they literally let whole fields of produce rot every year rather than ship it to starving people, because profit margins.
the idea that a couple of percentage points of purchase power will sway things the way youre talking about is nonsense. it would require a massive majority of people refusing to eat any meat product, which simply isnt going to happen [of its own volition], and even then under capitalism, meat production would just reduce to an elite luxury item that prices itself accordingly, not an actual end to the practice.
edit: bottom line is, personal responsibility is not a viable answer to systemic problems
Sure, if not enough people do it, it won't have any effect, but what kind of activism doesn't that apply to?
It's a good point that consumer choice alone wouldn't completely eliminate animal exploitation. But: firstly, massively reducing it is also a huge win. And secondly, it'd be far easier to take action (either direct action or conceivably even democratic action if it comes to that) to completely eliminate animal exploitation if a large proportion of the population didn't eat meat, because people usually don't support something that impacts them negatively, and taking away the meals they enjoy would do that.
I agree, but the whole point that I'm trying to get across is that because veganism is a movement, it's not just personal responsibility or individual consumer choices, it's a cooperative effort across many people. It's the difference between being mad at my work conditions so I phone in sick vs being mad at my work conditions so I participate in a strike. It'd be disingenuous to pretend the latter is just a whole load of individuals doing the former at the same time. If your point is that your consumer choice has to be coupled with advocacy, then yes I agree, but I don't think anyone here is claiming otherwise. It's in the title of this thread.
i think my point boils down to that, as a movement, "we just have to not purchase" is weak as hell, so i want to drive home very clearly that that is not and will never even approach being enough to stop a profit motive in its tracks.
like, imagine if abolitionists had come out like "no you guys, all we have to do to end slavery is not purchase slaves! this will cause the invisible hand of the free market to destroy the slave state apparatus for us!" and the only advocacy they did to furthur abolition was in getting other people not to buy slaves.
clearly even with all the shit abolitionists did, slavery still hasnt ended, so obviously that wouldnt work
it's not the goal of veganism, it's the bare fucking minimum that even supposed leftists on this site can't seem to be bothered with
yeah great good, i fucking agree. wild to me that the person making this thread apparently thinks the point of veganism is "harm reduction"
like damn, im not even vegan, im a vegetarian, and i have fucking loftier goals than that
you might have lofty goals, but you can't even be bothered to do the bare minimum and still criticise others
lol.
i literally dont eat meat.
get the fuck over yourself
Couldn't you apply exactly the same reasoning to strikes?
strikes are a withholding of labor that stalls or prevents the commodity from being made. its the commodified brand thats usually being boycotted when it comes to boycotts
with a strike management loses its labor and thus the products the labor produces vs with a boycott management just sells less product but the ability to make that product is still intact
i dont really have an opinion on whether boycotting is meaningful or not, i just think its different than a strike
:this:
which is what my main point was in my first post.
veganism is not a boycott. its a demand for abolishment.
yup! basically its when they decided to destroy the train itself in snowpiercer vs their old plan when they wanted someone from the tail section to control the engine instead of wilfred
It is not a demand for abolishment, you just made that up.
Who is saying that a percentage of people not eating meat is going to stop the profit motive in its tracks? I have literally never heard one person argue that in my entire life. You are tilting at windmills.
The point is it is a reduction in suffering and it doesn't cost us anything. If you get to reduce suffering by any amount for free that's a win.
Ah yes capitalists, famous for being both motivated entirely by profit margins, but also not responding to changes in profit margins.
8 morons upvoted this.
Now it's 10 idiots who think meat companies operate like video game companies in regards to having "key demographics." No dumbasses, they just want sales. Someone going vegan is a lost sale to them which is why they fund anti-PETA propaganda and market their foods to everyone and try to counter every vegan truth they can through false studies, etc.