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Animal–industrial complex

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by FourViolas (talk | contribs) at 16:08, 13 September 2021 (Well-written and fascinating article—seems like a WP:POVFORK of Animal husbandry, but there is a well-articulated school of academic thought here that would be difficult to give due weight elsewhere. In any case, we cannot be making eyebrow-raising claims about primary responsibility for global environmental destruction using a plagiarized sentence from an oral presentation at a sociology conference). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The term animal–industrial complex (AIC) refers to the systematic and institutionalized exploitation of animals. It includes every human activity involving animals, chiefly economic, such as the food industry (e.g., meat, dairy, poultry, apiculture), animal testing (e.g., academic, industrial, animals in space), religious (e.g., animal sacrifice), medicine (e.g., bile and other animal products), clothing (e.g., leather, silk, wool, fur), labor and transport (e.g., working animals, animals in war, remote control animals), tourism and entertainment (e.g., circus, zoos, blood sports, trophy hunting, animals held in captivity), selective breeding (e.g., pet industry, artificial insemination), and so forth. Proponents of the term claim that activities described by the term differ from individual acts of animal cruelty in that they constitute institutionalized animal exploitation.

Pigs confined in gestation crates, part of the animal–industrial complex. According to Noske, animals "have become reduced to mere appendages of computers and machines."[1]: 299 

Killing more than 200 billion land and aquatic animals every year, the AIC has been implicated in climate change, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and the Holocene extinction. It is also responsible for spreading of diseases from animals to humans, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Definitions

The term animal–industrial complex was coined by the Dutch cultural anthropologist and philosopher Barbara Noske in her 1989 book Humans and Other Animals, saying that animals "have become reduced to mere appendages of computers and machines."[1]: 299 [2]: 20  The term relates the practices, organizations, and overall industry that turns animals into food and other commodities to the military–industrial complex.[1]: xii, 298 

Richard Twine later refined the concept, regarding it as the "partly opaque and multiple set of networks and relationships between the corporate (agricultural) sector, governments, and public and private science. With economic, cultural, social and affective dimensions it encompasses an extensive range of practices, technologies, images, identities and markets."[3]: 23  Twine also discusses the overlap between the AIC and other similar complexes, such as the prison–industrial complex, entertainment–industrial complex, and pharmaceutical–industrial complex.[3]: 17–18  Sociologist David Nibert defines the animal–industrial complex as "a massive network that includes grain producers, ranching operations, slaughterhouse and packaging firms, fast food and chain restaurants, and the state," which he claims "has deep roots in world history."[4]: 197 

The AIC essentially refers to the triple helix of influential, powerful systems that control knowledge systems about meat production, namely, the government, the corporate sphere, and the academy.[5][6]: viii 

Origin and properties of the complex

Although the origin of the animal–industrial complex can be traced back to the time when domestication of animals began,[4]: 208  it was only since 1945 that the complex began to grow significantly under contemporary capitalism.[1]: 299 [4]: 208  Kim Stallwood claims that the animal–industrial complex is "an integral part of the neoliberal, transnational order of increasing privatization and decreasing government intervention, favouring transnational corporations and global capital."[1]: 299  According to Stallwood, two milestones mark the shift in human attitudes toward animals that empowered the animal–industrial complex, namely, Chicago and its stockyards and slaughterhouses from 1865 and the post–World War II developments such as intensive factory farms, industrial fishing, and xenotransplantation.[1]: 299–300  In the words of Nibert, the Chicago slaughterhouses were significant economic powers of the early 20th century and were "famous for the cruel, rapid-paced killing and disassembly of enormous numbers of animals."[4]: 200  To elucidate animal–industrial complex, Stallwood cites Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle, which explicitly describes the mistreatment of animals during their lives until they end up at the slaughterhouse.[1]: 300  He also quotes Charles Patterson's Eternal Treblinka, which compares treatment of animals with the Holocaust and explains how the disassembly of animals in the slaughterhouses inspired Henry Ford's assembling of cars in factories and how it further influenced Nazi Germany in building concentration camps and gas chambers.[1]: 300 

 
In the slaughterhouse, Lovis Corinth, 1893.

According to Stallwood, the animal–industrial complex breeds animals in the billions in order to make products and services for human consumption, and all these animals are considered legal property of the animal–industrial complex. The animal–industrial complex is said to have transformed the already confused relationship between human and non-human animals, significantly increasing the consumption and threatening human survival, and the pervasive nature of the animal–industrial complex is such that it evades attention.[1]: 299 

Nibert argues that while it has its origins in the use of animals during the establishment of agricultural societies, the animal–industrial complex is ultimately "a predictable, insidious outgrowth of the capitalist system with its penchant for continuous expansion". According to Nibert, this complex is so destructive in its pursuit of resources such as land and water to rear all of these animals as a source of profit that it warrants comparisons to Attila the Hun. As the human population grows to a projected 9 billion by the middle of the century, meat production is expected to increase by 40%.[4]: 208  Nibert further states,

The profound cultural devaluation of other animals that permits the violence that underlies the animal industrial complex is produced by far-reaching speciesist socialization. For instance, the system of primary and secondary education under the capitalist system largely indoctrinates young people into the dominant societal beliefs and values, including a great deal of procapitalist and speciesist ideology. The devalued status of other animals is deeply ingrained; animals appear in schools merely as caged “pets,” as dissection and vivisection subjects, and as lunch. On television and in movies, the unworthiness of other animals is evidenced by their virtual invisibility; when they do appear, they generally are marginalized, vilified, or objectified. Not surprisingly, these and numerous other sources of speciesism are so ideologically profound that those who raise compelling moral objections to animal oppression largely are dismissed, if not ridiculed.[4]: 208 

Contributors to the 2013 book Animals and War, which linked critical animal studies and critical peace studies,[7] explored the connections between the animal–industrial complex and the military–industrial complex, proposing and analysing the idea of a military-animal industrial complex.[8]: 16  The exploitation of animals, argues Colin Salter, is not necessary to military–industrial complexes, but it is a foundational and central element of the military–industrial complex as it actually exists.[8]: 20  One of the aims of the book as a whole was to argue for the abolition of the military-animal industrial complex and all wars.[7]: 120 

The general speciesist ideology operates as a result of, and at the same time is the underpinning of, the animal–industrial complex.[9] Speciesism results in the belief that humans have the right to use non-human animals, which is so pervasive in the modern society, and is akin to sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination.[9] Scholars consider that the obfuscation of meat-as-animal-life is one of the most important cornerstones of the AIC under capitalist and neo-liberal regimes.[9]

Impact of the complex

See also: Animal rights and the Holocaust
 
Male chicks prepared to be killed

Referring to the animal–industrial complex intersectionally, both Noske and Twine acknowledge the complex's negative impact on human minorities and the environment.[10]: 62  According to Kathleen Stachowski, the AIC "naturalizes the human as a consumer of other animals."[11] The enormity of the AIC, according to Stachowski, includes "its long reach into our lives, and how well it has done its job normalizing brutality toward the animals whose very existence is forgotten."[11] She states that the corporate dairy industry, the government, and schools forms the animal–industrial complex troika of immense influence, which hides from the public's view the animal rights violations and cruelties happening within the dairy industry.[11] Scholars note that while critical animal theory acknowledges the universities' position as centers of knowledge production, it also states that the academy plays a problematic role of being a crucial mechanism within the AIC.[10]: 62 

Borrowing from Dwight D. Eisenhower's military–industrial complex warning, Stachowski states that the vast and powerful AIC determines what children eat because people have failed to "guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence" and that Eisenhower's parallels are strikingly similar to the AIC in that the complex involves "the very structure of our society" and completely influences the society's economic, political, and even spiritual spheres.[11] Stachowski also states that the troika "hijacks" schoolchildren by promoting milk in the K-12 nutrition education curriculum and making them "eat the products of industrial animal production."[11]

A part of the AIC,[12] animal agriculture has been implicated in environmental harms including climate change, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and the killing of more than 60 billion non-human land animals annually,[13] ultimately contributing to the Holocene extinction, the only anthropogenic of all the mass extinctions in the planet's history.[14] This number excludes aquatic animals killed for food and non-food uses, which amounts to about 103.6 billion annually, and also male chicks killed in the egg industry, marine animals killed as bycatch, and dogs and cats eaten in Asia.[15] All told, around 166 to over 200 billion land and aquatic animals are killed every year to provide humans with animal products for consumption, which some vegans and animal rights activists, among them philosopher Steven Best and journalist Chris Hedges, have described as an "animal holocaust".[15][16]: 29–32, 97 [17]

 
Dead infant pigs at a hog farm

Animal research and vivisection, another component of the AIC, is responsible to the immense suffering of hundreds of millions of nonhuman animals annually, and the deaths of at least 115 million.[15]: 45 [18][19] While the public is increasingly aware of this, chiefly due to animal advocacy, testaments of scientists, and growing direct evidence, the AIC lobbies against animal welfare regulation and animal rights activism.[18]

AIC is also responsible for spreading of diseases from animals to humans.[20] Examples include the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) owing to beef consumption[20] and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, whose origins can be traced to wet markets in China.[21][22][23] Scholars consider responses to such crises as representing "a search for anthropocentric solutions to an anthropocentric problem", that is improve the supply of meat rather than examine the practice of meat eating, and stress a closer scrutiny of the problem and a possible rejection of meat eating.[20]

Commodification of nonhuman animals

Main article: Commodity status of animals

One of the primary impacts of the animal–industrial complex is the commodification of nonhuman animals. In the book Education for Total Liberation, Meneka Repka cites Barbara Noski as saying that the commodification of nonhuman animals in food systems is directly linked to capitalist systems that prioritize "monopolistically inclined financial interests" over the well-being of humans, nonhumans, and the environment.[24] Richard Twine furthers this stating that "corporate influences have had a direct interest through marketing, advertising, and flavour manipulation in constructing the consumption of animal products as a sensual material pleasure."[24]

Writing about wild animals being imported into France in the 18th century, historian Louise Robbins writes that a "cultural biography of things" would show animals "sliding in and out of commodity status and taking on different values for different people" as they make their way from their homes to the streets of Paris.[25]: 10  Sociologist Rhoda Wilkie has used the term "sentient commodity" to describe this view of how the conception of animals as commodities can shift depending on whether a human being forms a relationship with them.[26] Geographers Rosemary-Claire Collard and Jessica Dempsey use the term "lively commodities."[27]

Political scientist Sami Torssonen argues that animal welfare has itself been commodified since the 1990s because of public concern for animals. "Scientifically-certified welfare products," which Torssonen calls "sellfare," are "producible and salable at various points in the commodity chain," subject to competition like any other commodity.[28] Social scientist Jacy Reese Anthis argues that, while there is no immanent right for animals or humans to not be commodified, there are strong practical reasons to oppose any commodification of animals, not just that which is cruel or egregious.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sorenson, John (2014). Critical Animal Studies: Thinking the Unthinkable. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press. ISBN 978-1-55130-563-9. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
  2. ^ Noske, Barbara (1989). Humans and Other Animals: Beyond the Boundaries of Anthropology. Pluto Press. ISBN 978-18-530-5054-1.
  3. ^ a b Twine, Richard (2012). "Revealing the 'animal-industrial complex'—A concept & method for Critical Animal Studies?". Journal for Critical Animal Studies. 10 (1): 12–39.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Nibert, David (2011). "Origins and Consequences of the Animal Industrial Complex". In Steven Best; Richard Kahn; Anthony J. Nocella II; Peter McLaren (eds.). The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 197–209. ISBN 978-0739136980.
  5. ^ Twine, Richard (2010). Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies. Science in Society Series. New York: Earthscan (Routledge). p. 17. ISBN 978-1-84407-830-1.
  6. ^ Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (2008). "Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America" (PDF). PewTrusts.org. The Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  7. ^ a b Nocella, Anthony J. (2014). "A critical animal and peace studies argument to ending all wars". In Salter, Colin; Nocella, Anthony J.; Bentley, Judy K. C. (eds.). Animals and War. Lanham: Lexington Books.
  8. ^ a b Salter, Colin (2014). "Introducing the military-animal industrial complex". In Salter, Colin; Nocella, Anthony J.; Bentley, Judy K. C. (eds.). Animals and War. Lanham: Lexington Books.
  9. ^ a b c Fitzgerald, Amy J.; Taylor, Nik (2014). "The cultural hegemony of meat and the animal industrial complex". In Nik Taylor; Richard Twine (eds.). The Rise of Critical Animal Studies (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0-20379-763-1.
  10. ^ a b Thirukkumaran, Meneka Rosanna (2017). "The "V" Word: An Inquiry into Vegan Student Experience in Calgarian Schools (p. 62)". PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository. University of Calgary (doi:10.11575/PRISM/28421). Retrieved 29 August 2021.
  11. ^ a b c d e Stachowski, Kathleen (12 June 2012). "The Animal-Industrial Complex: The Monster in Our Midst". Britannica.com. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 10 August 2021. If the idea of an animal industrial complex seemed a bit outlandish—maybe even a little paranoid—to anyone a few paragraphs back, perhaps now? … not so much.
  12. ^ Boscardin, Livia (12 July 2016). "Greenwashing the Animal-Industrial Complex: Sustainable Intensification and Happy Meat". 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology, Vienna, Austria. ISAConf.confex.com. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
  13. ^ Steinfeld, Henning; Gerber, Pierre; Wassenaar, Tom; Castel, Vincent; Rosales, Mauricio; de Haan, Cees (2006), Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options (PDF), Rome: FAO
  14. ^ Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Galetti M, Alamgir M, Crist E, Mahmoud MI, Laurance WF (13 November 2017). "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice" (PDF). BioScience. 67 (12): 1026–1028. doi:10.1093/biosci/bix125. hdl:11336/71342. Moreover, we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century.
  15. ^ a b c Benatar, David (2015). "The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism". In S. Hannan; S. Brennan; R. Vernon (eds.). Permissible Progeny?: The Morality of Procreation and Parenting. Oxford University Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0199378128.
  16. ^ Best, Steven (2014). The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137471116.
  17. ^ Hedges, Chris (August 3, 2015). "A Haven From the Animal Holocaust". Truthdig. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
  18. ^ a b Núria Almiron and Natalie Khazaal (2016). "Lobbying against compassion: Speciesist Discourse in the Vivisection Industrial Complex". American Behavioral Scientist. 60 (3). SAGE Journals: 256–275. doi:10.1177/0002764215613402. ISSN 0002-7642. S2CID 147298407. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
  19. ^ Best, Steven (2011). "Introduction: Pathologies of Power and the Rise of the Global Industrial Complex". In Steven Best; Richard Kahn; Anthony J. Nocella II; Peter McLaren (eds.). The Global Industrial Complex: Systems of Domination. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. ix–xxv. ISBN 978-0739136980.
  20. ^ a b c Adams, Carol J. (1997). ""Mad Cow" Disease and the Animal Industrial Complex: An Ecofeminist Analysis". Organization & Environment. 10 (1). SAGE Publications: 26–51. doi:10.1177/0921810697101007. JSTOR 26161653. S2CID 73275679. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  21. ^ Sun J, He WT, Wang L, Lai A, Ji X, Zhai X, et al. (May 2020). "COVID-19: Epidemiology, Evolution, and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives". Trends in Molecular Medicine. 26 (5): 483–495. doi:10.1016/j.molmed.2020.02.008. PMC 7118693. PMID 32359479.
  22. ^ "WHO Points To Wildlife Farms In Southern China As Likely Source Of Pandemic". NPR. 15 March 2021.
  23. ^ Maxmen A (April 2021). "WHO report into COVID pandemic origins zeroes in on animal markets, not labs". Nature. 592 (7853): 173–174. Bibcode:2021Natur.592..173M. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-00865-8. PMID 33785930. S2CID 232429241.
  24. ^ a b Repka, Meneka (2019). Nocella Ii, Anthony J; Drew, Carolyn; George, Amber E; Ketenci, Sinem; Lupinacci, John; Purdy, Ian; Leeson-Schatz, Joe (eds.). Education for Total Liberation: Critical Animal Pedagogy and Teaching Against Speciesism. Radical Animal Studies and Total Liberation (1 ed.). New York: Peter Lang. doi:10.3726/b14204. ISBN 978-1-4331-5789-9.
  25. ^ Robbins, Louise E. (1998). Elephant slaves and pampered parrots: Exotic animals and their meanings in eighteenth-century France. Madison: University of Wisconsin–Madison. p. 10.
  26. ^ Wilkie, Rhoda M. (2010). Livestock/Deadstock: Working with Farm Animals from Birth to Slaughter. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 115–128. ISBN 978-1-59213-648-3.
  27. ^ Collard, Rosemary-Claire; Dempsey, Jessica (2013). "Life for Sale? The Politics of Lively Commodities". Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 45 (11). SAGE Journals: 2682–2699. doi:10.1068/a45692. ISSN 1472-3409. Retrieved 11 September 2021.
  28. ^ Torssonen, Sami (Fall 2015). "Sellfare: A History of Livestock Welfare Commodification as Governance". Humanimalia. 71 (1). ISSN 2151-8645. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  29. ^ Reese, Jacy (16 November 2018). "There's no such thing as humane meat or eggs. Stop kidding yourself". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 May 2020.

Further reading

  • Matsuoka, Atsuko; Sorenson, John (2018). Critical Animal Studies: Towards Trans-species Social Justice. Rowman and Littlefield International—Intersections series. London: Rowman & Littlefield International. ISBN 978-1-78660-647-1.
  • Nibert, David, ed. (2017). Animal Oppression and Capitalism. Praeger Publishing. ISBN 978-1440850738.
  • Nocella II, Anthony J.; Sorenson, John; Socha, Kim; Matsuoka, Atsuko (2014). Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation. Institute for Critical Animal Studies. Bern: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-1-4331-2136-4. ISSN 1058-1634
  • Taylor, Nik; Twine, Richard (2014). The rise of Critical Animal Studies. From the Margins to the Centre. Routledge Advances in Sociology. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781138125919.
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