First of all, animals should not be used for work because :im-vegan: . But having said that... I see how human labor creates surplus value. And I think I understand why machines don't create surplus value. But what about animals that get exploited to perform work, say the mule that pulls a plow? Like humans, they require a "real wage" to sustain them i.e. food, shelter, and medical attention, right? And if the value of labor power of a day of a mule is say 2 hours (that's how much human labor is invovlved in making feed, etc), then if this mule works for more than 2 hours, are they not creating surplus value for the capitalist that claims to own them?
but how you gonna give the animal the full fruits of it's labour? start giving the mule lobster dinners and like a Supreme donkey jacket or something? tiny bee lambos?
the mule's already being exploited imo as it's doing work it wouldn't do voluntarily, meat animals are obviously exploited.
if an animals needs are met though and it's happy doing whatever it's doing i think it's fine, it's needs are most often gonna be less than the 'value' it produces anyway and it wouldn't really have a use for the extra surplus anyway, cos it's an animal.
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yes they were entitled to the full value of their labour. my point was animals have no need or use for the surplus value created by their labour. like if a donkey pulls a plough to harvest more wheat or whatever than it can possibly eat, what's the use in giving all the wheat to the donkey? it can't eat it or sell it.
i mean i agree they shouldn't be forced to participate, but it's the forced part that's wrong not because they are being exploited in a marxist sense.
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in many cases though animals are used to do work they would do volunterily such as sheep dogs herding and many horses enjoy being ridden
Dogs and horses have been genetically modified for centuries to do those "jobs".
yes and no dogs and horses have liked running and attenion basically forever
Neither of those things are just running and attention.
they aren't but they do involve it. how the animal feels about things depends a lot on how their trained and treated
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yeah if a horse is broken they will hate riding but if you train them by building trust and continue to treat them with care and compassion they will enjoy riding.
breaking a horse is just one particularly way of getting them to take a rider and it's an evil way of doing it
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i'm not gonna make any blanket statements about animal domestication but i have no idea how anyone can learn anything about horse training and riding and think the animal is doing everything voluntarily lol
breaking horses is one way to get a horse to take a rider but there are other ways. You can train a dog by beating them and you can make a man work by whipping them but those aren't the only ways to do so
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that's one way of training a horse to accept riders but it's not the only way to do it. It's used a lot as the other way involves caring for the horse and getting it to associate you with positive atmospheres and experiences which involves compassion and unfortunately some men think compassion is gay. It's like how you can train a dog by beating it but that's not the only way to train a dog
And horse riding can be bad for the horses body if done a certain way and without regard for the welfare of the horse but it isn't automatically
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of course it is a human can tell where a horse is uncomfortable but capital can only view the world as numbers. Training and looking after an animal properly takes compassion and capital has none
SHEEP? WHERE?