Flyer distributed at the National Animal Rights March.

The use and abuse of animals by humans may go back centuries, but today it’s an industrialised process of mass suffering. In ruthless pursuit of profit, the corrupt animal industries cram animals into cages from birth to slaughter, slash natural environments, and still find more ways to squeeze money out of lives. Slaughterhouse workers face higher rates of substance abuse, suicide and work-related injuries, and are threatened with deportation if they report injuries/policy violations (62% being migrants in the UK). These industries make sure to shield us as far as possible from the abhorrent cruel truths that lie within them –via labels like ‘free range’ and ‘ethical’ and deceptive advertising images of content animals grazing on spacious grass fields. Organisations like the RSPCA exist to give a green card to capital, providing a check to safely reduce public outcry or even outright covering up abusive practices. Animal cruelty is portrayed as a rare outlier, a crime, not a natural, rational part of business-as-usual.

Does this sound unique to animal industries though? In the capitalist system, the prioritisation of profit over life is a universal dogma every industry holds.

The bosses find ways to reduce the amount of animals’ lives ‘wasted’ living to increase the amount making profits. They increase the amount of time we’re forced to spend milked for surplus-value, through cutting pay and worsening conditions. They send animals to the slaughterhouse, and workers to the battlefield. We are worked to death for the bosses to take and enjoy the fruits of our labour for themselves. Under capitalism, animals and humans alike are nothing more than production slaves, unable to enjoy the products of our own work. No remorse or consideration can be spared for our quality of life – that would waste profit! How many lives will we let capitalism take?

We cannot simply humanise capitalism’s food systems and industries. It will take a lot more than individual lifestyle choices to put an end to this cruel, ecocidal system. But through world revolution, the working class can replace capitalist society and its bloodthirsty profit incentive with a society where production is based on the needs of society, and sweep away all the muck of ages – including animal exploitation and systematic animal cruelty.

Notes:

Image: Otwarte Klatki (CC BY 2.0), commons.wikimedia.org