The Capitalist Commodification of Animals 9781839826818

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THE CAPITALIST COMMODIFICATION OF ANIMALS

RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Series Editor: Paul Zarembka State University of New York at Buffalo, USA

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD GENERAL EDITOR Paul Zarembka State University of New York at Buffalo, USA EDITORIAL BOARD Paul Cooney Seisdedos Pontificia Universidad Cat´olica del Ecuador (PUCE), Quito, Ecuador

Jie Meng Fudan University, People’s Republic of China

Radhika Desai University of Manitoba, Canada

Isabel Monal University of Havana, Cuba

Thomas Ferguson University of Massachusetts at Boston, USA

Ozgur Orhangazi Kadir Has University, Turkey

Seongjin Jeong Gyeongsang National University, South Korea

Jan Toporowski The School of Oriental and African Studies, UK

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RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY VOLUME 35

THE CAPITALIST COMMODIFICATION OF ANIMALS EDITED BY

BRETT CLARK Professor of Sociology, University of Utah, USA

TAMAR DIANA WILSON Independent Scholar, Mexico

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2021 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-83982-681-8 (Print) ISBN: 978-1-83982-680-1 (Online) ISBN: 978-1-83982-682-5 (Epub) ISSN: 0161-7230 (Series)

CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables

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About the Contributors

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Acknowledgments

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The Capitalist Commodification of Animals: A Brief Introduction Brett Clark and Tamar Diana Wilson

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PART I THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO THE COMMODIFICATION OF ANIMALS It’s Not Humans, It’s Animal Capital! Christian Stache Animals and Nature: The Co-modification of the Sentient Biosphere Paula Br¨ugger Abstract Life, Abstract Labor, Abstract Mind Charles Thorpe and Brynna Jacobson Mission Impossible? Reflections on Objectification and Instrumentalization of Animals in the Economy Wolfgang Leyk

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PART II CASE STUDIES OF THE COMMODIFICATION OF ANIMALS The Commodification of Living Beings in the Fur Trade: The Intersection of Cheap Raw Materials and Cheap Labor Tamar Diana Wilson

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CONTENTS

Capitalism Has Granted Wolves a Temporary Reprieve from Extinction Alexander Simon

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The Landowners’ Ethic: Aldo Leopold, Game Management, and Private Property Cade Jameson

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PART III ARGENTINA’S WORKING CLASS The Dynamics of Violence and Labor Conflict in Villa Constituci´on, Argentina, 1973–1975 Agust´ın Santella

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Index

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1.

Relational Trialogue during Exchange.

Table 1.

Three-level Approach toward Objectification/ Instrumentalization. ´ Armed Contentions March 20 to May Villa Constitucion 20, 1975.

Table 1.

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Paula Br¨ugger is a Professor in the Ecology and Zoology Department of Santa Catarina Federal University, Brazil, where she also coordinates the Ecological Justice Observatory. She has published two books on environmental education. Her research investigates the ethical/epistemological implications of mechanistic paradigms in sustainability and animal rights. Brett Clark is Professor of Sociology, Environmental Humanities, and Environmental and Sustainability Studies at the University of Utah. His research focuses on the political economy of global environmental change. He is the author of several books, including The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and the Ecological Rift. Brynna Jacobson received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego. She teaches Sociology as an Adjunct Professor at the University of San Francisco. Her research focuses on the politics of geoengineering and climate change. Cade Jameson received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Oregon. He resides in Hilo, Hawaii, and teaches at Hawaii Community College. His research focuses on the politics of land-use planning and the history of the US conservation movement. Wolfgang Leyk is a Lutheran Pastor and University Lecturer in Erlangen for the Chair of Ethics. He specializes in animal and economic ethics. His research focuses on problems associated with industrial animal husbandry and on the true costs of animal products. Agust´ın Santella is a Researcher at CONICET and a Graduate Professor at the University of Buenos Aires. He investigates class struggle, collective action, and Marxist theory. He is the author of Labor Conflict and Capitalist Hegemony: The Auto-Industry in Argentina (Brill, 2016). Alexander Simon teaches courses in the Environmental Studies Department and the Sociology Program. His teaching interests include environmental sociology, animals and society, and social theory. His current research focuses on the political economy of wolf reintroduction programs.

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Christian Stache earned his PhD in social and economic history from the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is the author of Kapitalismus und Naturzerst¨orung. Zur kritischen Theorie des gesellschaftlichen Naturverh¨altnisses (Budrich UniPress, 2017). His fields of work are Marxism, ecology, and critical human–animal studies. Charles Thorpe is Professor of Sociology and a member of the Science Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Oppenheimer: The Tragic Intellect (University of Chicago Press, 2006) and Necroculture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Tamar Diana Wilson has researched and published mainly on the topics of internal and international Mexican migration and on the informal economy/ precarious work. Her focus has been primarily on the marginalized and the oppressed, which has led to her interest in the commodification and exploitation of animals.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank all of the contributors to this volume for their thoughtful contributions and all of those who reviewed the manuscripts and provided helpful feedback. A special thanks goes to Paul Zarembka for his support, guidance, and encouragement.

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THE CAPITALIST COMMODIFICATION OF ANIMALS: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION Brett Clark and Tamar Diana Wilson

Human–nonhuman animal relationships are not set in stone. They have been dramatically transformed throughout history due to specific socioeconomic, ideological, and cultural conditions (Hurn, 2012). In “Why Look at Animals?,” John Berger (2009, p. 13) notes, …animals are born, are sentient and are mortal. In these things they resemble man. In their superficial anatomy—less in their deep anatomy—in their habits, in their time, in their physical capacities, they differ from man. They are both like and unlike.

He highlights the corporeal continuity and distinction that exists between humans and nonhuman animals, the changing interactions and understandings of this relation. Early in human history, …animals constituted the first circle of what surrounded man. Perhaps that already suggests too great a distance. They were with man at the centre of his world. Such centrality was of course economic and productive. (Berger, 2009, p. 12)

While animal suffering and abuse have taken place throughout history, the birth of capitalism and its revolutionary development created a “rupture” in these relationships, a deep alienation from nature, whereby the depredations accelerated and increased in scope and scale, given the logic of capital and its system of generalized commodity production (Berger, 2009, p. 12; Burkett, 1999; Foster, 1994, 2000; Moore, 2015; Wallerstein, 1974). The capitalist system is predicated on the endless accumulation of wealth. It is a grow-or-die system that does not recognize any boundaries. Practical human activities, including human–nonhuman animal relations and interactions with the larger biophysical world, are progressively geared toward the production of commodities. In the first volume of Capital, Karl Marx (1976) explained that

The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 1–5 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035001

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studying commodities served as the basis for revealing the logic of capitalism and the transformations that had taken place in regard to human relations with nature. Under capitalism, a commodity is a product sold on the market that is produced for exchange rather than use, simply to expand the accumulation of capital, to increase value (Altvater, 1993). In his general formula for capital—M-C-M9—Marx (1976) presented the underlining operation of this system. Money capital, M, is transformed into C, a commodity (via production), which then must be sold for more money, realizing the original value plus an added or surplus value, distinguishing M9 (or M 1 Dm, which is surplus value). Capitalist accounting is purely a quantitative consideration, which involves the “continuous transformation of capital-as-money into capital-as-commodities, followed by a retransformation of capital-as-commodities into capital-as-more-money” (Heilbroner, 1985, p. 36). This endless cycle provides capitalist production with the formidable growth dynamic, its momentum, and its exponential increase. The ability of capital to extract surplus value through commodity production is made possible through both exploitation and expropriation of human labor, nonhuman animals, and nature. The veil of commodity production, in which money serves as the form of exchange, hides this robbery (Foster and Clark, 2020; Longo et al., 2015). Marx highlighted how the system of generalized commodity production and the growth imperative of capital generated grave contradictions, which included concerns regarding nonhuman animals. He emphasized that humans are animals and incorporated evolutionary understandings regarding the continuity in species into his analysis. He offered a devastating critique of Cartesian metaphysics, in which Ren´e Descartes relegated animals to the status of machines, thereby excusing abuse, suffering, and violation of corporeal life (Foster and Clark, 2020). Marx (1976, pp. 285–288) analyzed the historical transformation of human–nonhuman animal relations that accompanied the ongoing development of capitalism, especially in the mid-nineteenth century, which evolved into capital treating nonhuman animals as machines and created an alienated mediation between human beings and other species. He detailed how capital turned animals into instruments and raw materials in capitalist production. In particular, in the second volume of Capital, Marx (1978, pp. 314–315) focused on how capital employed science and technology to maximize profits. Animals were confined in “prison cells” (i.e., stalls) to restrict movement, to enhance feeding, and to accelerate their rate of growth. This imprisonment helped reduce turnover time, which sped up the realization of profits. Furthermore, selective breeding was directed toward modifying the bone structure of sheep to create heavier bodies and weaker skeletal frames. Marx described this process as one of “aborting bones in order to transform them [i.e., sheep] to mere meat and a bulk of fat” (quoted in Saito, 2017, p. 209). Calves were weaned from their mothers early to increase the availability of milk that could be sold on the market. While these practices resulted in growth deformities and the “serious deterioration of life force,” they enhanced the accumulation of capital.

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The expansion of capitalist production has led to “the commodification of everything” in order to increase profits (Moore, 2010, p. 189; Wallerstein, 1983, p. 16). Bob Torres (2007, p. 11) explains that …the structure and nature of contemporary capital has deepened, extended, and worsened our domination over animals and the natural world…. Animals become nothing more than living machines, transformed from beings who live for themselves into beings that live for capital.

The capitalist commodification of animals is extensive. It includes, but is not limited to, livestock production in concentrated animal feeding operations; the slaughter of “surplus” male calves at a few months of age to provide veal; leather and fur production; the ivory trade in which tusks are used for “traditional medicines” or carved into decorative objects; entertainment such as in zoos, marine parks, and circuses; laboratory experimentation to test medicines, beauty products, pesticides, and other chemicals; the pursuit of trophy hunting, sometimes on canned farms and sometimes in the wild; and bioengineering of livestock and of animals used in laboratories, just to name a few. The animal kingdom—whether it is cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ostriches, elephants, rhinoceros, pangolins, bison, fish, horses, dogs, rabbits, mice, rats, primates, etc.—is exploited and often slaughtered in the commodification process. Large-scale industrialized production of meat is directly linked to the commodification process and the pursuit of capital accumulation, creating a situation where “more animals are killed every year than are present on earth at any one time” (Freshour, 2019; Gunderson, 2011; Pellow, 2014; Stuart and Gunderson, 2020; Weis, 2013, p. 140). This is a direct product of the capitalist system. As Ruth Harrison (2013, p. 37) indicated, “cruelty is acknowledged only where profitability ceases.” Bradley J. Macdonald (2011, pp. 41–42) argues that the alienation of nature that accompanies capitalist social relations also generates an “alienated speciesism.” While nonhuman animals are everywhere, “the more their dismembered bodies intersect ours” in the form of commodities circulating throughout the economic system, “the more they ultimately disappear from human life” (Macdonald, 2011, p. 41). The capitalist commodification of animals has been accompanied by and reinforced through various forms of rationality and ideological justifications, depicting nonhuman animals as dumb, inferior, and not worthy of concerns regarding suffering and abuse. Comparative ethology, the study of animal behavior, directly contradicts such claims (Weis, 2013; York and Longo, 2017). All of this indicates the importance of political–economic analyses that account for the historical transformations in the material conditions of nonhuman animals, alienated speciesism, the larger ecological crisis that is undermining the conditions of life for all species, and the capitalist commodification of animals that results in widespread suffering, death, and profits. The contributors to this special issue of Research in Political Economy address questions regarding the capitalist commodification of animals from a variety of critical perspectives. Christian Stache puts forward a reworked conception of animal capital, rooted in a sociorelational and value understanding of capitalism, explaining how animals are integrated into capitalist society via a relation of superexploitation to capital. Drawing on Herbert Marcuse’s conception of

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¨ instrumental rationality, Paul Brugger explores the roots of objectification and commodification of nature, as a means to confront the epistemological bedrock of speciesist education. Charles Thorpe and Brynna Jacobson argue that capitalism produces a “culture of abstraction” in labor, mind, and life, which imposes market rationality onto nature, nonhuman animals, and the living world. Wolfgang Leyk considers the logic that facilitates the objectification and instrumentalization of animals, offering an assessment for how to shift to an animal-oriented economy. Tamar Diana Wilson addresses the role that “cheap labor” and “cheap living beings” played in the commodification of fur-bearing animals in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries in Canada and the United States with a view first to trapping and second to fur-farming operations that continue until today. Alexander Simon investigates the changing relationship between wolves and humans in North America, from indigenous settlement through the various phases of capitalist development. Cade Jameson provides a study of how Aldo Leopold’s personal commitment to the institution of private property and promotion of voluntary mechanisms undermine efforts to protect wildlife and land from capitalist predations. The final chapter, which is not focussed on the capitalist commodification of animals, but was a submission to Research in Political Economy, is by Agust´ın Santella, who offers an analysis of the interconnections between working-class struggles, armed insurgent actions, and ´ Argentina, from 1973 to 1975. political violence in Villa Constitucion,

REFERENCES Altvater, E. 1993. The Future of the Market, New York, NY, Verso. Berger, J. 2009. Why Look at Animals? London, Penguin. Burkett, P. 1999. Marx and Nature, New York, NY, St. Martin’s Press. Foster, J.B. 1994. The Vulnerable Planet, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Foster, J.B. 2000. Marx’s Ecology, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Foster, J.B. and Clark, B. 2020. The Robbery of Nature, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Freshour, C. 2019. Cheap meat, cheap work in the U.S. poultry industry: race, gender, and immigration in corporate strategies to shape labor. In Global Meat: The Social and Environmental Consequences of the Expanding Meat Industry, Eds E. Ransom and W. Winders, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Gunderson, R. 2011. From cattle to capital: exchange value, animal commodification and barbarism, Critical Sociology, 39(2), 259–275. Harrison, R. 2013. Animal Machines, Wallingford, CAB International. Heilbroner, R.L. 1985. The Nature and Logic of Capitalism, New York, NY, W. W. Norton & Company. Hurn, S. 2012. Humans and Other Animals: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Human-Animal Interactions, London, Pluto. Longo, S.B., Clausen, R. and Clark, B. 2015. The Tragedy of the Commodity, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. Macdonald, B.J. 2011. Marx and the human/animal dialectic. In Political Theory and the Animal/ Human Relationship, Eds J. Grant and V. G. Jungkuz, New York, NY, State University of New York Press. Marx, K. 1976. Capital, Vol. 1, London, Penguin. Marx, K. 1978. Capital, Vol. 2, London, Penguin.

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Moore, J.W. 2010. “Amsterdam is standing on Norway”: Part II the global North Atlantic in the ecological revolution of the long seventeenth century, Journal of Agrarian Change, 10(2), 188–227. Moore, J.W. 2015. Capitalism and the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital, London, Verso. Pellow, D.N. 2014. Total Liberation, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press. Saito, K. 2017. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Stuart, D. and Gunderson, R. 2020. Nonhuman animals as fictitious commodities: exploitation and consequences in industrial agriculture, Society and Animals, 28(3), 291–310. Torres, B. 2007. Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, Oakland, CA, AK Press. Wallerstein, I. 1974. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, New York, NY, Academic Press. Wallerstein, I. 1983. Historical Capitalism with Capitalist Civilization, London, Verso. Weis, T. 2013. The Ecological Hoofprint, New York, NY, Zed Books. York, R. and Longo, S.B. 2017. Animals in the world: a materialist approach to sociological animal studies, Journal of Sociology, 53(1), 32–46.

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PART I THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO THE COMMODIFICATION OF ANIMALS

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IT’S NOT HUMANS, IT’S ANIMAL CAPITAL! Christian Stache

ABSTRACT It is widely accepted among critical human–animal scholars that an absolute ontological distinction between humans and animals, the human–animal dualism, is an ideological construction. However, even some of the most radical animalists make use of a softer version of it when they explain animal exploitation and domination in capitalism. By criticizing the reintroduction of the human–animal dualism through the back door, I reopen the terrain for a historical–materialist explanation of bourgeois animal exploitation and domination that does not conceptualize them as a matter of species in the first place. Rather, with reference and in analogy to ecosocialist arguments on the greenhouse effect, it is demonstrated that a specific faction of capital – animal capital – which uses animals and animal products as means of production, is the root cause, key agent, and main profiteer of animal exploitation and domination in the current mode of production. Thus, the reworked concept of animal capital presented here differs from the original, postoperaist notion introduced by Nicole Shukin since it is based on a classic sociorelational and value theoretical understanding of capitalism. According to this approach, animals are integrated socioeconomically into the capitalist class society via a relation of superexploitation to capital, which can be called the capital–animal relation. Keywords: Critical human–animal studies; human–animal dualism; animal exploitation; critical social theory; Marxism; animal capital

INTRODUCTION In his famous book The Jungle (1906), American novelist Upton Sinclair conveys an impressive overview of what happened to both workers and animals in the The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 9–31 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035002

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slaughterhouses of Chicago at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Initially, Sinclair struggled to find a publisher, but, once published, the book was widely read. It is well known by now though that Sinclair, a member of the U.S. socialist party and vegetarian, was partly disappointed by the public reactions to his book. He bemoaned, as Shreeya Sinha (2016) writes in the New York Times, that …his readers had missed the point by focusing on the health risks created by unsanitary stockyards and meatpacking facilities rather than on the dehumanization of workers and the brutal treatment of animals.

“I aimed at the public’s heart,” Sinclair said, “and by accident I hit it in the stomach” (Sinha, 2016). Sinclair’s discontent is indeed understandable. He rightfully insisted that his book has more to contribute than underpin the public’s (self-)interest in healthy food, which is undeniably an important political issue if taken seriously. But by unfolding the fictional story of Lithuanian immigrant worker Jurgis Rudkus and his family Sinclair goes far beyond that: he paints a picture of the abyss of capitalism through the prism of meat production and distribution – a picture from which critical human–animal scholars and Marxists can still learn today. Sinclair relentlessly portrays the horrible labor conditions of proletarians working for big companies like Armour, Swift, or Morris and pushing bourgeois alienation to its extremes. He depicts the hire-and-fire-policy against rebellious workers, the sabotage of union efforts, the unfathomable everyday struggles to meet the score, and the exhaustion of bodies and minds leading to life-changing injuries. Sinclair describes in detail how wages are kept low, workers are ripped off by estate agents, and families break apart, while also having a clear grasp on the fragmentation of the working class. His protagonist is a Lithuanian immigrant worker who meets others of his kind and their African-American colleagues in the shallows of the slaughterhouses, doing the dirtiest work of all. Rereading The Jungle today, one finds undeniable and striking parallels to the conditions of the working class in today’s hot spots of the meat industry in Brazil, the United States, Germany, or China. However, Sinclair does not leave it at addressing human suffering and exploitation of workers for the profit of huge corporations. Investigating Chicago’s abattoirs undercover for several weeks, he also keeps his eyes on what critical theorist Max Horkheimer (1978, p. 66) once termed “the animal hell in human society.” The pigs, cows, calves, bulls, and steers are not just animals for Sinclair, that is the natural material the laborers have to work on. The author soberly, but not indifferently, acknowledges that the working class is not and has never been alone in the basement of capitalist society. He depicts the sweat, blood, and despair of the animals, which are beaten up on their ways to their slaughter. Sinclair does not omit anything. Near the end of the book, Sinclair’s protagonist realizes the double exploitation at the hand of the meat industry’s captains. On the one hand, the capitalist production process destroys the bodies and lives of the proletarians, extracting their labor power. On the other, animals are imprisoned, their bodies controlled,

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their labor power exploited and finally slaughtered. Without denying the qualitative differences between the two forms of exploitation within the same process, Sinclair shows that both wage laborers and animals are exploited for the purpose of making profits with animal-based commodities. Thus, Sinclair grasps the particular sociorelational and procedural constellation of the capitalist meat industry. First, the human capitalist class is the agent of exploitation of the human working class and of animals. In addition, the relentless valorization of capital by the same human ruling class is the objective of a social praxis and the root cause for animal exploitation at the same time. By showing this, The Jungle is a literary portrait of what I want to call animal capital, which differs from Nicole Shukin’s (2009) concept of the same name (more on this below). Sinclair was one of its avant-garde thinkers. In fact, his fictional narration is analytically more precise in its assessment of these problems than many conceptualizations of animal exploitation and oppression by scholars today. For most of the latter, even in critical human–animal studies, blame humankind (as a species collective) for animal exploitation and for benefiting from it. This misconception exists not only in the social sciences but also in progressive fiction like Jean-Baptiste Del Amo’s (2019) recent and otherwise wonderful Animalia. In this essay, I discuss why the widespread idea of an abstract opposition between humans and animals is not just wrong where it is used to describe, obscure, and justify animal exploitation and oppression, but also when it is employed to criticize and explain them. Following this explication, I shortly examine Nicole Shukin’s postoperaist concept of animal capital, which determines the understanding of the term so far, and I give some reasons why I dismiss it. The rest of the chapter is then dedicated to outlining a historical–materialist concept of animal capital based on Marx’s magnum opus Capital. Additionally, I draw throughout the chapter on analogies to current ecosocialist debates and notions. The aim of developing a new concept of animal capital is to sharpen the analysis of animal exploitation and oppression in capitalism. This will help to determine more precisely who the animal rights and liberation movement must fight (animal capital) in order to achieve its objectives (liberate the animals from exploitation and oppression).

THE HUMAN–ANIMAL ABSTRACTION IS JUST WRONG At least among critical human–animal scholars, it is common sense that an absolute ontological distinction between humans and animals, the human–animal dualism, is an ideological construction (see, for example, Derrida, 2008, pp. ¨ 13–14, 32–33, Mutherich, 2003/2015, pp. 53ff; Noske, 1997, pp. 40–160; Singer, 1975/2002, pp. 185–212). The founders of modern critical social theory, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, already made fun of this separation in their critique of Bruno Bauer’s fellow Szeliga. They polemicize against Szeliga’s Hegelian idealist abstractions from all differences between animals and between humans, turning the concrete material animals and humans into incarnations of the

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abstractions “the Animal” and “the Human,” respectively (see Marx-Engels Collected Works, 1975, Vol. 4, pp. 75f). German pro-animal journalist Matthias Rude (2013, p. 12) argues that the human–animal dualism helps to obscure, distort, and justify animal exploitation and oppression in capitalism. However, when critical animal scholars leave the terrain of ideology critique (or related methods) in their attempts to explain animal exploitation and oppression, the human–animal dualism regularly returns through the back door: It is “humans” as a species who are made responsible for animal suffering, and “humans” as a species who profit from animal exploitation and oppression. For example, Australian social scientist Dinesh Wadiwel (2018a, p. 539) assumes that there is an “antagonistic relationality between humans and animals” in capitalist production. In his impressive work The War against Animals, he claims in an even more drastic fashion that “our systems of violence towards animals” constitute “a war” (Wadiwel, 2015, p. 3). Leaning on German military theoretician Carl von Clausewitz, he explains that a “war is ‘an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will’” (Wadiwel, 2015, p. 16). In Wadiwel’s argument, it is humans who compel animals to fulfil humans’ will. According to Wadiwel (2015), this requires a “continual adaption and reworking of systems of domination to most effectively capture the agency, escape and vitality of animals and maximise human use value.” The war against animals is waged, in Wadiwel’s analysis, by a form of biopolitical sovereignty, which “might be understood as a mode of human domination of animals” that applies intersubjective, institutional, and epistemic violence (Wadiwel, 2015, p. 21). Under these premises, property in animals is considered to be “an articulation for human victory in appropriation” (Wadiwel, 2015, p. 23). He concludes, “We eat, hunt, torture, incarcerate and kill animals because it is our sovereign right won from total victory” (Wadiwel, 2015, p. 29). However innovative Wadiwel’s approach may be, he is certainly not the only one to oppose humans and animals in such a fashion. U.S. sociologist and leading critical human–animal studies scholar David Nibert (2002, p. 3), for example, states in his path-breaking book, Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation, that the “primary focus” of his publication “is human oppression of other animals.” Through the lens of a revised “sociological theory of oppressed groups,” he considers animals to be a group oppressed and devalued by humans as are other human “oppressed groups” (Nibert, 2002, p. 16). Thus, he analyzes the interrelated oppression of humans and animals. In his introduction to the two massive volumes of the anthology Animal Oppression and Capitalism he edited, Nibert (2017, p. xii) further argues that “[h]umanity’s systematic killing of other animals…did not begin until males created weapons and began hunting other animals.” The “corruption of human society was powerfully furthered 10,000 years ago, when humans began to capture and confine other animals and control their reproduction.” Critical theorist John Sanbonmatsu raises arguments in a similar vein. In his effort to make a case against speciesism as a system of power and “a mode of production,” he considers speciesism to be “the system by which human beings dominate, exploit, and kill other conscious beings for their purposes.” “With the

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advent of capitalist relations,” he proceeds, “the last cultural and practical fetters to total human dominion fell away” (Sanbonmatsu, 2017, pp. 1–2). Sanbonmatsu (2017, p. 3, emphasis in the original) argues that speciesism is “undoubtedly the more fundamental” mode of production in comparison to capitalism because “domination and control of other species is the precondition for all capital accumulation” and because “our species life, our identity as a species, is organized around this dominion.” Capitalism, he concludes by recycling a quote of V.I. Lenin dealing with imperialism, “is the highest form of speciesism” (Sanbonmatsu, 2017, p. 3). At this state “the underlying nature of the relationship between human and nonhuman animals remains one of naked commercial exploitation” (Sanbonmatsu, 2017, p. 10). These three critics are far from the only ones who rely on an abstract concept of humans as a species for explaining the exploitation and oppression of animals. ¨ Other scholars such as German radical sociologist Birgit Mutherich (2003/2015, p. 72), social anarchist Bob Torres (2007, pp. 1, 55, 71), and liberal animal right supporters, such as Gary Francione (1995, pp. 4, 21, 25, 33–34, 46), as well as Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka (2011, p. 95), make use of similar conceptualizations. Bourgeois ethical approaches are no exception, as they are mostly based on abstract philosophical categories. Peter Singer (1975/2002, pp. xx, xxiii, 185), for example, speaks of a “tyranny of human over nonhuman animals” and “the rule of the human animal over other animal,” which are founded “on a long history of prejudice and arbitrary discrimination” of animals as different species. German moral philosopher Hilal Sezgin (2014, pp. 219ff, 221) refers to a related concept of speciesism, stating that the cruelest things in general are done at the expense of animals as long as they “bring only a little bit of profit to a human being.”1 I do not suggest that Wadiwel, Nibert, Sanbonmatsu, and the others entirely ignore class or other internal differentiations within the human society.2 On the contrary, in parts, they acknowledge them formally. Nibert (2002, p. 3, emphasis in the original), in his intersectional political approach, makes it clear that the historical oppression of humans and other animals has “provided a benefit primarily for a relatively small number of humans.” In one way or another, they also recognize that the exploitation and oppression of humans and animals are connected. This is particularly true with respect to radical scholars like Nibert, Sanbonmatsu, and Wadiwel. But importantly, most of the authors do not draw any theoretical conclusions from this insight for their conceptualizations of animal exploitation and oppression. Rather, although with varying degrees, they present the exploitation and oppression of animals as a species matter in the first place. Nibert appears to be the exception to the rule insofar as he is on the brink to abandon this position. An antielitist approach coexists with the anthropological, reversed speciesist one in his writings. However, even among the most radical critical human–animal studies scholars, it seems that it is humans versus animals – in politics, law, or ethics. Well, it is not. At first glance, the reverse speciesist approach, explaining animal exploitation and oppression as a human species project, makes perfect sense: Humans

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manage the big meat, dairy, and egg producing companies, execute animal testing, buy and consume commodities based on animal flesh, skin, and other use values. Humans are assisted by animals, animals are – before the law, which is made by humans – property of humans, and so on. Thus, there has to be a species component to the relation between humans and animals. Yet, there are several problems with the concepts of oppression and exploitation as a species project. I will draw some analogies here to describe the core problem. In the related and contested discourses about climate change and the classification of geological epochs, comparable problems to the one addressed in this chapter are being debated. In an impressive study, Swedish ecosocialist Andreas Malm argues that the rise of coal and steam power and their amalgamation with the interests of the capitalist class are the reason for global warming. Among other things, he analyzes the hypothesis that humankind is responsible for the above-average increase of the average temperature on earth since the so-called Industrial Revolution. Similarly, he scrutinizes the assumption by geologists and others that the new epoch in geological time is marked by the Human. Humans, so the story goes, would have left such a huge footprint on the earth through, among other things, climate change by now that it would be justified to proclaim “the Anthropocene” – the age of the Human (see Malm, 2016, pp. 26–32). The assumption is that humanity as a species caused climate change and therefore coined a new epoch in geological time. Malm tells a different story and thereby disproves the narrative of the Human. He demonstrates how it is actually a specific class with its particular interests within a historically specific social system that has caused climate change: the ruling socioeconomic class in the capitalist social formation. This class has used the steam engine and fossil fuels, despite technologically disposable and financially affordable green alternatives (water power), to wage class struggle from above and to increase profits. Malm (2016, p. 279) names the capital that has been producing commodities with the help of fossil fuels to create profit and that therefore generates carbon dioxide emissions: “fossil capital.” According to the Swedish human ecologist, this fossil capital is the reason for and the main agent of climate change. Thus, he analytically differentiates within a particular organization of human society between those who have historically used fossil fuels and those who have benefited from it. This is not to deny the part individual consumption such as individual automobility has played in the increase of carbon dioxide molecules in the earth’s atmosphere between the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and today. But in his analysis, Malm assigns individual human consumption its appropriate significance for the explanation of climate change in accordance to its real impact, moving it from the top to the midfield of the table of reasons for the disproportional aggravation of the greenhouse effect. From the historical genesis of fossil capital, Malm further concludes that it is not humans who have transformed the earth’s surface so profoundly that it seems justified to declare a new era in geological time. Rather, it is the dialectic between the capitalist social structure and a class pursuing the bourgeois socioeconomic

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enterprise of steadily increasing capital accumulation via the combustion of fossil fuels. Therefore, Malm (2016, p. 391) rejects the concept of the Anthropocene and instead calls the new geological epoch “‘the Capitalocene’…the geology not of mankind, but of capital accumulation.”3 The analogy with the concept of animal exploitation and oppression as a human undertaking is obvious. All the problems of the human–animal dualism come back in through the back door if we consider humans as a species to be the collective exploiters, oppressors, profiteers, or beneficiaries. First, when we conceptualize animal exploitation and oppression as a project of humanity, we construct a collective species identity solely or primarily based on biological or cultural features as a species. Although there are biological and cultural commonalities that humans share, they do not directly preside as a collective praxis, neither in the case of greenhouse gas emissions nor in the case of animal exploitation. Such an anthropological approach is too abstract and ahistorical. Second, the conception that humans exploit and oppress animals obscures the social relational differences between the classes and other differentiations within human society at every point of historical development. That is to say, humanity is homogenized although humans are split into socioeconomic classes and differentiated along cultural–ideological differences since the advent of class society in history. The assumption that humankind is the agent of animal exploitation and oppression thus disguises the insight into the real social agents. Such an approach is asocial and ignores class dynamics. Third, the difference between individual and social praxis is blurred in such an approach. This means that social production and distribution as well as individual consumption are, generally speaking, treated equally since they are both part of human praxis. In other words, meat consumption is considered to be an act of oppression in the same way as its production. This is not to deny that individual consumption or a specific social mode of living contribute to animal exploitation and oppression. But it represents the end of the chain of exploitation. The leveling of production and consumption, of individual and social actions by way of the concept of the Human, is misleading and blind for their socially and historically specific interrelations. Fourth and finally, the notion of human exploitation and oppression of animals conceals the historically particular sociorelational roots of these processes. It suggests to think of animal exploitation and oppression as a Human enterprise. Instead, especially in bourgeois society, it is an enterprise by specific humans – the ruling class – and it occurs within socioeconomic relations that demand the subsumption of all nature, including animals, under the process of surplus value production. Against this background, it is necessary to resist a homogenization of a sociostructurally polarized collective based on identity logic, in this case the Human versus the Animal, in search for an explanation of animal exploitation and oppression. Such considerations lead to misconceptions of the real socially specific reasons for and agents of animal exploitation and oppression in time and space. They obscure, distort, and – mostly unintentionally – naturalize the social

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antagonism within society and the socioeconomic relations of (super)exploitation between capital and various parts of the proletariat, animals, and nature. Instead, it is not humans as members of the human species who manage the companies in the meat, dairy, and egg industry, execute animal testing, buy and consume commodities based on animal flesh, skin, and other use values. Quite to the contrary, in capitalism, humans are, as Marx writes, “the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and class interests” (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 35, p. 10). And these complex, historically particular socioeconomic class relations lead to different agencies within the human species collective with regard to the exploitation of nature in general and animals in particular. The different classes unequally participate and benefit from this exploitation and have antagonistic interests in the appropriation of nature and animals. In sum, it is misleading to explain animal exploitation and oppression as an undertaking of humanity. An alternative explanation and conceptualization for animal exploitation today is therefore urgently needed. I propose to build on Andreas Malm’s analytical argument for a concept of fossil capital in order to conceptualize animal capital as the root cause and main agent of animal exploitation and domination.

ANIMAL CAPITAL? There is already a proposal for a notion of animal capital. It was formulated by Canadian scholar Nicole Shukin, Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Victoria and member of the interdisciplinary graduate program in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought. She coined the term in her 2009 book Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times. Shukin (2009, p. 25) embeds her “cultural-materialist analysis” of animal capital in a postmodernist understanding of capitalism framed by a critical adaptation of postoperaist icons Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s concepts. Accordingly, Shukin (2009, pp. 7, 21, 32) assumes capitalism to be “an empire” in which life itself, that is all life forms from humans to external nature, is produced and reproduced through the interplay between ontological production and political power relations in order to assure capital’s hegemony in society. In this reading, capitalism is not confined to a specific economic activity (industrial production, commerce, and finance), and value production is not limited to a particular form of labor (productive human wage labor). Rather, life and its activities on earth are really subsumed to capital in the sense that capital extracts value from the production of all life forms (see for a related interpretation, Wadiwel, 2018a, pp. 541–542). According to Shukin, Hardt and Negri reduce this conceptualization to exclusively human labor that would be really subsumed to capital. Thus they reproduce an anthropocentric bias (see Shukin, 2009, p. 76; similarly Wadiwel, 2018a, p. 542). Shukin argues with Hardt and Negri that immaterial and reproduction labor by humans need to be included, not exclusively in post-Fordism. Going beyond Negri and Hardt, she insists that

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life really subsumed to capital must include nature and animals too. Every life activity, not just every human activity, needs to be considered as producing value. Furthermore, discursive and material production cannot be separated any more, and develop rhizomatically instead, as one. According to Shukin, every life form produces value. At the same time, all life forms are the product of the interplay between ontological bioproduction and power relations. In fact, capital, for Shukin, aims at the identity of life and capital as matters and as discourses. On this basis, animal capital signals for Shukin (2009, p. 7) “a tangle of biopolitical relations within which the economic and symbolic capital of animal life can no longer be sorted into binary distinction.” “[A]nimal memes and animal matter are mutually overdetermined as forms of capital” (Shukin, 2009). Animal and capital are increasingly produced as a semiotic and material closed loop, such that the meaning and matter of the one feeds seamlessly back into the meaning and matter of the other. (Shukin, 2009, p. 16)

Thus, Shukin (2009) argues, “capital becomes animal, and animals become capital.” To understand and frame the metaphoric discursive and the material technological development of animal capital over time, Shukin (2009, p. 20) conceptualizes a double process of rendering, defined as “the mimetic act of making a copy” and “the industrial boiling down and recycling of animal remains.” It seems tempting to develop a concept of animal capital with regard to economics and to ideological–cultural symbolism. But Shukin’s effort rather mystifies the capitalist relations between the capitalist human agents and animals by mingling economics with ideology and culture up to the point at which they are not recognizable as relative autonomous spheres. Her concept of animal capital is so broad that she, for example, uses the term to subsume the use of gelatin in the early production of photos and films, slaughterhouse tours offered by abattoir operators, and animal figures in advertisements by General Motors’ subsidiary Saturn for their SUVs. Thus, it seems like everything can be animal capital in society as long as animals play a literal or even a figurative role in it. Due to Shukin’s conceptualization, the property relation between capital and animals, the raising and industrial killing of animals for food by capitalist ¨ companies such as JBS, Tyson Foods Inc., Tonnies, or the WH Group, for example, can be described with the same notion as the use of animal figures in a Disney movie or in HSBC bank’s “What’s in the future?” advertisement campaign using images of hybrids between animals and technology. Although all these corporations use animals to maximize profits, there is a difference between the exploitation and oppression of living beings who suffer and have needs, and the use of their images. Images or discourses do not kill anybody systematically, social agents do – for material reasons that are owed to social relations within a specific socionatural constellation in time and space. Ideological figurations are used to explain, obscure, or justify the killing. This difference is leveled in Shukin’s concept of animal capital so that the term becomes utterly vague. Shukin’s approach to animal capital is further based on a vulgar materialist notion of ontological biopolitical production that mixes forms of physical

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human, natural, and animal production on the one hand and discursive production on the other (see, for an example, Shukin, 2009, pp. 11, 226). The result is that every act, be it in economic production, natural production, or academic knowledge production, is considered to be part of biopolitical production and reproduction of life.4 Specific socioeconomic and political praxis of production, for example of animal-based commodities in capitalism, is thus replaced by biopolitical production of life based on the ideal/immaterial and “material” production of ontologies. Despite her claims to navigate “a fine line between reductively materialist and reductively culturalist approaches to the field of capital,” Shukin (2009, p. 25) thus ends up with a culturalist reading of animal capital in which capitalist social production and production relations are intermingled with other forms of general natural, animal, and human production. Finally, when she claims that “human labor and (animal) nature are cosubstantial matters of real subsumption,” Shukin (2009, p. 76) dismisses in a similar vein a social relational value theory as it was developed by Marx in favor of an analytical equalization of the human and animal position. Within Shukin’s (2009, pp. 76–85) postoperaist framework, this means that humans, animals, and nature all contribute to value production, even though she does not outline any real further considerations on how value production works under these premises. While I agree that animals and nature are also formally and really subsumed to capital (see for a statement of reason in the more general case of nature Burkett, 1999, pp. 64–67; Stache, 2017, pp. 462–470), I see at least three objections to Shukin’s theoretical conclusions arising. Firstly, the formal and real subsumption of animals and nature under capital is not identical with or reducible to any period within capitalist development.5 It is an ongoing process accompanying every “primitive” accumulation since the rise of capitalist social relations to the dominant mode of production. Secondly, animals and nature are not subsumed to capital in the same way as (human) wage labor. Due to the differences in the real subsumption of labor on the one hand and of animals and nature on the other, historically particular and different relations between capital and labor as well as between capital and nature/animals are established. Thirdly, animals and nature do not create value in the socioeconomic capitalist sense because of their specific integration into the capitalist mode of production. I will elaborate the last two arguments in more detail below. Based on these objections, it can be concluded that Shukin neglects the qualitative differences between different relations particularly with respect to value production.6 The relations between capital and wage laborers on the one hand (leaving landowners, the petty bourgeoisie etc. aside here) and between the human classes and animals on the other are fundamentally different in capitalism. To sum up, Shukin’s notion of animal capital does not serve to explain animal exploitation and oppression nor does it help to determine the agent of exploitation and oppression. Thus, Shukin deserves all the credit for introducing the concept of animal capital to critical human–animal theory. Nevertheless, in my opinion, it needs to be reformulated to be more precise on the root causes and the main agents of the human–animal relation in capitalism.

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ANIMAL CAPITAL! A SOCIAL RELATIONAL VALUE THEORY APPROACH Above, I used Andreas Malm’s elaboration on fossil capital to point out that it is not humanity who organizes animal exploitation and mainly profits from it. In the remainder of this chapter, I rely on his ideas to derive fossil capital from Marx’s notion of capital in order to establish a resilient concept of animal capital, although the argument in this chapter differs slightly form Malm’s. Toward the end of the first volume of Capital, Marx (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 35, p. 753) states that “capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons” that is mediated by things. At the end of the third volume, he reiterates that “capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society” (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 37, p. 801). What does this mean? First of all, it means that capital (and its different forms as industrial, commercial, and interest-bearing capital) must not be understood as transhistorical or “naturally” existing objects but as reifications of historically specific and thus contingent social relations between persons. These relations only continue to exist as long as they are reproduced. But generally they can be abolished and replaced by other social relations. Secondly, Marx points out that these capitalist relations differ from the social relations of other formations of society, for example those in feudal society. The particularity of the capitalist social formation is that the formal political exploitation of one class by the other is replaced by a form of exploitation of labor itself that is mediated by selling and purchasing labor’s products, i.e., by exchanging commodities for money and vice versa. Class exploitation is based on the organization of social labor itself, not on its organization via political domination (although there is a bourgeois mode of political domination that supports socioeconomic exploitation as well). But Marx’s statements go beyond the denaturalization and historization of capitalism. In his works and in Capital especially, he shows how the historically and socially specific mode of the “thing” capital, i.e., money (M) which begets more money M’ (5 M 1 m), concretely develops from historically and socially particular relations of exploitation between persons. More precisely, he demonstrates how these relations get objectified in a thing that has a relative autonomy itself as a social structure and drives capitalists always to strive for more profits at whatever costs. Marx traces back capital to two social relations that dialectically interact with each other in the capitalist production process as a whole. Their interplay makes up the specificity of capitalism. There is no capitalism without both of them. These two social relations are the market relation and the production relations.7 The market relation, or the “capitalist process of circulation,” consists of a relationship that is established in actu by the capitalists selling commodities and also capitalists and wage laborers purchasing them (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 36, p. 29). By relating to each other via commodities, sellers and purchasers also relate the products of production to each other as equals. This is possible because

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they have something in common: they are the products of (human) labor. To be a product of (human) labor is a transhistorical feature of every product. On the capitalist market furthermore the product gets a social meaning because the products of (human) labor as different parts of social labor are related to each other as such. By selling and purchasing products, their general feature to be the product of (human) labor is turned into their social form and becomes objectified in the product. The product gets a value and turns into a commodity. But value as such is not tangible. It only appears as a quantified amount measured by the socially necessary time that is spent to produce a commodity. The quantified amount of value of a commodity is its exchange value. This exchange value of commodities is the first form of value. This emergence of value is one key for the development of capital and for its understanding. In Capital, Marx unfolds logically and systematically how this value transforms not only into exchange value but also into money and then into capital by the reproduction of innumerable and manifold processes of selling and purchasing in the sphere of circulation. Although the agents of capitalism generate these forms of value through their own social praxis of selling and buying, they neither are fully aware of their creations nor can they individually control them. The commodity form becomes the prevailing form of all products and money turns into the universal equivalent used to buy commodities. Their existence and processes become relatively independent although they still depend on their continued practical reproduction by capitalism’s agents. The same is true for capital. Marx initially notes that capital is money that gets more by buying and reselling a commodity on the market. He expresses this process in the following formula: M — C — M’ (M 1 m). Here M equals money, C commodity, and M’ equals M plus m, which represents a new extra amount of money famously known as surplus value. This process can be repeated endlessly and is an end in itself. It stands in contrast to the complementary process in circulation C — M — C, which terminates in the commodity and is aimed at a specific commodity to satisfy a need of its buyer. By developing the value forms, Marx shows that capital emerges on the market as one of them, i.e., in the form of a commodity or in the form of money. At the same time, he states that it is …impossible for capital to be produced by circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to originate apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and yet not in circulation. (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 35, p. 176)

Therefore, Marx points to the capitalist process of production for a comprehensive explanation of capital. The production process is based on specific capitalist production relations between the class of capitalists and the class of wage laborers. The working class is separated from the means of production, i.e., from the machines to produce with, and from nature, for example a piece of soil to work on. Simultaneously, the very same means of production are privatized and monopolized in the hands of the capitalist class. Furthermore, the wage laborers are politically free,

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i.e., they are not directly subjected to the political rule of a capitalist or the capitalists. Self-evidently, the capitalists are also politically free. Thus, laborers are free in the double sense that they are not under the direct political control of a political master and they do not dispose over means of production to sustain their own lives. As a result, the capitalists dispose over the capitalist process of production and its organization. This includes the relation to nature and the way it is executed, as well as the aims and the products of the production process. The capitalists bring together the means of production and labor power to produce commodities such as meat, milk, cheese, or leather. As a consequence, Marx (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 35, p. 362) argues that there is “despotism” in the workshop, not democracy. The laborers, on the contrary, have to sell their labor power to the capitalist in order to earn money allowing them to buy the commodities they need for themselves, primarily for the reproduction of their labor power. Thus, labor power becomes a commodity too, sold and bought on the market just like every other commodity. This implies that social labor in capitalism is not organized consciously and democratically by society but by the market, and only the labor which is sold and bought is part of social labor. The commodification of labor power is of special importance, as Marx reveals over the course of his presentation in Capital. The reason for this is that labor power has a particular feature that distinguishes it from all other commodities. While labor power is consumed in the process of production, i.e., when wage laborers produce commodities, they also create new exchange values objectified in commodities, which again belong to the capitalists. While all other commodities that are used to produce new ones (machines, raw material) only transfer their value to the newly produced commodity, wage labor creates new value. But there is even more to it. Wage laborers produce more value than capitalists have to spend for the labor power in the first place. Thus, Marx solves the mystery of surplus value. It stems from the consumption of (human) labor power by the capitalists in the process of production and is realized by the capitalists selling the commodities on the market. That is why the capitalists bring their means of production and (human) labor power together in the capitalist process of production. But, as was already shown, without the distribution of commodities and labor power via the market relation, there is nevertheless no capital. Against this background, the abovementioned formula of capital then is actually incomplete. The production process has to be considered as well. Thus, Marx extends it as follows: M — C (L 1 MP) … P (L 1 MP) … C’ (C 1 c) — M’ (M 1 m). While M and M’ (M 1 m) remain the same here, the rest needs some clarification. The capitalist spends money M to buy a commodity C. But this is not just any commodity. More precisely, the capitalist has to buy two specific commodities: means of production MP and labor power L. The capitalist brings them together in the process of production P in which new commodities are produced. In these commodities, the value spent initially plus the extra amount is objectified as aliquot parts of the newly produced commodities’ value C’ (C 1 c). When these commodities are sold on the market, their value is realized and

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transformed into a specific amount of money, which also consists of the value spent at the beginning of the whole process M and the surplus value m. Thus, there is more money in the hands of the capitalist after the process than he invested. In other words, the formula M — C (L 1 MP) … P (L 1 MP) … C’ (C 1 c) — M’ (M 1 m) essentially describes the central processes and social structure of capitalist society. Thereby, it also describes the objective of social praxis in bourgeois society. All three, the processes, social structure, and the objective of social praxis in capitalism, are based on the interplay of the two abovementioned social relations between capitalists and wage laborers in the sphere of circulation and production. The social relation of exploitation between workers and capitalists – the creation of surplus value by the (human) wage laborers in the interest and under the control of capitalists in the process of production – is mediated and driven by the selling and buying of things, i.e., commodities (including labor power) and money, on the market. Capital is the whole process of valorization of value at the hands of the capitalist class, which encompasses circulation and production. Hence Marx (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 35, p. 753) can state: “capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons” mediated by things. If one rightly wonders now why animals do not play any role in these processes, the answer is even more simple than is usually assumed: animals do not participate as capitalists or wage laborers in these processes because they have never been integrated into the two core social relations of capitalism. They are integrated in the capitalist mode of production in a historically and socially particular way. Animals neither work for capital in the way wage laborers do, nor do they participate as agents in the circulation process. They do not sell their labor power or buy commodities. Animals hence are not part of the capital relation because of Marx’s supposed speciesism or anthropocentrism, but because of the real existing capitalist social relations. In fact, Paul Burket (1998, pp. 125–133) already showed this with respect to the role of so-called eco-regulatory labor processes, i.e., natural production processes, which form a part of the capitalist production processes but not of human labor processes, in his reply to Ted Benton’s (1989, pp. 65–77) criticism of Marx. Burkett demonstrates that Marx was well aware of the natural contributions to the capitalist production processes and also included their impact on value production, mostly in volume two of Capital. But Marx did this without repeating the failure of the physiocrats who had attested nature the ability to create value. In any case, it is evident that animals do not sell their labor power on the market or buy commodities to reproduce themselves, and their participation in the process of production deserves closer scrutiny. As many critical human– animal scholars have pointed out, animals do work for the capitalists, for example producing flesh or milk (see for probably the most prominent argument regarding this point: Hribal, 2003, p. 436, 2012, p. 2). But this does not turn them into wage laborers. The difference between human wage laborers and animal workers, though, does not consist in the expenditure of physical labor power or even on their species, for human labor is not automatically wage labor either. The

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point here is not only that the labor power of animals is uncommodified, i.e., not sold and bought as a commodity and, thus, not acknowledged as a part of socially necessary labor. They are also not allowed to dispose over anything – not even over their own reproduction – and hence they are not free in capitalism in the double sense introduced above, as neither formally nor politically. The reason for this missing freedom is owed to the path class struggle has taken so far historically, where animals and the relation to them have not been a central issue. The exploited and oppressed classes have struggled economically, politically, and theoretically for their own interests, the improvement of their own working and living conditions, and in large parts for their own survival. And the subaltern classes have not integrated the fight for a reconciled human–animal relation into class struggle as an important issue. Moreover, animals have not been able to resist the ruling classes of society themselves so far in order to achieve a form of political freedom comparable to wage laborers. Thus, the progress from feudalism to capitalism has been a decisive but at the same time limited progress for (some) humans so far. Nevertheless, animals are integrated socioeconomically into the capitalist class society via a relation of superexploitation to capital in economic production, expressed as a property relation. Capital appropriates animals, their work, bodies, reproduction, and lives “without exchange” or “without equivalent” (Foster and Clark, 2020, p. 36). Thus the relation between capital and animals is not only distinct from the capital–labor relation but also from superexploitation of wage laborers, which is based on the above-average appropriation of wage labor expressed in lower wages. I call this specific relation of superexploitation between capital and animals the capital–animal relation. As a part of nature, animals are treated by the capitalist class as their private property and they are used as means of production in various functions. Thus, the relation capital has established with animals differs decisively from the relationship with wage laborers. The exclusion of animals from the capital–labor relation and their reintegration into the capitalist society via the capital–animal relation now has significant consequences in regard to value theory and the conceptualization of animal capital. While animal work is involved in the production of use values, animals do not create value as human wage laborers do. Many critical human–animal scholars, though, have claimed the opposite recently. Among others, Dinesh Wadiwel (2018a, 2018b) or Giorgos Kallis (in a conversion with Erik Swyngedouw (2017) who rejects the perception of animals generating value) have asserted that animals, too, create value and surplus value. The core problem of these and related hypotheses is that they do not take into account the historically specific social relations on which the creation of value, surplus value, and thus capital are based and which comprise the capitalist market relation and the production relations.8 In the long debate on nature in general generating or not generating value and surplus value, which at least dates back to Marx’s argument against the physiocrats, the same argument has already been made convincingly by an array of authors. In the Anglophone world, for example, Paul Burkett (1999, pp. 79–98) thoroughly proved the point that nature produces use values but not value or

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surplus in his Marx and Nature. In the German-speaking world, the canonical publication on the topic has been the book by Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik and Hans Immler (1983).9 Here, Schmied-Kowarzik argues against Immler that in capitalism nature does produce wealth but not value because of the historically specific difference between nature and wage labor in relation to capital. If animals, hypothetically, were capable to participate in the capitalist processes of circulation and production and at the same time prevailed in a struggle with capital in the sense that they were acknowledged as wage laborers, animal work would create value as well. If this was the case, their work would be part of the social labor expended for the production of the social product, acknowledged by the selling and purchasing of their products, and animals would be remunerated. In this vein, Marx writes in Wage Labour and Capital, “If the silkworm were to spin in order to continue its existence as a caterpillar, it would be a complete wage-worker” (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 9, p. 203). However, since this is not the case up to now, only human labor is potentially value producing.10 But, if animals so far neither create value nor, correspondingly, capital in bourgeois society, what is the meaning of animal capital? Well, as indicated above, animals may not be treated as wage laborers. But they are treated socioeconomically as nature and therefore as the producers of use values or as use values for commodity production themselves by the capitalist class. They are means of production in one way or the other. The capitalists committed to meat, milk, cheese, leather, or the production of other animal-based commodities inevitably depend on animals and/or animal work. As natural means of production, they are free gifts to capital, i.e., capitalists do not have to pay for them or for using them. Nevertheless, in the average capitalist production process, human wage labor needs to be spent to produce animal-based commodities or use animals as means of production to achieve the aim of the production of animalbased commodities, which is the same as in all other branches of economy: the accumulation of capital. In principal, the accumulation of capital based on the exploitation of wage laborers and on the superexploitation of animals is the same process as described above: M — C (L 1 MP) … P (L 1 MP) … C’ (C 1 c) — M’ (M 1 m). However, animal capital differs from other capital factions regarding the specific means of production it uses to create surplus value. An animal capitalist not only has to buy labor power and machines on the market. He needs to acquire some sort of animal as it is the case in the meat industry or an animal-based commodity, for example raw milk or animal skin, to get production going. Thus, the formula can be specified. With A being animal or animal-based commodity, the formula of animal capital is therefore as follows: M—CðL 1 MPðAÞÞ…PðL 1 MPðAÞÞ…CðAÞ’ ðCðAÞ 1 cÞ—M’ðM 1 mÞ Thus, the concept of animal capital refers to those capitalists whose labor and value production process depends not only on the exploitation of wage laborers but also on the superexploitation of animals to valorize value, i.e., capitalists who

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use living animals or animal-based products or commodities as means of production in order to produce animal-based commodities and to create surplus value. Against this background, animals do not buy or sell anything on the market. In the capitalist process of circulation, living animals, their products or parts of them are bought and sold. Animal superexploitation takes place in capitalist production at the disposal, in the interest, and for the profits of a faction of capitalists who let their workers produce animal-based commodities to gain profits. One can express this process of double exploitation of workers and animals as follows:

The upper line (P — L) describes the exploitation of human wage laborers: they enter the production process, produce animal-based commodities, and create surplus value. But they do not control or benefit from their labor, the process of production, its product, the relation to their fellow workers, or the relation to nature. The human wage laborers leave the process as they enter it: without any means of production. The bottom line (P — MP(A)) depicts the superexploitation of animals: They enter the production as means of production. They are worked on by the wage laborers. In addition to the lack of control human wage laborers have, animals do not even dispose over their own reproduction, their bodies, or lives. Thus, their products or parts of them are turned into commodities. Although, whether animals are only used to get products from them (milk, cheese, test results, etc.) or if they even get killed to process their bodies (all sorts of meat production) depends on the particular labor process of animal capital. Basically, both forms of superexploitation are entangled since most milk cows or laying hens, for example, are also slaughtered because of their flesh in the end. Therefore, animals usually do not get out of the capitalist process of production alive. Referring back to Nicole Shukin’s examples for animal capital mentioned above, the production of photos and films with the help of gelatin is, of course, a part of animal capital as slaughterhouses are. But abattoirs are part of animal capital because they produce meat and not because they offer tours through slaughterhouses.11 Advertisement using animal symbols is also not part of animal capital in the sense developed in this chapter because there are no real animals involved. There are no material relations between animals and capital and thus no real animal exploitation takes place. When looking at sales and profits, the economic core of today’s global animal capital is above all meat capital, i.e., the capital faction involved in the value chain of meat production and processing. Its leading representatives are the owners and ¨ management of JBS (Brazil), Tyson Foods Inc. (United States), Tonnies (Germany/European Union) and the WH Group (China). Thus, animal capital

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has its bases in the metropolises of the capitalist world system. At these sites, animal capital can be observed unfiltered, both with respect to human and animal exploitation as well as to the sociorelational roots of it and its main agents. Thus, there is an undeniable bond between Chicago’s Union Stock Yards and today’s meat factories notwithstanding the huge differences between the recent production processes and the ones in the chasms of “Porcopolis” (Chicago’s nickname at the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century), which Upton Sinclair describes in his novel The Jungle. Capitalism once gave birth to animal capital, the latter is still nourished by the former, but animal capital will also decay with the bourgeois social–relational system.

SOCIALISM OF A NEW TYPE, OR: THE END OF ANIMAL CAPITAL Upton Sinclair understood the inner connection between capitalism, the capitalist class, and animal superexploitation while wading through animal blood and remains, observing the exhausting work of immigrant workers in Chicago’s Stock Yards. Unlike critical human–animal scholars such as Dinesh Wadiwel, David Nibert, John Sanbonmatsu, and others, he conveys unambiguously that it is not humans as such who exploit and oppress animals. Sinclair was also more precise on animal capital than Nicole Shukin, letting himself be guided by a classical Marxist approach to exploitation and class agency. It is obvious, though, that Sinclair did not have to grapple with some rather new developments. He did not deal with the generalization of the capital–animal relation, the related almost universal commodification of animals, or the role cultural and advertising industries play for animal capital and for perpetuating a bourgeois antianimal hegemony, in which animals are considered to be human private property. Nevertheless, Sinclair’s literary description of animal capital already hints at how to explain the root cause for animal superexploitation today and whom to blame as its main agents without referring to the anthropological concept of the Human. Not surprisingly, the novelist implicitly also makes some suggestions on what to do. After a life that appears to be a tour through Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Sinclair’s protagonist in The Jungle, Jurgis Rudkus, takes up the struggle for socialism. The book closes with an assembly of a socialist party branch celebrating the results in an election. An orator proclaims, “Chicago will be ours!” (Sinclair, 1906/2005, p. 388). Socialism appears to be on the rise, promising a bright future. In reality, the capital of animal capital at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century has never been in the hands of socialists. Since The Jungle was published, even the hope that just parts of the world could be socialist at all has nearly vanished, keeping in mind that socialism has had considerable problems to survive in just a few countries. Unfortunately, for most pro-animal activists today – exceptions like Gunderson (2011, pp. 270–271) prove the rule – socialism is not even a goal to pursue. On the one hand, this is because liberalism and radical democracy focus on

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changes of individual ethics and consumption (“veganism as the bottom line”) or on reforms of the political system to build a genuine democracy without any oppression, including oppression of other species. Additionally, antisocialist and anticommunist ideologies prevail also among progressive democratic forces, let alone the evident failures of actually existing socialism with respect to animal politics. On the other hand, though, most socialists – traditionalists, new leftists, and even ecosocialists – two decades into the twenty-first century still shy away from raising the animal question in a similarly relentless fashion to which they have risen the social and the ecological question. This is astonishing given the social conditions today. The development of the productive forces, particularly within the imperialist centers, and the progress of critical social theory by now have not only brought forward the opportunity to feed the hungry and quench the thirsty humans. They have also enabled a qualitative deepening of class struggle: a just, sustainable, and vegan production and consumption of goods based on a reconciled relation between humans as well as between humans and nature in general and animals in particular is possible. Furthermore, the critical consciousness of the capital–animal relation is growing, particularly among the progressive and ecologically conscious youth. In other words, the objective and subjective conditions for a socialist class struggle against the exploitation of animal capital and for animal liberation are not as bad as they used to be. Nonetheless, if the goal is to at least provide the poorest with food and water while ending ecological destruction and stop animal killing, animal or fossil capital are not the only ones to be fought and dismantled. The capitalist social relations of production and distribution have to be revolutionized entirely because, as argued above, they form the social structure within which the exploitation of wage labor and the superexploitation of nature and animals turns into a profitable business. Production and distribution cannot be a private issue of the capitalist class and subsumed to capital accumulation. They have to be placed in the hands of society, i.e., the real producers of wealth. In other words, production and distribution need to become a public issue at society’s disposal and grounded on real democratic decision making – without equating these processes with the nationalization of the means of production in the hands of state apparatuses or with the transfer of control to decentralized local networks. The establishment of new social relations, i.e., equal relations between humans and reconciled relations between humans and nature, including animals, is where a socialism of a new type enters the picture. Socialism means, first, the socialization of the means of production by abolishing the capitalist property relations and the distribution of products according to everybody’s needs, everybody meaning here regardless of all special characteristics or capabilities, by eliminating the market as the undemocratic mode of distribution of wealth and labor. Second, the abolition of capitalist social relations in socialism also allows to break with the bourgeois relations of superexploitation. Socialism can thus pave the way for a new democratic constituency. The constraint of the sociopolitical body to the capitalist human classes can be overcome.

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Of course, neither exploitation and oppression of animals in production will automatically disappear with the end of animal capital and capitalism nor the bourgeois antianimal culture and the consumption of animals and animal parts. But it is evident that you cannot shut down the slaughterhouses when you do not own them. And in order to own them, they have to be taken from animal capital’s and transferred to society’s control. This is the classic socialist project. Additionally, to integrate animals into a genuine democratic constituency – at least as objects whose interests and needs are considered substantially relevant – will deprive those of power who exercise it directly over animals due to the socioeconomic relations they have with them. Therefore, a renewed attempt for socialism is the only hope for a better life – not only for wage laborers and superexploited humans but for all critters and mother earth as well.

NOTES 1. All translations from German into English are made by the author if there are no translations available. 2. I would like to point out here that the class relation cannot be sufficiently explained by classism or related culturalist concepts of exclusion or by notions of the capital relation by which the class relation is reduced to a noneconomic power relation. 3. Malm is probably the one who invented the term, as Jason W. Moore’s and Donna Haraway’s accounts show, even though others like Moore and Haraway themselves, David Ruccio or Tony Weiss used the notion more prominently in their publications (see Haraway, 2016, p. 72, footnote 42; Moore, 2016a, p. xi, 2016b, pp. 5–6). The conceptualizations of the Capitalocene differ between these authors. Unlike for Malm, Moore (2016b, p. 6), for example, does not interpret the Capitalocene “as an economic and social system.… Rather, the Capitalocene signifies capitalism as a way of organizing nature – as a multispecies, situated, capitalist world-ecology.” Haraway (2016, pp. 53–61) even dismisses the term in favor of her term Chthulucene because she suspects that the concept of Capitalocene is also contaminated with the “trappings of Modernity, Progress, and History” of “fundamentalist Marxism.” I refer to Malm’s more historical–materialist notion. Furthermore, Malm makes it very clear in an interview with the author that his critique of the notion of the Anthropocene depends on its concrete conceptualization. For there are concepts of the Anthropocene that also focus on the structural roots in capitalism and its ruling class. See Malm (2018). 4. One side effect of this understanding of production is that while nature is considered to be an active agent in production, the flip side is that nature is considered to be completely produced within capitalism (see Shukin, 2009, pp. 78, 79, 82–83, 226), i.e., not the relation between society and nature is produced in different ways according to historically and geographically specific social formations but nature itself. This concept is therefore in its extreme consequence a hyperconstructivist one. 5. According to Marx (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 35, pp. 314, 335), the formal subsumption means that capital subordinates labor, the means of production, including nature and animals, and the labor process to its will and purpose of (absolute) surplus value production without changing them. The real subsumption builds on the formal one but includes changes to all three aspects by capital, making the exploitation as efficient as possible in order to maximize value production by reducing necessary labor time in favor of surplus labor time and thus increasing relative surplus value (Marx and Engels, 1975, pp. 361, 511).

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6. My criticism is not specifically directed against the inclusion of animals and nature into value theory, which Shukin does in expanding Hardt’s and Negri’s understanding of all human labor to be value creating. The problem is rather the de facto distortion of capital’s law of value in postoperaist theory. Within the inner logic of postoperaist approaches to value theory, I consider Shukin’s argument to be coherent. 7. For a more extensive presentation of how Marx develops capital on a social relational basis see Wolf (2002) and for an analysis of the consequences for nature of the unfolding capitalist social relations see Stache (2017, pp. 409–534). 8. For a more extensive discussion of value theory and animals see Foster and Burkett (2018) and Stache (2019). 9. At the beginning of the 1980s, the two befriended scholars first debated this very issue uncompromisingly on a theoretically high level. Afterward, they decided to publish their contradictory opinions in a book, triggering follow-up conferences, publications, and commentaries in various socialist journals and newspapers of the German left of those times. 10. There are two footnotes by Engels in the English translation of Capital Volume 1, which was published by International Publishers. In these, Engels (Marx and Engels, 1975, Vol. 35, pp. 57, 196) makes a difference which is linguistically not possible in German. He differs between the labor expended for use value production and for exchange value production. He considers the former to be work and the latter to be labor. In German, both are translated by Arbeit. In other words, according to the distinction between productive labor and nonproductive labor in the sense of value production (which is a defined by the socioeconomic relations in capitalism), work and labor are distinguished. If this is also applied to nonproductive work of humans, this terminological distinction needs to be made. 11. The latter is part of what I would call the production of a speciesist hegemony in general and a meat hegemony in particular, concepts that I cannot develop here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Andr´e Krebber for his comments on and corrections of earlier versions of this chapter.

REFERENCES Benton, T. 1989. Marxism and natural limits: an ecological critique and reconstruction, New Left Review, 178, 51–86. Burket, P. 1998. Labour, eco-regulation, and value: a response to Benton’s ecological critique of Marx, Historical Materialism, 3(1), 119–144. Burkett, P. 1999. Marx and Nature. A Red and Green Perspective, New York, NY, St. Martin’s Press. Del Amo, J.B. 2019. Animalia, London, Fitzcarraldo Editions. Derrida, J. 2008. The Animal Therefore I Am, New York, NY, Fordham University Press. Donaldson, S. and Kymlicka, W. 2011. Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights, Oxford; New York, NY, Oxford University Press. Foster, J.B. and Burkett, P. 2018. Value isn’t everything, Monthly Review, 70(6), 1–17. Foster, J.B. and Clark, B. 2020. The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and the Ecological Rift, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Francione, G. 1995. Animals, Property, and the Law, Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press. Gunderson, R. 2011. From cattle to capital: exchange value, animal commodification, and barbarism, Critical Sociology, 39(2), 259–275.

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Haraway, D.J. 2016. Staying with the trouble. Anthropocene, capitalocene, chthulucene. In Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, Ed. J.W. Moore, pp. 34–77, Oakland, CA, PM Press. Horkheimer, M. (Regius, H.) 1978. The skyscraper. In Dawn & Decline: Notes 1926–1931 and 1950–1969, pp. 66–67, New York, NY, The Seabury Press. Hribal, J. 2003. “Animals are part of the working class”: a challenge to labor history, Labor History, 44(4), 435–453. Hribal, J. 2012. Animals are part of the working class reviewed, Borderlands, 11(2), 1–37. Kallis, G. and Swyngedouw, E. 2017. Do bees produce value? A conversation between an ecological economist and a Marxist geographer, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 29(3), 36–50. Malm, A. 2016. Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, London; New York, NY, Verso. Malm, A. 2018. Channel the panic into political action. Interviewed by C. Stache. 26 August. Available at: https://mronline.org/2018/05/26/channel-the-panic-into-political-action/ [Accessed 13 April 2020]. Marx, K. and Engels, F. 1975. Collected Works, Vol. 1–50, New York, NY, International Publishers. Moore, J.W. 2016a. Acknowledgements. In Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, Ed. J.W. Moore, pp. xi–xii, Oakland, CA, PM Press. Moore, J.W. 2016b. Anthropocene or capitalocene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism. In Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, Ed. J.W. Moore, pp. 1–13, Oakland, CA, PM Press. ¨ Mutherich, B. 2003/2015. Die soziale Konstruktion des Anderen – Zur soziologischen Frage nach dem Tier. In Das Mensch-Tier-Verh¨altnis. Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Einf¨uhrung, Eds R. ¨ Brucker, M. Bujok, B. Mutherich, M. Seeliger and F. Thieme, pp. 49–78, Wiesbaden, Springer VS. Nibert, D. 2002. Human Rights/Animal Rights: Entanglements of Oppression, Lanham, MD; Plymouth, Rowman & Littlefield. Nibert, D. 2017. Introduction. In Animal Oppression and Capitalism, Ed. D. Nibert, Vol. 1, pp. xi–xxv, Santa Barbara, CA, ABC-CLIO/Praeger. Noske, B. 1997. Beyond Boundaries: Humans and Animals, Montreal, QC; New York, NY; London, Black Rose Books. Rude, M. 2013. Antispeziesismus. Die Befreiung von Mensch und Tier in der Tierrechtsbewegung und der Linken, Stuttgart, Schmetterling Verlag. Sanbonmatsu, J. 2017. Capitalism and speciesism. In Animal Oppression and Capitalism, Ed. D. Nibert, Vol. 2, pp. 1–30, Santa Barbara, CA, ABC-CLIO/Praeger. Schmied-Kowarzik, W. and Immler, H. 1983. Marx und die Naturfrage. Ein Wissenschaftsstreit zum ¨ Verh¨altnis von politischer Okonomie und o¨ kologischer Krise, Kasseler Philosophische Schriften 10, Kassel, Gesamthochschule Kassel Bibliothek. Sezgin, H. 2014. Artgerecht ist nur die Freiheit: Eine Ethik f¨ur Tiere oder Warum wir umdenken m¨ussen, 3rd ed., Munich, Verlag C.H. Beck. Shukin, N. 2009. Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times, Minneapolis, MN; London, University of Minnesota Press. Sinclair, U. 1906/2005. The Jungle, Webster’s German Thesaurus Edition, New York, NY, ICON Group International. Singer, P. 1975/2002. Animal Liberation, New York, NY, HarperCollins. Sinha, S. 2016. Upton sinclair, whose mukracking changed the meat industry, New York Times, 30 June. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/obituaries/archives/uptonsinclair-meat-industry [Accessed 13 April 2020]. Stache, C. 2017. Kapitalismus und Naturzerst¨orung. Zur kritischen Theorie des gesellschaftlichen Naturverh¨altnisses, Opladen; Berlin; Toronto, ON, Budrich UniPress. Stache, C. 2019. Conceptualising animal exploitation in capitalism: getting terminology straight, Capital & Class. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0309816819884697. [Accessed 13 April 2020]. Torres, B. 2007. Making a Killing. The Political Economy of Animal Rights, Oakland, AK Press.

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Wadiwel, D.J. 2015. The War Against Animals, Leiden; Boston, MA, Brill. Wadiwel, D.J. 2018a. Chicken harvesting machine: animal labor, resistance, and the time of production, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 117(3), 527–549. Wadiwel, D.J. 2018b. On the labor of animals, 28 August. Available at: http://ppesydney.net/on-thelabour-of-animals/ [Accessed 13 April 2020]. Wolf, D. 2002. Der dialektische Widerspruch im Kapital. Ein Beitrag zur Marxschen Werttheorie, Hamburg, VSA-Verlag.

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ANIMALS AND NATURE: THE CO-MODIFICATION OF THE SENTIENT BIOSPHERE ¨ Paula Brugger ABSTRACT From an interdisciplinary position, I discuss the historical and epistemological roots of the objectification and commodification of nature, which emerged from the hegemony of instrumental rationality. This rationality—synthetically, a technological, political, social, ethical, and esthetical universe of thought and action—has created both wealth and environmental destruction due to the progressive domination of nature through science and technology. The objectification of nature and nonhuman animals is associated with the legacy of Ren´e Descartes based on some excerpts of his famous Discourse on the Method in which the idea of animals as machines established a powerful and pervasive metaphor that remains today. Speciesism, which involves forms of discrimination practiced by humans against other animal species, also dominates Western perspectives. However, studies reveal that nonhuman animal sentience and conscience is a scientific fact. While there is no ethical or scientific ground to support speciesism, the colossal number of animals commodified in a myriad of contexts, especially in animal agriculture, proves that our society is very far from overcoming this issue. A possible path to change is education. Nevertheless, profound transformations are mandatory as formal education—even “environmental education”—carries in its philosophical foundations the Cartesian, instrumental paradigm that favors the objectification and commodification of nature. I present how the concept of instrumental rationality, especially as proposed by Herbert Marcuse, establishes as a unifying and solid ground to address the roots of the objectification and commodification of nature (including nonhuman animals), as well as to confront the epistemological bedrock of our speciesist nonenvironmental, traditional education.

The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 33–58 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035003

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Keywords: Instrumental rationality; mechanistic paradigm; nonhuman animal sentience; animal agriculture; environmental impacts; nonspeciesist environmental education; veganism

HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL ROOTS OF THE COMMODICATION OF NATURE The history of humankind on Earth, argues the geographer Milton Santos (1994, p. 17), is marked by a progressive rupture between humans and the environment. Although this is primarily the history of the Western world, it is no longer possible to speak of West and East in cultural terms, as of four or five decades ago. This process of rupture, characterized by our progressive domination of nature by means of science and technology (and more recently by information as a product of technoscience), has standardized, westernized, and, as the philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1968) claimed, unidimensionalized culture in the broadest sense. Santos (1994, p. 17) argues that this process accelerates when individuals begin the mechanization of the Planet, by means of new instruments, to try to master it. Artificial nature inaugurates a major change in human history. Today, with technoscience, we have reached the supreme stage of this evolution, probably the apex of this rupture with the environment.1 This rupture process, which seems to be part of the human condition, is accentuated and deepened with the advent of the industrial civilization. From everywhere it spreads, the colonization of new spaces by industrial society replaces nature with urban spaces and artificial complexes, leading to a progressive simplification and elimination of diversities.2 The sounds, shapes, and vibrant colors that are (still) in nature are gradually being transferred to billboards, computer screens, and fancy televisions. Environments, in the broad sense of the term, including artificial ones, will always exist. What is really shattered, therefore, is the link between humans and the natural environment. We seldom question these disconnections. Worse, we find this new situation safer and more comfortable because it is, apparently, under our control. Santos (1994, pp. 17–18, 42–44) postulates the existence of an abstract and artificial nature that arises as the result of the reorganization of space, society, and natural resources by a single technical model. He argues that for the first time in human history we are faced with one technical system, present in the East and West, North and South, overlapping with previous technical systems. This new hegemonic technical system is used and controlled by the hegemonic actors of economy, culture, and politics. Today there are projects focused on the creation of fully human-managed ecosystems. There are new technologies whose effects are unpredictable and potentially harmful, such as transgenic organisms and nanotechnology, which are insidiously introduced into our daily lives. Meanwhile, almost half the world’s population, 3.4 billion people, still struggles to meet basic needs. This is an era of unprecedented economic and social inequalities (OECD, 2016; World Bank, 2018). Beyond the deleterious social, ethical, esthetic, and even economic

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consequences of technoscience, our environmental problems are so grim that there is currently a warning to humanity, subscribed by roughly 11,000 scientists, calling on political, nongovernmental, and business leaders to take action before life on Earth, as we know, reaches a tipping point (Ripple et al., 2019). Santos (1994, pp. 29–30) explains that we are living in a period of an extreme acceleration, strongly dominated by signs (after having lived the era of gods, of the body, and of machines), characterized by an explosion of consumption, the exponential growth of objects, and an arsenal of words.3 Contemporary acceleration is the result of the trivialization of invention, the premature demise of technological gadgets, and its hallucinating succession. This manifests in planned obsolescence in all spheres and levels, as part of a “world project” to maintain endless growth. Hannah Arendt (1983, pp. 167–170) argues that productivity is an icon of the industrial society and that there is a problem concerning the utility criterion itself—inherent to manufacturing activity—which is the relationship between means and ends: in a strictly utilitarian world, all ends tend to be short term and become a means for other purposes.4 She warns that under these conditions the instrumentality of manufacturing, limited and productive, becomes an unlimited instrumentalization of everything that exists. All of this helps lay the foundations for the commodification of nature—of its transmutation into a “useful thing” or “article of trade” (Sykes, 1976). This sociohistorical context is rooted in the hegemonic scientific rationality, as Marcuse (1968, pp. 157–158, 164–166) highlights, given that the scientific method led to an increasingly effective domination of nature. He explains that these issues lie at the heart of the ideology of industrial society. Drawing upon the philosopher and mathematician Edmund Husserl, Marcuse stressed that the prescientific technical connotations of mathematical accuracy and fungibility—central notions of modern science—do not emerge as mere by-products of a pure science. This foundation belongs to science’s intimate conceptual structure, as a prerequisite for the domination of nature, and as an intrinsic part of a particular relationship with the environment, which is part of a specific “lived-everyday world” (Lebenswelt). Marcuse (1968, p. 162) argues that, in contrast to Piaget’s psychological and biological analysis, Husserl offered a genetic epistemology focused on the sociohistorical structure of scientific reason that shows the extent to which modern science is the “methodology” of a pre-given historical reality. Marcuse (1968, p. 164) writes, The scientific abstraction from concreteness, the quantification of qualities which yield exactness as well as universal validity, involve a specific mode of “seeing” the world. And this “seeing,” in spite of its “pure,” disinterested character, is seeing within a purposive, practical context. It is anticipating (Voraussehen) and projecting (Vorhaben). In this project, universal quantification is a prerequisite for the domination of nature.

Marcuse (1968, pp. 164–169) adds that the scientific concept of a universally controllable nature depicted nature as endless matter in function, the mere stuff of theory and practice. In this form, the object-world entered the construction of a technological universe—a universe of mental and physical instrumentalities, means

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in themselves. In other words, technology has become the great vehicle of reification in its most mature and effective form. The world tends to become the stuff of total administration, which absorbs even the administrators. The web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and this society becomes fatally entangled in it. The transcending modes of thought seem to transcend Reason itself. The quantification of nature, which led to its explication in terms of mathematical structures, separated reality from all inherent ends and, consequently, separated the true from the good and science from ethics. No matter how science may now define the objectivity of nature and the interrelations among its parts, it cannot scientifically conceive it in terms of “final causes.” No matter how constitutive the role of the subject is as a point of observation, measurement, and calculation, this subject cannot play its scientific role as ethical, esthetic, or political agent. The “nature of things,” including that of society, was so defined as to justify repression and even suppression as perfectly rational. True knowledge and reason demand domination over, if not liberation from, the senses (Marcuse, 1968, pp. 146–147).

RENE´ DESCARTES AND THE OBJECTIFICATION OF NATURE AND NONHUMAN ANIMALS When it comes to discussing the roots of the objectification and mechanization of life—its transformation into mere means, devoid of intrinsic value—the philosopher and mathematician Ren´e Descartes is influential. In the fifth part of his Discourse on the Method, written in 1637, there is an emblematic quotation concerning vivisection that illustrates this mechanistic paradigm: I wish it to be considered that the motion which I have now explained follows as necessarily from the very arrangement of the parts, which may be observed in the heart by the eye alone, and from the heat which may be felt with the fingers, and from the nature of the blood as learned from experience, as does the motion of a clock from the power, the situation, and shape of its counterweights and wheels. (Descartes, 2018, p. 36)

According to Descartes, the ancient peoples did believe that animals can speak although we are unable to understand them. Descartes, however, dismissed this possibility as a whole; to him it was a matter of having no language in the first place.5 He explains, “For if such were the case, since they are endowed with many organs analogous to ours, they could as easily communicate their thoughts to us as to their fellows” (Descartes, 2018, p. 41). However, his most inconsistent argument on this subject is that while many animals show more ingenuity than we do in some of their actions, they do not demonstrate this in many of their other actions. He then comes to an unexpected and bizarre conclusion: It is also very worthy of remark, that, though there are many animals which manifest more industry than we in certain of their actions, the same animals are yet observed to show none at all in many others: so that the circumstance that they do better than we does not prove that they

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are endowed with mind, for it would thence follow that they possessed greater reason than any of us, and could surpass us in all things. (Descartes, 2018, p. 41)

Descartes (2018, pp. 40–41) thus infers that nonhuman animals have no spirit: it is nature that acts upon them according to the arrangement of their organs, just like a clock, composed only of springs and gears. He concludes the fifth part of his Discourse on the Method by stating that after the error of those who deny God—an error which he claimed to have sufficiently refuted—there is none that is more powerful in leading feeble minds astray from the straight path of virtue than the supposition that the soul of the brutes is of the same nature with our own. According to him, our soul is entirely independent of the body and therefore immortal, unlike the soul of animals (Descartes, 2018, p. 42). He has thus contributed decisively to the exclusion of nonhuman animals from the sphere of our (anthropocentric) moral considerations: the whining of living and consciously cut dogs in vivisectionist practices was interpreted as the mere creaking of a machine and not as signaling pain. Descartes also had a major influence on the reification of the concepts of nature and the environment. In the sixth part of Discourse on the Method, he reflects on the importance of this mastery and control of nature: I perceived it to be possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life; and in room of the speculative philosophy usually taught in the schools, to discover a practical, by means of which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air the stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies that surround us, as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans, we might also apply them in the same way to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature. (Descartes, 2018, p. 44)

Today, there is a recognition that the concept of “environment” should encompass a totality that includes the natural aspects and those resulting from human activities. The environment is therefore the result of the interaction of the biological, physicochemical, and evolutionary foundations of an ecosystem with its social, economic, historical, cultural, political, ethical, and esthetic aspects in a given space and time. However, a closer reading of articles, projects, and public policies that refer to environmental questions reveals a potentially contradictory universe regarding this broad concept: in many of these initiatives, the “environment” remains confined to its natural or technical dimensions. This simplification is also a reification that transforms environmental issues into something concrete and tangible, which can be solved as long as appropriate technical ¨ measures or scientific fixes are applied (Brugger, 2004). This happens because, as Gonçalves (1990, p. 189) claims, the Cartesian dichotomy between humans and nature still pervades the concept of environment, with its reduction to the naturalist dimension, that is, fauna, flora, land, air, and water, or simply when we limit environment issues to concerns about pollution. The contemporary planetary crisis demands, however, going beyond the conservationist context of maintaining optimal levels of productivity in natural or human-managed ecosystems, or pollution control, expressions that reveal a pragmatic–utilitarian view of nature. From this perspective, nature has no intrinsic value and is perceived as a mere factory of natural resources. In truth, while

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different data on deforestation or chemical pollution are important, they are only “symptoms” of a much broader and problematic relationship between humans and ¨ nature (Brugger, 2004). The environment today is the result of highly “teleological” objects and actions, such as those associated with biotechnology and nanotechnology products. We have created a very peculiar relationship with technology: technical advances are seen as if they are the development of tout court.6 The so-called environmental crisis is therefore rooted in a certain worldview. Marcuse (1968, pp. 146–147) argues that this is solely the consequence of the “Logos-Eros disruption,” the dominance of the instrumental facet over the emancipatory, political, and ethical dimension of reason. By breaking the ontological link between Logos and Eros, scientific rationality became essentially “neutral.” And the quantification of nature, its translation in terms of mathematical structures, has eventually separated science from ethics. The conception of translating nature in terms of mathematical structures did not start with Descartes.7 Nevertheless, it became a universal worldview with the advent of Cartesian science, and this happened because this pragmatic paradigm made possible, without historical precedents, the appropriation of nature, including human and nonhuman animals, by human endeavors. It is important to point out, however, that there have always been those who opposed this philosophical misconception. The English poet and painter William Blake was one of them. As he explained, The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity…and some scarce see nature at all.

About the perception of suffering and empathy, Blake wrote, “Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?” Likewise, in considering the Cartesian concept of “animal machine,” the illuminist philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) famously exclaimed, Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the means of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel? has it nerves in order to be impassible? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature.8

SPECIESISM, SENTIENCE, AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN NONHUMAN ANIMALS The word speciesism was originally coined by the British philosopher and psychologist Richard Ryder, in the 1970s, to refer to forms of discrimination (practiced by humans) against other animal species. The term is used in an analogy to racism and sexism, which are also prejudices based on morally irrelevant differences. Ryder (2011, pp. 40–43) quotes eight definitions of speciesism, from philosophers (including himself) to dictionaries, and examines four dimensions of speciesism. Nevertheless, he concludes that, for most purposes, it is probably expedient to use this term as a description of negative human discrimination or exploitation against members of other species. Ryder (2005)

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argues that all animal species can feel pain and distress and that we should extend our concern for the pain and distress to any “painient” creature, regardless of his or her sex, class, race, religion, nationality, or species. Although moral principles and ideals like justice, freedom, equality, and inherent value have been suggested, painience is the only convincing basis for attributing rights or interests to others. Ryder (2011, p. 40) also contends that value cannot exist in the absence of consciousness or potential consciousness: What really matters in morality is not consciousness generally but the consciousness of pain; and such painience, being of special evolutionary value, is highly likely to be widespread in nature. Painience is no respecter of species.

Since Charles Darwin, we have known that we are human animals related to all the other animals through evolution. According to the biologist Marc Bekoff (2007, pp. 31–33), Darwin described more than 20 different kinds of emotions in nonhuman animals. According to Darwin, emotions evolved, both in nonhuman animals and humans, for the purpose of strengthening social bonds and connecting us with the rest of our community and the biosphere. He also believed that even animals without language are capable of reasoning. Bekoff concludes that it is possible to find the roots of our intelligence and emotions in other animals and that it is “bad biology” to argue against the existence of emotions, empathy, and moral behavior in animals. He cites countless studies that attest to the ability of animals not only to experience elementary emotional states but also to establish complex rules of social coexistence and display behaviors related to mourning, honor, empathy, and justice. Even in animals that we consider more distant from us, such as fish, there is evidence of their capacity to feel pain and fear, besides bearing cultural traditions. To the biologist Jonathan Balcombe (2010, p. 29), the question today is no longer whether animals think, but what they think. It is therefore essential that we understand that animals are intelligent (and think) to the extent of their needs.9 In sum, on the basis of strong evidence, modern science affirms the opposite of what Descartes postulated, premised in his own beliefs. Furthermore, Balcombe (2010, pp. 13, 16–17) subscribes to the thesis that morality did not originate in humans and that the evolution of sentience was a crucial mutation that affected all animals in biological history. The area of studies on animal cognition and consciousness has also gained a major boost when a group of reputable neuroscientists affirmed that convergent evidence indicates that all mammals, birds, and other creatures—such as octopuses—have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors (the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, 2012, n.p.). Despite this, our world is submerged in what Ryder (2011) calls an institutionalized widespread speciesism. In this realm, “selective speciesism” is one of them. In this modality, which is a blend of the four dimensions proposed by Ryder, moral value is granted to some species, but not to others. This is probably the most prevalent and diffused form of speciesism because its moral and cognitive incongruity finds a safe place to hide in our everyday practices.10 Depending on the species in question, selective speciesists see the very same treatments given to animals as

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good (or acceptable) or as abhorrent. Such judgments are linked to cultural perceptions and personal tastes and not to scientific evidence about sentience, affectivity, cognition, or even position in the phylogenetic hierarchy of the animals in question. Pigs (food/statistic number) vs dogs and cats (family members), at least in the Western culture, fits very well in this category, illustrating selective speciesism. Some species, apparently, ascend to the status of holders of moral consideration without being companion animals. This is very much the case of the endangered species. But the extension of some moral consideration to these animals is mainly due to their potential instrumental value as “genetic banks,” or as maintainers of biodiversity as an environmental service. The unlimited instrumentalization of everything, noted by Hannah Arendt, helps understand “intraspecific selective speciesism.” Mutts vs purebreds is probably the best example. Nonetheless, even these manufactured lives are not free from abandonment or ill treatment. If they lose or do not exhibit the qualities (i.e., instrumentalities) for which they were designed—company, hunting, guarding, etc.—or if the interest from the humans ceases for any reason, they are often discarded as worthless objects.

CO-MODIFYING NONHUMAN ANIMALS AND ECOSYSTEMS The industrial sector that most commodifies animals in quantitative terms is undoubtedly animal agriculture. The philosopher Peter Singer (1979) shows, in a very enlightening passage, how the instrumental rationality is materialized into the objectification and the commodification of animals: The case against using animals for food is at its strongest when animals are made to lead miserable lives so that their flesh can be made available to humans at the lowest possible cost. Modern forms of intensive farming apply science and technology to the attitude that animals are objects for us to use. In order to have meat on the table at a price that people can afford, our society tolerates methods of meat production that confine sentient animals in cramped, unsuitable conditions for the entire duration of their lives. Animals are treated like machines that convert fodder into flesh, and any innovation that results in a higher “conversion ratio” is liable to be adopted. As one authority on the subject has said, “cruelty is acknowledged only when profitability ceases.” To avoid speciesism we must stop these practices.

At the start of the twentieth century, Chicago was the cradle of the slaughter industry. Using moving production lines, it took just 15 minutes for a cow to be killed, fully eviscerated, and cut up. Up to 12 million animals were slaughtered annually in the city: this method was so efficient that Henry Ford adopted the ¨ Foundation and Friends of production line process to make cars (Heinrich Boll the Earth Europe, 2014). With industrialization, the slaughter process has become centralized worldwide. Today, 10 corporations slaughter 88% of the total number of pigs. Meat, a luxury in many parts of the world only 10 or 20 years ago, is now a part of the daily diet for a growing number of people in developing ¨ Foundation and Friends of the Earth Europe, 2014). countries (Heinrich Boll

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In 2011, an estimated 58.1 billion chickens were slaughtered around the world, more than any other animal. Ducks were a distant second, at 2.8 billion, followed by pigs (almost 1.4 billion), turkeys (654 million), and geese (649 million). Next were sheep (517 million), goats (430 million), and cattle (296 million), followed at a long distance by buffalos (24 million). China is the world’s biggest producer and consumer of meat. It leads the world in the number of animals slaughtered for the ¨ Foundation and Friends of the Earth four leading categories (Heinrich Boll Europe, 2014). But the world’s biggest producer of beef and chicken is JBS, a Brazilian company that reached the capacity to slaughter 85,000 head of cattle, 70,000 pigs, and 12 million birds per day. The fast-developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa together account for 40% of the world’s population. As they get richer, their people add more meat to their diet.11 Between 2003 and 2012, their meat consumption rose by 6.3% a year. It is expected to rise by another 2.5% a year between 2013 and 2022. This general pattern is likely to be repeated in other countries as incomes rise and the urban middle classes grow ¨ Foundation and Friends of the Earth Europe, 2014). (Heinrich Boll But there are deleterious consequences. The World Health Organization (2003) warns that the increase in the production and consumption of calories from animal sources has been leading to serious human health problems, creating environmental problems, and making it difficult for the poor to access food. As a result, they recommend concerted action between various sectors of society to usher in changes in agricultural policies and diets. In 2018, in Brazil, the slaughtering of cattle grew 3.4%, and pig slaughter increased 2.4%, reaching a new record of 44.2 million heads. Chicken slaughter, despite a fall of 2.5% in 2018, totaled 5.70 billion heads, and milk production reached 24.45 billion liters, a growth of 0.5%. The leather sector reached 35.10 million pieces and grew 3.0% compared to 2017. Egg production increased 8.6% to 3.6 billion dozens, a new record in the historical series started in 1987 (IBGE, 2019a).12 In 2018, beef cattle in Brazil hit the significant sum of R$597.22 billion. The figure represents an increase of 8.3% compared to R$551.41 billion registered in 2017. This number is the largest ever recorded in the last 10 years and includes inputs used in livestock production, investment in genetics, animal revenues, and total trades by industries and retailers. In 2018, there was a 6.9% increase in the number slaughtered, reaching 44.23 million heads. As a consequence, there was also a growth in the volume of beef produced, an increase of 12.8% over 2017. Of this total, 20.1% was exported and 79.6% was destined to the domestic market, responsible for a per capita consumption of 42.12 kg/year. In terms of herd size, in 1972, there were 92.5 million heads in the country, and in 2018 this number rose to 214.69 million. Brazil has the largest cattle herd in the world, followed by India (186 million heads), the United States (94.3 million heads), and China (81.5 million heads). Brazil is also the largest producer and exporter, as well as the second largest consumer, of meat, just behind the United States (ABIEC, 2019). Brazil is also the second largest producer of chicken, a sector that has grown over the past 10 years reaching 13.5 million tons in 2017 (ABPA, 2018a). According to a

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report, in 40 years (1976–2016), 60 million tons of chicken meat was exported in 2.4 million containers to 203 countries, generating revenues of US$94 billion. In the same period, 9.3 million tons of pork were shipped to 120 countries, in 369 thousand containers, with a revenue of US$19.3 billion (ABPA, 2018b). In this context of gigantism, there is plenty of room for cruelty and disrespect concerning the sentient nature of animals. According to ABIEC (2019), over 22% of slaughterhouses are not inspected by authorities, which involves circa 9.8 million animal lives. Live export is also an extremely cruel practice that has been criticized worldwide. In Brazil, in numerical terms, it is around 234 thousand tons, generating 534.75 million dollars, which, however, represent only 0.63% of the sector’s revenues (ABIEC, 2019). These reports concerning the slaughter industry use words and terms to qualify these sentient beings and their “functions,” which perfectly mirror the role they are unwillingly submitted to in this death machinery. Some examples are breeding stocks, tons (of flesh) and millions (of heads), egg-laying hens/battery cage hens, productivity, profitability, economic indicators, production costs, customization of products (according to cultural and religious demands), artificial insemination (euphemism for rape), and the list goes on. In the process of commodification of life, speciesism is no respecter of biological sex either. When we contemplate the fate of male newborn chicks and calves in the egg and dairy industries, or the forced extraction of semen for artificial reproduction, it becomes evident that what matters most is the extortion per se of these sentient beings. Female animals are more massively exploited than males because they have more “products” that are subject to expropriation, such as eggs and milk. Nevertheless, the reckless and disrespectful treatment happens in the same way, only varying the types and callousness of the methods employed. All these body parts, secretions, and “products” are robbed from them under torture and death. It is in the industrial slaughterhouse where the hegemony of instrumental rationality and the domination over nature are plainly evident. As Marcuse (1968, p. 153) affirms, the science of nature develops under a technological a priori that projects nature as potential instrumentality. Although most of these company reports on the commodification of animals depict body parts and whole animals as products, some have bucolic drawings that bear little to no correspondence with reality. In fact, the same distortion happens in television commercials, which present unrealistic images and messages about animals. For example, some advertisements present animals helping housewives preparing their own cadavers for dinner. The images of smiling cows and happy pigs hide the realities associated with meat production, namely the routine mutilation, confinement in exiguous spaces, extreme temperatures, lack of food and water during transportation, and slaughter. Other more subtle “animal harming” advertisements are quite common, including images of beautiful and “healthy” people wearing fancy “white milky moustaches” or fashionable leather items. In this marketing domain, where skies are eternally blue and people are always cheerful, a whole chain of cruelty toward animals, environmental ¨ destruction, and degrading jobs is hidden (Brugger, 2018). The vast majority of these products are totally dispensable to promote a good or a healthy living (Craig and Mangles, 2009).

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Many other contexts, regarding instrumental rationality and domination of nature, could be explored here, like the use of animals in vivisection practices. According to Greek and Shanks (2009, p. 1), animals are used in nine different modalities: (1) as predictive models of humans for research into diseases; (2) as predictive models of humans for testing drugs or other chemicals; (3) as “spare parts,” such as when a person receives an aortic valve from a pig; (4) as bioreactors or factories (e.g., for the production of insulin or monoclonal antibodies); (5) to study basic physiological principles; (6) to educate and train medical students and to teach basic principles of anatomy in high school biology classes; (7) as a modality for ideas or as a heuristic device; (8) in research designed to benefit other animals of the same species or breed; and (9) in research, in order to gain knowledge for knowledge sake. Estimates concerning the number of animals used in experiments vary, from tens of millions to hundreds of millions. One reason for this rough calculation is that the number of animals used in science is not open to direct public scrutiny and also because the majority of animals (rats and mice) are not properly counted (Greek and Shanks, 2009, p. 12). In regard to transgenic mice, for instance, there is an estimate that around 100 million were consumed each year in American labs. Mice with specific genes missing cost from $100 to $15,000 a piece (Greek and Shanks, 2009, p. 13). These sentient beings, regarded as laboratory equipment, are subjected to all sorts of abuse and many of them are used in more than one protocol in order to “save resources.”13 Worst, beyond ethical questions, Greek and Shanks (2009), among many others, affirm that the first two uses quoted before are not scientifically valid. The problem lies once more with the mechanistic paradigm that dominates animal experimentation: nonhuman animals are genetically different from us, and from each other, and have distinct evolutionary histories. This is the basic reason why they constitute poor predictive models for humans (Greek and Greek, 2000; Greek and Shanks, 2009; see also Croce, 1999). Fano (2000) also points out that although toxicity tests have never been scientifically validated to determine whether they can effectively predict toxicity to humans, data from animal tests fill toxicology manuals, books, and computerized databases and have been used to establish environmental health standards (see also Greek and Greek, 2000, p. 57). There are also new modalities of customization and commodification of animals such as the so-called canned hunting. This is a practice where animals are kept in restricted areas in order to increase the probability to be shot and killed. Maybe the most emblematic example of this practice is canned lion hunting. The commodification of animals goes side by side with the commodification of whole ecosystems. In Brazil, pastures and soybean fields comprise an area the size of the Cerrado, the second biggest biome of South America (IBGE, 2019b; Nogueira, 2019). The main destination of soybeans is their transformation into a particular commodity: animal feed. These grains are mostly transgenic and depend on dangerous herbicides such as glyphosate, linked to several negative impacts on animals, humans, and the environment, such as biodiversity loss (Costa, 2017; see also World Health Organization (WHO), 2017; Bain et al., 2017; Balbuena et al., 2015).

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With over 200 million hectares, the Cerrado is home to the springs of the three largest watersheds in South America (WWF-Brazil, 2011). Land-use change in Brazil is strongly related to the expansion of soybean and pasture in the Cerrado and Amazon regions. The Brazilian State of Mato Grosso is the center of the country’s soybean industry, with production spreading into savanna and rainforest biomes. A study that analyzed the environmental footprints of soybean production and resource flows accompanying exports to China and Europe for the 2000–2010 period found that soybean production was associated with 65% of the State’s deforestation and 14%–17% of total Brazilian land-use related carbon emissions (Lathuilli`ere et al., 2014). As in the Amazon rainforest, this type of land occupation damages evapotranspiration mechanisms—crucial to aquifer recharge—impacts soil integrity, and thus affects the water balance on which the rainfall regime that supplies agriculture, industry, and cities depends on. Furthermore, when we export grains, we export water. Even without pointing out other very important roles played by forests, it is easy to understand how this single function, water balance, impacts climate at the local, national, and global levels. A single tree in the Amazon rainforest can load up to 1,000 liters of water per day into the atmosphere (BBC Brasil, 2017). In addition, trees absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, offsetting the effects of wild fires and other sources of carbon emissions. Regarding greenhouse gas emissions, the scenario is bleak. Between 1990 and 2013, the agricultural sector in Brazil experienced an increase of 46%. Today, this sector contributes 55% of emissions, 31% directly and 24% resulting from changes in land use, such as deforestation linked to pasture and agriculture (MCTIC, 2017). More than 80% of deforestation in Brazil between 1990 and 2005 was caused by the conversion of land into pasture (ONUBR, 2016). Furthermore, a quarter of the earth’s terrestrial surface is used for ruminant grazing and a third of the global arable land is employed to grow feed for livestock, accounting for 40% of the total cereal production (FAO, 2013; Gerber et al., 2013). As habitat destruction is the leading cause of biodiversity loss, it is not surprising that vertebrate populations (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish) have declined sharply: a 60% fall in just over 40 years. Species population declines are especially pronounced in the tropics, with South and Central America suffering the most dramatic decline, an 89% loss compared to 1970. While climate change is a growing threat, the main drivers of biodiversity decline continue to be habitat loss due to agriculture and overexploitation (WWF, 2018). In the case of terrestrial mammals, livestock has a huge negative impact since the biomass of wild species has been reduced to a tiny fraction when compared to humans and the animals raised for food: today, the biomass of humans (0.06 Gt C) and the biomass of livestock (0.1 Gt C, dominated by cattle and pigs) far surpass that of wild mammals, which has a mass of 0.007 Gt C (Bar-On et al., 2018). This generates a significant number of negative effects on biogeochemical cycles affecting, for example, carbon sequestration (Smith et al., 2016). How long will there be ecosystems healthy enough for life to thrive?

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All of this commodification of animals and domination of nature is about greed, sheltered by selfishness or even indifference.14 Many, if not all, of these egocentric values have a very narrow connection with the maintenance of a ¨ certain (hegemonic) order such as “beef power” (Brugger et al., 2016, pp. 299–300).

CHANGING THIS SCENARIO THROUGH EDUCATION Education could promote a revolution of unimaginable proportions disseminating genuine sustainable paradigms and the animal abolitionist thesis. Still, schools and the mass media, especially television, play an important role in ¨ reproducing and legitimizing dominant worldviews (Brugger, 2018). In “Boundless Bull,” ecological economist Herman Daly (1991) addresses a very demonstrative instance of this. He argues that if someone wants to know what is wrong with the U.S. economy, it is not enough to go to graduate school, read books, and study statistical trends. It is imperative to watch television, especially the really serious stuff: the commercials. In this insightful analysis, Daly refers to the image of the bull that trots unimpeded, through various “empty” spaces, in countless Merrill Lynch commercials. The message is clear: Merrill Lynch wants to put you into an individualistic, macho, world without limits, which is assumed to be the U.S. economy. But the world is not empty; it is full of people and other things. Many species are driven to extinction due to the takeover of their “empty” habitat. Indigenous peoples are relocated to make way for dams and highways through “empty” jungles. And unlike Merrill Lynch’s bull, most do not trot freely along empty beaches. They are castrated and live short lives as steers imprisoned in crowded, stinking feedlots. While new and more callous ways of treating animals spread, the speciesist, instrumental, and archaic relationship between us and them is encouraged and legitimized at all levels of our dominant formal education or dissimulated in the sphere of informal education. In the case of the latter, consider the famous lion Cecil, in which the role of the media was very significant. Although the majority of journalists and news contents advocate the ideal of exemption of values and impartiality, their speciesist background is almost omnipresent. For example, in a television program in Brazil about Cecil, a study revealed that specific issues were silenced, such as the cruelty and violence subjacent to the hunt and the moral bias inherent to it. The program also dedicated substantial time to biodiversity, which was a digressive issue in that context, and treated hunting nearly exclusively from a technical and legal perspective. These practices point to the need for changes in ¨ the education of media professionals (Brugger, 2016). Concerning our speciesist relationship with animals, Francione and Charlton (2015, p. 87) postulate a very important idea: they claim that education should be based on moral realism. According to this stance, moral facts and moral values exist as objective truths that are independent of our perception, beliefs, or attitudes about them. In short, if science has already shown that a wide range of animals are sentient beings animated by a conscience, just like us, this indicates

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an urge for education to respect and honor this evidence. Respecting and honoring science and ethics is to recognize that nonhuman animals are painist, emotional, and sentient beings; are subjects of a life; should not be properties; and should be morally considered (Balcombe, 2010; Bekoff, 2007; Francione and Charlton, 2015; Regan, 2001, 2004; Ryder, 2011; Singer, 1979). Considering that animal sentience and consciousness are now anchored in scientific evidence, treating animals as properties, things, resources, or commodities should no longer be a matter of belief, or attitude, because they have a value in themselves, irrespective of any instrumental value. Francione and Charlton (2015, p. 12) argue that …to be a property means to be a thing that exists exclusively as a resource for others. To have the status of property is inconsistent with having moral value. To be a property is to be something, not someone.

The immediate ethical unfolding of this is that nonhuman animals should be granted with some of the most basic consecrated human rights, such as the right not to be tortured, imprisoned, enslaved, or killed. This would be the end of zoos, rodeos, vivisection, and animal agriculture, to quote a few instances where animals are (ab)used in our society. The problem is that educational values and paradigms are not something that hover above economic, cultural, and political influences and interests. This is probably the reason why even when it comes to science education there is a refusal to incorporate inconvenient truths—even the knowledge that has emerged in its own domain—such as animal sentience and consciousness. One major challenge we face, if we want to “uncommodify” at least the sentient part of the world we live in, is to scrutinize the roots of our anthropocentrism and speciesism and take into account the intrinsic, inherent value of nonhuman animals. But this will not happen unless an animal abolitionist view is woven into formal education. We shall not move the status of animals from properties to persons as long as the formal dominant education promotes speciesism and animal exploitation openly, extensively, and proudly in practically all fields of knowledge, from kindergartens to college level. Maybe the most representative field of knowledge in this regard is Zootechnics, which is the art, science, and technology of animal husbandry—the practice of handling, maintaining, and “improving” animals under domestication through breeding, nutrition, genetic manipulation, etc.15 Of course studies in areas such as nutrition and preventive medicine (veterinary care) aim not at the animal’s intrinsic health value, but at their instrumental value, as products or commodities. Their suffering is “immeasurable,” something abstract or senseless to consider in the indefatigable process of turning life into products. Interestingly, as Jeffrey Masson (2014, p. 4) points out, the domestication of animals has brought to the fore a latent cruelty in humans. Notwithstanding, although the domestication of animals is at least 10,000 years old, it has been only recently, historically speaking, that this painient part of the biosphere has been transformed into a commodity.

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Zootechnics is an extreme example, but speciesism is widespread in numerous other areas. Environmental education, as well as many Humane Education programs, could be promising to fight the speciesist legacy, but the traditional conservationist ethics that dominates formal environmental education has little or no affinity with the animal rights question.16 This happened because the conservationist ethos, ruled by the same instrumental rationality that spreads through all fields of knowledge in the West, was consolidated in a historical period in which studies on animal sentience were anecdotal and incipient.17 Today, however, the lines that divide the sentient biosphere between “us and them” become progressively dimmed, reinforcing the idea of a continuum, of an intertwined mesh of emotions within the animal kingdom. Studies that demonstrate the value of sentience and self-consciousness in animals—and their contribution concerning the evolutionary aspect—lead the question beyond the inclusion of animals in our moral community (Balcombe, 2010; Bekoff, 2007; Masson, 2014). By clarifying the amalgamation of these inherently inseparable facts, evolution and sentience, the urgency for environmental conservation starts to sail beyond the pragmatic question of the mere maintenance of biodiversity as an “environmental service.” It is indeed a paramount challenge to consider each animal as a “subject of a life,” a vision rooted in rights, when even under the impersonal category of “fauna”—as guardians of ecological functions—they receive little or no legal protection. Furthermore, in the domain of so-called environmental education, the dominant instrumental rationality favors a kind of technical instruction that is more often a mere training—notorious examples are campaigns on tree planting and on recycling—than real education. We should distinguish environmental education from natural resource conservation education. The latter is essentially a means of instruction concerning the rational use of natural resources and the maintenance of optimum levels of productivity in natural or human-managed ecosystems in addition, of course, to some knowledge of Zoology, Botany, etc. Environmental education encompasses these important themes but should be considered mainly as a political and ethical education, one made to change values. The problem with the “pragmatic” natural resource conservation education is that, besides “plant a tree,” the causes of deforestation are either superficially discussed or, what is worse, sometimes deforestation is said to be the price of progress. Under these conditions what could be a rich “generating theme” degenerates into a kind of instruction that turns out to be a technical ¨ drilling process, emphasizing mainly “how,” instead of “why” (Brugger, 2004).18 The apparently obvious but crucial point that has seldom been questioned is that the adjective “environmental” reveals the existence of a nonenvironmental instructional process that is our traditional education. This establishes a tense dialogue with the dominant concepts that structure the Western values and makes ¨ it clear that education as a whole should be “environmental” (Brugger, 2004). For all we have discussed so far, this “environmental as a whole” education should also encompass an animal abolitionist perspective. These ponderings call for a questioning of what we want from subjects inextricably linked to environmental education such as “sustainable development”—a

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synthetic expression that has become a kind of panacea and whose interpretations give this term the status of a real chimera. The time has come for ethics to become a fourth dimension of sustainability, an important feature lost in the trajectory of modern science. As discussed previously in regard to Herbert Marcuse, the quantification of nature in terms of mathematical structures separated science from ethics. This historical and epistemological d´emarche blurred our vision to scientifically conceive of nature in terms of final causes or as ethical, esthetic, or political agents. The term sustainable development is a rather polysemic one as even each word separately can bear multiple meanings. For the purpose of this discussion, moving beyond the basic tripod—the social, the environmental, and the economic dimensions—we should add an ethical consideration. This move is especially important in a time when the economic pillar gained momentum in its supposedly green version. Markets for environmental commodities and payment for environmental services are mechanisms born in this context. The quest to tackle the climate change problem via a carbon market is probably the most emblematic example. This issue is especially important when concerning economics. As Daly (2010, p. 13) explains, the concept of an optimal scale of the aggregate economy relative to the ecosystem is totally absent from current macroeconomic theory, even though this issue is of paramount relevance. But it is not enough to combat the frenetic rhythm that drives our production processes and the fanatical emphasis on maximum productivity and growth as a good thing in itself. Such ideas, which provide the basis for the depletion of natural resources by turning them into “high-entropy wastes,” are also part of the same paradigm from which the concept of externality has emerged (Bretas, 1986; Daly, 2010, p. 14).19 This concept, as it is formulated, is like “Columbus’ egg” in the sense that it mutilates the whole by deforming, adapting by force, its structure. This is the procedure of expurgating the inconvenient parts of the system, the act of turning a blind eye to ethical issues.20 In fact, the term externality reflects to a great extent the aforementioned fragmentary way of thinking and a mechanistic and analytical worldview that is dominant in economics. In Politics, Aristotle (1999) explained the difference between economics and chrematistics or wealth getting. The first is concerned with the material supply of the oikos (the family, house, or family property) or the polis (the city or body of citizens), while the latter, even being part of the economy, is essentially an acquisitive technique. Aristotle also made explicit that chrematistics could become unnatural, breaking all limits. He anticipated that the accumulation of wealth would end up destroying the good way of living (Rossi and Tierno, 2009). The field of ecological economics undoubtedly raises fundamental questions for the construction of a sustainable world. Martinez Alier (1994, pp. 56–57), for example, points out that neoclassical environmental economics assumes that all externalities can receive a convincing monetary valuation. But he and other ecological economists doubt that it is possible to make a convincing monetary assessment of the irreversible and uncertain effects of our actions today on future generations.21 The assumptions of ecological economics are therefore the only ones that can address environmental issues precisely because they question the

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economic rationality at its base. This is very much in consonance with the idea of an ethical dimension concerning sustainability. Marcuse (1968, p. 125) argues that epistemology is in itself ethics, and ethics is epistemology. But as in the case of natural resource conservation, this is a necessary condition though not a sufficient one. Here too an anthropocentric, speciesist background prevails: future generations should include all other animal species, not only ours. In sum, unfortunately, we have not changed the philosophical foundations of biological sciences curricula that privileges animal experimentation and the acquisition of purely technical skills, to the detriment of contents that deal with society–nature relationships22; economics or industrial engineering curricula where the physical boundaries of the biosphere and the suffering of its sentient part, animals and people, are neglected to the advantage of efficiency and growth rates; or nutrition sciences curriculum aimed at making supposedly perfect diets, but crystallized into hedonistic, anthropocentric, and speciesist values. Such considerations fit almost every field of knowledge, and the common fundamental question concerning all is the same: what profile of biologist, economist, engineer, or nutritionist is going to emerge from such philosophical foundations? Law graduates individuals who still envisage nonhuman animals as things, property, or resources? The abundant information and knowledge at our disposal today should be translated into a new legislation and new court decisions about this issue. Animal sentience and consciousness are among these groundbreaking discoveries. The animal rights lawyer Steven Wise (2004, p. 29) argues that substantive judges reject the past as manacle. Law, they believe, should express a community’s present sense of justice, not that of another age. Courts should keep law current with public values, prevailing understandings of justice, morality, and new scientific discoveries. However, coercive measures, as restrictive legislation, are not the ultimate solution. Here is one more example. Brazil has a fairly solid legislation protecting the environment and nonhuman animals. But there is a substantial gap between theory and praxis, usually due to conflicts of interest concerning economic issues. An emblematic example is whale-watching tourism in boats. In September 2012, the Sea Shepherd Brazil Institute received a complaint that several individuals of the Southern Right Whale species (Eubalaena australis), considered endangered, were being molested during the period that these mammals visit the Brazilian coast to give birth and feed their young. The report alleged that the ships did not respect the legal distance and approached whales to the point of causing collisions between them and the vessels. The legal diplomas aiming at their protection are profuse, and failures to respect the condition of vulnerability and docility of these whales constitute a violation of the right of cetaceans to move freely along the Brazilian coast, without the approach of human beings.23 This demonstrates that although a robust legislation and favorable court decisions designed to protect these creatures are absolutely necessary, we need a new education that encompasses animal ethics. Most people, even those who condemn whale hunting, still believe that whales should serve some human, instrumental purpose, like “entertaining” us. By disrespecting their sentient nature as subjects of a life, we

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end up putting their existence in jeopardy, even from the purely instrumental point of view of genetic resources. Transforming the values that underlie education is therefore a sine qua non condition for changing the very profile of graduates, the future professionals who will build a new society, as well as a new culture. In this process, it is essential that we perceive the world in a systemic or ecological way. The fundamental aspect of the ecological or systemic vision, as proposed by Capra (1996), is that the world is an integrated, functional whole, not a collection of parts dissociated from one another. This includes the perception of the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena. Systemic thinking is also contextual, which reinforces the idea of interdependence. In this way the commodification of nature and nonhuman animals walks hand in hand with the commodification of life itself, including ours. It is not by chance that there also exists the tag “human resource.”24 We must question more than ever what kind of knowledge will rule our world. The widespread destruction and violence we are witnessing today, against all life forms, is a strong indication that what is really imperative is no longer to quantify or decode the singing of whales, but to be able to simply listen to their chants. Many other subjects could be added here. One of them is the fact that we also need to admit that our scientific culture has often disqualified other forms and modalities of knowledge, labeling them as “primitive” or “backward.” Fortunately the area of ethnobiology has been debunking this specific prejudice, showing the importance of traditional knowledge in several domains. This preconceived idea comes from the fact that we still judge the stage of development of other peoples and cultures according to their technical progress. Technical advance has been regarded as development tout court and, as a consequence, we have transformed differences into hierarchies. The peoples considered developed are only those who have broken away from their traditional involvement and ¨ ways of dealing with the environment and have adopted our technique (Brugger, 2004). This narcissistic relationship with those who are not shaped in our own image is based on a linear, one-dimensional thought: “the history of civilized Europe sees the world as a museum in which each people-region is a picture of its development process” (Gonçalves, 1988, p. 17). It is time to stimulate critical thinking, instead of encouraging our students to choose from a narrow set of preestablished solutions, or depriving fruitful generating themes—as deforestation—from their “thickness” in time and space.

EPILOGUE In Macbeth, William Shakespeare wrote, “Life’s but a walking shadow…. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” While this statement belongs to a different context, it can be seen as capturing the feeling of animals exploited in laboratories, farms, entertainment industries, the world of fashion, and in a myriad of other situations. Masson (2005, p. 19) studies the behavior and emotions of “farm” animals such as chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, and goats. He has found that these animals exhibit complex emotions such as love, loyalty, and

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friendship, among others. Anyone who has ever observed a dog dreaming can imagine what kind of nightmare haunts the psyche of a sow confined for life in those tiny, filthy, fetid cells–the size of their bodies–called gestation crates. In these farms they are periodically inseminated (raped) until these “offspring producing machines” are no longer productive enough and are, eventually, sent to slaughter. We live in the era of the utter commodification of life. The mathematization of nature has been an ideational veil through which our civilization has been trying to anticipate regularities in order to support its thirst for unlimited growth. Under this scientifically and ethically distorted shield, animal models were constructed and whole production chains employ more and more sophisticated techniques to increase productivity irrespective of its consequences. Marcuse (1968, p. 164) argues that this specific sociohistorical project and the consciousness, which undertakes it, is the hidden subject of Galilean science: the art of anticipation extended in infinity (ins Unendliche erweiterte Voraussicht). Only in the medium of technology, humans and nature (including nonhuman animals) become fungible objects of organization (Marcuse, 1968, p. 168)—mere resources fueling the ever-spinning carousel of capital accumulation. I stated at the beginning, that according to Marcuse (1968, p. 169), “the web of domination has become the web of Reason itself, and the transcending modes of thought seem to transcend Reason itself.” That is why the new education proposed here must be erected on the basis of a noninstrumental paradigm. Regardless of ethical concerns on its intrinsic value, stable planetary systems have enabled modern human society to develop. Our health, food, and security depend on biodiversity. From medical treatments to food production, biodiversity is critical to society and people’s well-being. All our economic activity ultimately depends on nature. It is estimated that, globally, nature provides services worth around US$125 trillion a year (WWF, 2018). The objectification and instrumentalization of nature may eventually lead to an apocalyptical condition as many ecosystems are heading fast toward tipping points, underming the very basis upon which life has thrived for millions, even billions of years.25 Interdependence is thus the key to understand ecological, ethical, and epistemological issues, something that has been impeded by our speciesist “lens.” Lifestyles change slowly, though. Despite all the valuable information at our disposal today, this scenario remains basically the same, as argued by Singer (1979): Our custom is all the support that factory farmers need. The decision to cease giving them that support may be difficult, but it is less difficult than it would have been for a white Southerner to go against the traditions of his society and free his slaves.

It is worth noting that in some parts of the world meat consumption may be in decline. In the European Union, for instance, where many animal abolitionist movements flourish, there has been a very significant reduction of beef imports from Brazil. In 1997, the European Union made up over 60% of total exports from Brazil and in 2017 the figure dropped to less than 10% of total Brazilian exports (ABIEC, 2019). Is there hope on the horizon?

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It is possible. Nevertheless, we need an urgent intervention because the commodification of nonhuman animals goes side by side with the commodification and destruction of nature itself. It’s time for our industrial society to take hold of the valuable knowledge that has emerged in so many different fields and change the path and the pace of this destructive trend that we have been tracking for so long. The good news is that never in history has there been such a high level of consilience in so many distant areas of knowledge: from philosophical studies to environmental, nutritional, social, and technological areas, all roads lead toward the end of animal exploitation. Education can do much, but we also need a shift of paradigm in other realms, such as public policies. It is of course a difficult task to abolish practices that have been so deeply entrenched in our quotidian for centuries. Nevertheless, we can start to turn the balance in favor of animals by making ethical choices about what goes on our daily plates. This is probably our most plain and absolute prerogative. Today there are loads of studies and reports by outstanding scientists and institutions that recommend a habit change concerning our food.26 A recent recommendation indicates that Eating mostly plant-based foods while reducing the global consumption of animal products, especially ruminant livestock, can improve human health and significantly lower GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions (including methane in the “Short-lived pollutants” step). Moreover, this will free up croplands for growing much-needed human plant food instead of livestock feed, while releasing some grazing land to support natural climate solutions. (Ripple et al., 2019, p. 4)

Let us have a critical look at our “daily bread.”27 The message is clear about the benefits of adopting, for instance, a vegan lifestyle, which is also a moral imperative according to Francione and Charlton (2015, p. 94).28 Besides, it requires no new technology or political will. Every individual can make the switch and start adhering to this Brownian motion of microresistances.29 Marcuse (1968, p. 236) argues that history is the negation of nature and what is only natural is overcome and recreated by the power of reason. If nature is in itself a rational, legitimate object of science, then it is the legitimate object not only of reason as power and domination but also of reason as freedom, he concludes. Have nature and nonhuman animals been designed to succumb to objectification? Have they coevolved in billions of years to be co-modified by technoscience in order to serve to a single species? According to both science and history, this is not a fate, but a choice.

NOTES 1. Concerning the concept of technoscience, see, for instance, Lacey (2012). 2. In the introduction of his book, Marcuse (1968, pp. xv–xvi) argues that in the advanced industrial society the productive apparatus tends to become totalitarian (in many senses, like socially needed occupation, skills, attitudes, individual aspirations, etc.). “Technology serves to institute new, more effective and more pleasant forms of social control and social cohesion. The totalitarian tendencies of these controls seem to assert

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itself in still another sense—by spreading to the less developed and even pre-industrial areas of the world, and by creating similarities in the development of capitalism and communism.” 3. This rapid planetary change, often referred to as the “Great Acceleration,” has brought many benefits to human society. Yet we now also understand that there are multiple connections between the overall rise in our health, wealth, food and security, the unequal distribution of these benefits, and the declining state of the Earth’s natural systems. Human-induced change is so great that many scientists believe we are entering a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene (WWF, 2018). 4. According to Hannah Arendt (1983, p. 152), productivity emerges as an icon of the industrial society after undergoing conceptual changes in a historical course from medieval to modern times. 5. We now know by reputable researchers that several species of animals do have their own language and/or modes of communication. Besides, recent studies indicate that humans recognize acoustic universals in vocalizations across all classes of terrestrial vertebrates (Filippi et al., 2017). 6. The media theorist Neil Postman (1993) states that there is a supremacy of technology over all other things, created throughout the history of the Western world, culminating in what he calls Technopoly. The idea of Technopoly involves a belief in progress, standardization, and superior machine efficiency with respect to humans. 7. According to Aristotle, the Pythagoreans thought that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all beings; that all things seemed to be formed in the likeness of numbers (Foulqui´e, 1974). 8. The Philosophical Dictionary Voltaire. Animals. Selected and Translated by H.I. Woolf. New York: Knopf, 1924. Available at: https://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/ volanima.html. 9. Besides, nonhuman animals deal with different stimuli and “tools” like pheromones, echolocation, magnetic fields, etc. 10. Selective speciesism is a form of “moral schizophrenia.” See Francione (2000). 11. See also Riechmann (1999, pp. 30–34). 12. See also EMBRAPA (2019). 13. Lab animals are forced to swim until they are exhausted; they are injected with poisons and toxins; they are burned, blinded, and scalped; they are genetically modified so that they artificially develop myopathies, paralyzing diseases, etc.; they have their bones broken and the top of their skulls removed, among innumerous other atrocities. 14. A worthwhile documentary to see regarding this context is The Corporation by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. 15. The term also refers to the development of methods and devices for capturing and utilizing animals especially as employed by nonliterate people. 16. Beyond any problems concerning their epistemological foundations, adjectives such as “environmental” or “humane” are a form of compartmentalizing education. The latter, furthermore, carries a speciesist element: humane, from “human,” is associated with values and attitudes good per se. 17. As discussed before, the hegemonic concept of environment is reduced to its naturaltechnical dimensions. It is then no surprise that environmental education should follow the same trend. 18. The expression “generating theme” (tema gerador, in Portuguese) is used here as an adaptation of the term originally coined by the Brazilian education philosopher Paulo Freire, a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. Synthetically, it is the starting point for the construction of a discovery process that involves interdisciplinary, dialogical, and dialectical approaches. 19. According to Pindyck and Rubinfeld (2002, p. 597), an externality is an action by either a producer or a consumer, which affects other producers or consumers, but is not accounted for in the market price. The term “externality” is used because the effects mentioned (both costs and benefits) are external to the market.

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20. Daly (2010, pp. 11–12) explores precisely the ethical, qualitative dimension of sustainability when he correctly points out the differences between development and growth. 21. Ecological economists argue that the elements of the economy are incommensurable, but they accept, on a practical level, measures that can reduce the negative impacts of the economy on the environment (e.g., taxation on the use of nonrenewable energy). 22. The objectification of life occurs in several contexts during graduate courses in biological sciences. Practices as biometry and collections (of insects, etc.) are good examples. 23. In general, Federal Constitution, article 225; Law 9605/98. In the specific case of cetaceans, Law 7643/87, which prohibits the intentional harassment of all species of cetaceans, treating them as a criminal offense, Decree 6514/2008 and the Ordinance 117/96. 24. There is one more interesting detail in this term: beyond the aspect of reducing humans to resources (resources are basically means to ends), human resources contrast with natural resources, the term is an expression of the dichotomy between nature vs culture, of our condition of not belonging to nature. 25. The United Nations biodiversity chief warns that there are ecological thresholds and tipping points that could result in a cascade of extinctions, collapse, and social impacts: Conley, J. 2019. Tipping Point: UN Biodiversity Chief Warns Burning of Amazon Could Lead to ’Cascading Collapse of Natural Systems. Common Dreams, Friday, August 30, 2019. 26. Two reports published a decade ago (2010) recommend major shifts in the dominant Western diet. One of them is entitled Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production: Priority Products and Materials (UNEP), which recommends the adoption of essentially vegan/vegetarian diets (p. 82). The other is the Global Biodiversity Assessment 3 (GBO-3): https://www.cbd.int/doc/publications/gbo/gbo3-finalen.pdf, which recommends more moderate levels of meat consumption (p. 85). 27. Reference to Our Daily Bread (Unser t¨aglich Brot), a 2005 movie by Nikolaus Geyrhalter that unveils the world of industrial food production, showing where our food comes from. Assembly lines, big machines, and a cold and clockwork industrial artificial environment combine to deliver productivity and “efficiency.” Here humans, nonhuman animals, and other forms of life are trapped in an abominable web propitiated by a technoscience that commodifies everything. 28. A simple switch to vegetarian/vegan diets would reduce the food-related water footprint by 36% or more (Gerbens-Leenes et al., 2013). With regard to energy, it is worth mentioning a study showing that if grazing and feed production land were used for planting crops to be converted directly into food for humans and for biofuel production, such fuels could replace about half of the coal used worldwide, avoiding the emission of 3,340 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually (Goodland and Anhang, 2009). Regarding moral imperatives we should also contemplate the fact that “most of the new diseases that have emerged in humans over recent decades (roughly 70%) are of animal origin and are related to the human quest for more animal-source food. This includes new influenza viruses (e.g., H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza, swine influenza A H1N1 and H3N2v virus) as well as the human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1), bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE commonly known as mad cow disease), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola viruses and many other veterinary public health risks” (FAO, 2013). With respect to new epidemics/pandemics, the question is not “if” but “when” they will happen. Another major concern, among many others, is the use of antibiotics to prevent disease in factory farms (as prophylaxis), as feed additive to stimulate growth (FAO, 2013) and the unintended wide release into the environment through animal sewage and runoff water from agricultural sites (WHO, 2015) creating/ disseminating antimicrobial resistance. 29. Reference to Luce Giard, The Practice of Everyday Life.

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REFERENCES Arendt, H. 1983. A Condição Humana, 2nd ed., Rio de Janeiro, Forense. Aristotle. 1999. Politics, Kitchener, ON, Batoche Books. ´ Associação Brasileira das Industrias Exportadoras de Carnes (ABIEC). 2019. Beef Report – Perfil da Pecu´aria no Brasil, São Paulo. Available at: http://www.abiec.com.br/controle/uploads/arquivos/sumario2019portugues.pdf ´ Associação Brasileira de Prote´ına Animal (ABPA). 2018a. Relatorio Anual 2018, São Paulo. Available at: http://abpa-br.com.br/storage/files/relatorio-anual-2018.pdf Associação Brasileira de Prote´ına Animal (ABPA). 2018b. A prote´ına animal brasileira em 2018: Desafios e Perspectivas, São Paulo. Available at: http://www.agricultura.gov.br/assuntos/camaras-setoriaistematicas/documentos/camaras-setoriais/aves-e-suinos/2018/36a-ro/abpa-aves-ovos-e-suinos.pdf Bain, C., Selfa, T., Dandachia, T. and Velardi, S. 2017, April. ‘Superweeds’ or ‘survivors’? Framing the problem of glyphosate resistant weeds and genetically engineered crops, Journal of Rural Studies, 51, 211–221. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315067298_% 27Superweeds%27_or_%27survivors% 27_Framing_the_problem_of_glyphosate_resistant_weeds_and_genetically_engineered_crops; Balbuena, M.S., Tison, L., Hahn, M.L., Greggers, U., Menzel, R. and Farina, W.M. 2015. Effects of sublethal doses of glyphosate on honeybee navigation, Journal of Experimental Biology, 218, 2799–2805. Available at: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/17/2799 Balcombe, J. 2010. Second Nature – The Inner Lives of Animals, New York, NY, Palgrave Macmillan. Bar-On, Y., Phillips, R. and Milo, R. 2018. The biomass distribution on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(25), 6506–6511. Available at: https://www.pnas.org/content/ 115/25/6506 ˆ BBC Brasil. 2017. O QUE são os ‘rios voadores’ que distribuem a a´ gua da Amazonia, BBC Brasil, São Paulo, 01 set. 2017. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-41118902 Bekoff, M. 2007. The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow and Empathy – and Why They Matter, Novato, CA, New World Library. Bretas, P. 1986. Ecologia e economia. Ecologia e cultura. Org. Rodrigo Duarte. Belo Horizonte: Imprensa Oficial de Minas gerais, 73–82; 147–156. ¨ Brugger, P., Marinova, D. and Raphaely, T. 2016. Animal production and consumption: an ethical educational approach. In Impact of Meat Consumption on Health and Environmental Sustainability, Eds T. Raphaely and D. Marinova, pp. 295–312, Hershey, PA, IGI Global. ¨ Brugger, P. 2004. 25 years past Tbilisi: environmental teaching or cheating? In International Perspectives in Environmental Education, Eds F. Leal and M. Littledyke, pp. 129–138, Vol. 16, Frankfurt, Peter Lang. ¨ Brugger, P. 2016. Educação e televisão: O leão Cecil no programa Sem Fronteiras, Globo News, Brazilian Animal Rights Journal, 11(21), 169–199. ¨ Brugger, P. 2018. It’s the speciesism, stupid! Animal abolitionism, environmentalism and the mass media. In Handbook of Research on Social Marketing and its Influence on Animal Origin Food Product Consumption, Eds D. Boguevadiana, D. Marinova and T. Raphaely, pp. 92–103, Hershey, PA, IGI Global. Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. 2012. Cambridge declaration on consciousness. Available at: http://yourbrainandyou.com/2012/08/24/the-cambridge-declaration-on-consciousness/ Capra, F. 1996. A teia da vida: uma nova compreensão cient´ıfica dos sistemas vivos. Trad. Newton Roberval Eichemberg, São Paulo, Cultrix. ´ Costa, C. 2017. Em 30 anos, Cerrado brasileiro pode ter maior extinção de plantas da historia, diz estudo, BBC Brasil, São Paulo, March 23. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil39358966 Craig, W. and Mangles, A. 2009. Position of the American dietetic association: vegetarian diets, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(7), 1266–1282. Croce, P. 1999. Vivisection or Science? An Investigation into Testing Drugs and Safeguarding Health, London and New York, NY, Zed Books. Daly, H. 1991. Boundless bull. In Media and the Environment, Eds C. L. Lamay and E. E. Dennis, pp. 149–155, Washington, DC, Island Press.

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ABSTRACT LIFE, ABSTRACT LABOR, ABSTRACT MIND Charles Thorpe and Brynna Jacobson

ABSTRACT Drawing upon Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s work, we argue that, just as capitalism produces abstract labor, it coproduces both abstract mind and abstract life. Abstract mind is the split between mind and nature and between subject/ observer and observed object that characterizes scientific epistemology. Abstract mind reflects an abstracted objectified world of nature as a means to be exploited. Biological life is rendered as abstract life by capitalist exploitation and by the reification and technologization of organisms by contemporary technoscience. What Alberto Toscano has called “the culture of abstraction” imposes market rationality onto nature and the living world, disrupting biotic communities and transforming organisms into what Finn Bowring calls “functional bio-machines.” Keywords: Abstract life; abstract labor; science; technology; Karl Marx; Alfred Sohn-Rethel

INTRODUCTION In this chapter, we explore the salience of what Alberto Toscano has called “the culture of abstraction” to the dynamics through which capitalism generates harm to the environment and other species. Toscano places Alfred North Whitehead into dialogue with Marxism in the form of Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s concept, and critique, of “real abstraction” (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, pp. 19–57; Toscano, 2008a, 2008b). Toscano argues that Whitehead’s criticisms of modern scientific culture’s overextension and overvaluation of practices of abstraction render Whitehead an “involuntary Marxist.” Realizing Whitehead’s critique, in the sense of overcoming the intellectual and cultural limitations of abstraction, requires The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 59–105 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035004

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overcoming the limiting, alienating, capitalist social relations that produce the culture of abstraction (Toscano, 2008a, pp. 72–73). We similarly draw on SohnRethel to argue that, while science is essential to comprehension of the ecological problems and harms to other species caused by capitalism, the culture of abstraction also blocks societal comprehension of these troubles and the possibility of action to change them. The abstraction, or separation, of mind from being and of fact from value entails the alienation of science from labor and from the synthetic organization of social activity. The synthesis of the social division of labor is accomplished unconsciously by the market rather than consciously through democratic and participative planning. Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 47) writes, The underlying reason for this alienating effect of exchange is that, on the basis of commodity production, it is property, not the labor of production, which governs the social order by operating the social synthesis.

The market subordinates the whole to the part, the social synthesis to the particular interests, supported by money/power, of the dominant class. Market relations also trap science in the mode of what Anthony Giddens calls simple, as opposed to reflexive, modernization (Beck et al., 1994; Giddens, 1990; cf. Marcuse, 1965; McKechnie and Welsh, 2002; Thorpe and Gregory, 2010; Thorpe and Jacobson, 2013; Thorpe and Welsh, 2008). Sohn-Rethel suggests that the kind of conceptual abstraction from concrete life that characterizes mathematical scientific description and explanation of natural phenomena was first a mode of life, or being, and developed as a scientific form of consciousness in reflection of this abstract mode of being. This abstract form of life developed in social reality in the form of market relations mediated by money. Money imposes an impersonal and both formally and instrumentally rational framework on human action. Sohn-Rethel demonstrates how commodity production and market relations give rise to the capacity to conceptualize a mathematically abstract universe of impersonal forces. He further shows how this very framework of thought, and the mechanical materialist conception of nature with which it is aligned, construct separations between mind and nature, freedom and necessity, and conception and execution (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, pp. 13–19, 60–79). These dualisms reflect and ideologically underpin the division between mental and manual labor, a division of labor that itself arises from moneycommodity-market relations. The market expresses a particular kind of “society of appropriation,” or class society. In such a society, the “social synthesis” is achieved in a form “qualitatively different and separated in time” from the activity of labor (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, pp. 83–84). In capitalism, the social synthesis is achieved in abstract form through the market, which is concretized in the domination of society by the bourgeois class. The way in which the social synthesis is achieved abstractly through the market is reflected in the way in which the labor process is governed abstractly, through automation. Sciencebased technology is utilized to create “the self-operating production process,” in which the mind (as cognition, conception, decision, understanding, and

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purpose) is removed from the labor process and, instead, embodied in the abstract system of machinery (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, p. 123; see also Schaffer, 1994). Abstract mind is a corollary of abstract labor. It is coproduced with abstract labor in the development of the capitalist mode of production (cf. Jasanoff ed., 2004; Shapin and Schaffer, 1985). Abstract mind reciprocally produces abstract labor through its application in the labor process in the form of technology, in which “the dominion of capital finds an objective basis” (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, p. 120). The science to which the exchange abstraction gives rise is therefore a form of alienated consciousness that corresponds to, and ideologically and materially serves, class domination (Ackroyd et al., 1977; Aronowitz, 1988; Levidow and Young, 1981; Marcuse,1964; Noble, 1986; Rose and Rose, 1976; Sohn-Rethel, 1978; Thorpe, 2016, pp. 93–151; Zuboff, 2019). The limitations of a science built on the foundation of the social relations of commodity production arise from the market’s occlusion of human ends and, linked with this, the instrumental orientation of science under capitalism, reflecting the alienation of means from ends (Sohn-Rethel, 1978). Under capitalism, the social synthesis is accomplished blindly, via the market, in a way that fragments understanding and prevents conscious social control. This imposes inherent limitations on science, which is limited to the technological contribution toward means and prevented from access to the kingdom of ends. It is in and through the culture of abstraction that market exchange conditions and constrains social cognition. The culture of abstraction is expressed in the extent to which scientific culture still operates within the paradigm of simple modernization, i.e., technological domination of nature and other species (cf. Giddens, 1990). The nonreflexivity of simple modernization is an expression of the market’s occlusion of social purposes. Simple modernization is expressed in the role of scientific rationality in increasing the exploitation of labor through automation and in the rationalized exploitation of nature and other species. Simple modernization reflects the dominance of abstract exchange value over all human purpose and therefore the limitlessness of exploitation as it is decoupled from human need (De Angelis, 1995, pp. 112–113). While it is widely recognized that simple modernization has produced ecological and climactic disaster, society is structurally blocked by the power of capital from reflexive self-reform. Science is structurally blocked from its ability to comprehend the totality in order to orient and guide the social synthesis of the division of labor, since this is done by the mindless mechanism of the market. The transformation of the labor process into an “abstract system” accomplished through the application of science empties labor of consciousness and deprives it of control (cf. Giddens, 1990, 1991). The autonomous movement of capital on the market, characterized by Guy Debord’s critique of the consumer–commodity spectacle as “the autonomous movement of the nonliving,” is mirrored in the increasing autonomy, via mechanization, of the operations of capital in the workshop (Debord, 1983, thesis #2). Abstraction is intimately related to the subordination of labor by capital. Hence, as quoted above, Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 47) argues crucially that the

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CHARLES THORPE AND BRYNNA JACOBSON …underlying reason for this alienating effect of exchange is that, on the basis of commodity production, it is property, not the labor of production, which governs the social order by operating the social synthesis.

It is precisely because labor is propertyless and is itself a commodity that circulates on the market that it is denied control of the productive process, leaving the social synthesis to the blind processes of the market (which tend toward the self-reinforcing concentration of wealth and power and therefore the more direct rule over society by the bourgeois class as the concrete social agents of abstract capital). The reification of labor as a commodity is experienced by workers as estrangement from their living activity, as their work is regulated, standardized, and disciplined. This is the process of real subsumption, whereby capital imposes a specifically capitalist labor process. What is produced as a result is abstract labor not only as value but as a concretely transformed labor process and a changed mode of existence of workers. So, as Karl Marx (1964, p. 37) wrote in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, the worker is reduced to an “abstract existence… as a mere workman.” The mid-twentieth century saw the rise of the “mass worker” whose working activity, Finn Bowring (2004, p. 106) writes, “meets Marx’s definition of ‘abstract labour’ – labour which is independent of the particular concrete form it takes at any given time.” In this way, abstraction is not only a thought process but also a material process that affects workers in their embodied experience of themselves and the world. This process of abstraction, and the role of science in producing real abstraction, extends beyond labor to the transformation of biological life itself. The real subsumption of labor is accompanied by the real subsumption of life. Just as capital produces abstract labor, it also produces abstract life (Thorpe, 2016, pp. 56–59). In capitalist agriculture, animals are abstracted from ecosystems and resituated in the controlled environment of the factory farm. With no way to resist, animals are subjected to maximum exploitation. The bodies of animals become biological factories. In intensive breeding and, above all, in genetic modification, the most basic biological processes in the reproduction of life are reengineered for efficient commodity production. This is potentially taken even further in the new technoscience of synthetic biology, which augurs the design of entirely new forms of life. Just as mechanization replaces the worker’s living activity with the movement of machines, evolved biological life is replaced with artificial life. There is a very close relationship between the production of both abstract labor and abstract life and the alienation and destruction of nature, so that as Marx (1964, p. 45) wrote in 1844, nature ceases to be “means of life.” Increasingly energy-intensive production, reliant on fossil fuels, was a corollary of automation, reanimating past, dead, geologically stored energy within present energy cycles. Capitalist agriculture is highly energy-dependent and dependent on industrial inputs of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides. So the capitalist labor process is, as Giddens (1981, p. 163) says, “directly geared into” an exploitative relationship toward nature. In this way, capitalist production is, in Barry

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Commoner’s terms, “counter-ecological,” disrupting the biotic communities and connections of ecosystems (Commoner, 1971, p. 177). In place of complex biodiversity, capitalism imposes simplification on the natural world. The resulting ecological breakdown spurs further abstraction. Les Levidow (1996, p. 55) has observed that “Biotechnologists promise to overcome the problems of chemicalintensive agriculture by further industrializing it.” In a similar, but even more extreme, process, technological fixes to ecological breakdown are today coming from the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. Recently, the die-off of pollinators has led to engineers developing micro drones in an effort to replace bees. This kind of technological replacement of animal life itself becomes an avenue for profit-making. In this way, natural processes give way to technological processes. Capital subsumes the living world and, as it does so, replaces life with the nonliving. Just as abstract labor involves what Harry Braverman called the “degradation” of work, so also abstract life entails the degradation of the living world. While capital derives value from specifically human labor, the tendency of capitalism toward maximum exploitation reduces to a minimum and even eliminates what is specifically human in labor. Both animal life and human labor under capitalism come to be patterned more and more on the model of the machine. For example, chickens are reconfigured as “egg-laying machines” (Davis, 2011, p. 45; cf. Fish, 2012; Llorente, 2011, pp. 27–28). Continuous with modern capitalism’s tendency toward abstract labor is a tendency toward abstract life. This means the decontextualization, reification, and commodification of the productive and reproductive capacities of living things. William Boyd et al. (2001, p. 563) argue that an analogy can be drawn from Marx’s concepts of the formal and real subsumption of labor to the formal and real subsumption of nature (cf. Dickens, 1996, pp. 102–130). Under formal subsumption, nature is transformed into a set of resources and commodified. But the “natural schedules of biological or geophysical (re)production,” the available natural stock of these resources, and their geographical location are confronted by the capitalist as exogenous brute facts. This is the case in extractive industries such as mining and logging. In contrast, “[t]he real subsumption of nature refers to systematic increases in or intensification of biological productivity” through inputs such as fertilizers and growth hormones or through the manipulation of the genetic program (Boyd et al., 2001, p. 564). Under real subsumption, capital imposes a specifically capitalist mode of (re)production, speeding up natural processes or altering them to increase reliability, predictability, efficiency, and control (cf. Adam, 1998; Bowring, 2003, pp. 121–122; Finlay, 2004; Horowitz, 2004; Orland, 2004; Sanbonmatsu, 2011). In a subsequent article, Boyd and Prudham make clear that the connection between the real subsumption of labor and that of nature is more than analogy, that these processes are historically in “dynamic interplay.” They write: If we think of the subsumption of labor and the subsumption of nature in more relational terms, we recognize that they are always combined in specific ways in any particular process of industrial production. (Boyd and Prudham, 2017, p. 881)

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John Bellamy Foster describes the specific combinations of the real subsumption of labor and nature put in place by monopoly capitalism. The scientization of production was closely related to the concentration of capital in oligopolistic enterprises. The application of science in the chemical and electrical engineering industries meant a new level of capital intensiveness that gave advantage, through economies of scale, to large firms. Foster (1994, p. 110) argues that the scientization of production under monopoly capitalism “was aimed at extending both the division of labor and the division of nature, and in the process both were transformed.” The real subsumption of labor and nature both tended toward simplification and homogeneity: …complex, highly skilled labor was to be reduced to its simplest most interchangeable – and hence cost-efficient – parts…. As labor became more homogeneous, so did much of nature, which underwent a similar process of degradation. (Foster, 1994, p. 111)

So the real abstraction is further realized in abstract life. This includes the monocultures, feedlots, and slaughterhouses of capitalist industrial agriculture and encompasses the commodification of animal life, in the form of their selfreproductive biological processes (Bowring, 2003, pp. 41–66; Schrepfer and Scranton, 2004; Torres, 2007, pp. 40–49; Walker, 2004, pp. 147–201; Winner, 1986, pp. 19–39). Real abstraction is realized in the entropic waste that disrupts ecosystems and eliminates biodiversity, producing simplified ecosystems not capable of supporting complex life, from which animals have to be rescued, to be preserved as “living dead species” in zoos, in permanent abstraction, or alienation, from a natural habitat which no longer exists (Glavin, 2006, pp. 15–52, quoting 21). Living dead (related to but not limited to the scientific category of “functionally extinct”) species are kept alive by the engineering accomplishments of a science that is capable of technological wonders, but entirely incapable of producing change in the overall social organization of production, from which conscious direction is excluded. Human consciousness and activity are under the sway of the cruel indifference entailed by the exchange abstraction. As capitalist technoscience subsumes life at the cellular and even molecular level and integrates life with technology, the totality is occluded and science is prevented from intervening at, or even adequately comprehending, the level of the overall organization of the social metabolism with nature. What science produces, as a result, is monstrous: artificial life on a dead planet (Thorpe, 2013, 2016). The popularity of apocalypse and dystopia as themes in literature, film, and television reflects the uncanny likeness of contemporary life to dystopian science fiction. The combination of dystopian social relations, apocalyptic natural environment, and the monstrous power of technology to reshape the material world (and human life with it) reflects the contradiction between the inertia of social power relations and the social transformative power of human labor, materialized in technology. Apocalyptic themes reflect the destructive forces unleashed by the explosive combination of social and political reaction and paralysis and technological growth (Thorpe, 2016, pp. 132–139). For example, Margaret Atwood’s (2003) dystopian and apocalyptic novel Oryx and Crake is set in a near-future in which the state has been replaced by direct corporate rule

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by powerful biotechnology and pharmaceutical corporations that manufacture new life-forms such as “pigoons,” pigs with human internal organs. Corporate brands tout cosmetic “NooSkins,” biological upgrading, and transhumanist life extension. The scientific-managerial elite lives in fenced and gated Compounds, tightly controlled by the corporations. In the Compounds, the quantitative technoscientific orientation reigns as consumer culture has drowned any vestiges of historical humanistic culture in a commercial eternal present. While mass extinction has emptied the wild of its higher animal life, what do thrive are genetically engineered bacteria and viruses, boosting pharma-corporate profits. Meanwhile laboratories and universities spawn a vast diversity of strange hybrid forms of bioengineered animalia. Atwood portrays a world that, in its infinite technoscientific manipulability, has lost substance and reality. The apocalyptic scenario in which a bioengineered plague wipes out humanity only seems to complete a destructive process already underway as a result of capitalist-driven climate change and the sixth extinction (Thorpe, 2020). Philip. K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the inspiration for the 1982 film Blade Runner, portrays a future in which most of Earth’s species have been wiped out by radioactive fallout and the human survivors are fleeing a ravaged Earth. Survival on the inhospitable terrain of other planets is made possible by android slave labor. For those who cling on in Earth’s decaying cities, possession of a live animal is highly coveted, due to the fragility of biological life on the planet and the scarcity of animal life. The majority who cannot pay the premium for a live animal accept as second-best an android replica of a sheep, snake, or an owl (Dick, [1968] 1999, p. 15). The thirst for apocalyptic and dystopian literature and film in the first decades of the twenty-first century includes a Blade Runner sequel (Villeneuve, 2017), which even more explicitly and poignantly than the original shows the context of ecological collapse and the bare conditions of human survival on an earth rendered inhospitable for life, for example requiring intensive industrial “farming” of insects for protein (Villeneuve, 2017). Popular demand for this genre, as well as the genre of zombie apocalypse, expresses a pervasive sense of dread about the future, a collapse of the modern faith in progress (Thorpe, 2016). Philip K. Dick (1995b, p. 75) described the science fiction author as “a dreamer with one eye open, always coldly appraising what is actually going on.” The figure of the cyborg or android is a central motif in his novels, often combined with a sense of the loss of vitality, emotion, and connection from human protagonists, against a background of technological dangers such as radioactive contamination and an overarching sense of ontological insecurity and loss of reality. This suggests that Dick’s novels, in their very departure from realism, were nonetheless engaging in the reflection and comprehension of social reality. Dick (1995a, p. 212) observed, The greatest change growing across our world these days is probably the momentum of the living toward reification, and at the same time a reciprocal entry into animation by the mechanical.

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Dick, it seems, was sensitized to the appearance throughout modern everyday life of processes whereby nonliving things take on agency and the characteristics of life, while living beings are evacuated of agency and vitality: androids dreaming of electric sheep. While Dick did not penetrate to the social causes of this mutually constitutive reification and animation, and consequently his own perspective tended toward religious mysticism, his observation nevertheless represents a cognizing of processes that Marxists understand as central to the dynamics of capitalism (Thorpe, 2011). Dick’s statement exactly reflects Marx’s characterization of the uncanny agency or subjectivation of self-valorizing capital, arising from the concomitant reification of human social relations in the form of the commodity and exchange value. Marx wrote in Capital Volume III of the “reification of the social determinations of production and the subjectification… of the material bases of production which characterize the entire capitalist mode of production” (quoted in Forn¨as, 2013, p. 264). What Dick calls this “reciprocal” process was encapsulated by Marx (1990, p. 342) in his metaphor of capital as vampire: “Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks” (cf. Neocleous, 2003, pp. 668–684, esp. 679). The metaphor of the vampire captures not only the destructive, exploitative character of capitalism as the extraction of living energy from the worker but also the way in which capital through this activity of exploitation and the conversion of labor into surplus value takes on a terrible life of its own (Neocleous, 2003, p. 679). It becomes an “animated monster” (Marx, 1990, p. 1007). As the productive and creative energies of labor are alienated and transferred to capital, it seems to be capital itself that is productive and creative. Marx (1973, p. 704) writes in the Grundrisse: “What was the living worker’s activity becomes the activity of the machine.” In the mechanized labor process, “capital absorbs labour into itself.” As it does so, capital appropriates for itself the capacities of living labor and seems itself to be the source of those capacities. Elsewhere in the Grundrisse, Marx (1973, p. 461) states that “living labour appears as a mere means to realize objectified, dead labour, to penetrate it with an animating soul while losing its own soul to it” (cf. Neocleous, 2003, p. 680). The activity of labor that is the metabolism between the human organism and the rest of (“inorganic”) nature becomes a relationship by which capital draws into itself the energies of labor and the rest of nature. As capital increases itself in the process of circulation, It appears not as an exchange of substances between the simultaneous labour powers, but as the metabolism. . .of capital; as the existence of circulating capital. Thus all powers of labour are transposed into powers of capital. (Marx, 1973, p. 701)

Artificial life and a dead planet are twin expressions of a world built on the basis of alienated labor. The alienation of one’s own living activity produces an alienated relationship with the broader world of the living. The degradation of labor is implicated in the degradation of life. The imposition of capital’s framework of value devalues the particularities and qualitative potentiality of the individual human being (M´esz´aros, 2008, p. 47). The broader living world of nature is also deprived of value, as that which cannot be rendered in cash terms

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no longer has value: hence much of the Earth becomes a sink for pollution and other “externalities” of capitalist production. The standardization and disciplining of human productive activity are accompanied by the standardization and control of the reproductive processes of natural organisms. Hence, agricultural livestock geneticist Bill Muir describes his work selecting genetic traits among chickens for battery farming as “adapting the bird to the system” (quoted in Davis, 2011, p. 39). The living is reified symbolically in terms of the way in which it is valued, quality being reduced to quantity, and practically, as both human activity and nature more broadly are degraded, standardized, and routinized, becoming increasingly thinglike. The sophistication of the capabilities of computers and automatic machinery develops in tandem with the abstraction and simplification of ever-broader swathes of human activity, other living beings, and nature. So we have technologized life and lifelike or “living” technology (Amos, 2007; Arthur, 2009; Carlson, 2010; Church and Regis, 2012; Ginsberg et al., 2014; Jones, 2007; Rutherford, 2013).

ABSTRACT LABOR AND ABSTRACT MIND In God and the State, Mikhail Bakunin examined the use of religion to legitimize state power. Religion lifts idealist abstraction above the mundane world and this has justified the raising up of the state as a power over society. But, in an attack on Auguste Comte and on Karl Marx and Frederick Engels’s concept of scientific socialism, which he called “the doctrinaire school of German Communism,” Bakunin argued that science had the potential to become a new form of domination of society by abstractions. He accused the scientists and intellectuals of ignoring the limits of abstraction and seeking to substitute abstractions for the richness of material reality. It is worth quoting Bakunin’s evocative condemnation of abstraction at length: The general idea is always an abstraction and, for that very reason, in some sort a negation of real life…. Science is unchangeable, impersonal, general, abstract, insensible, like the laws of which it is but the ideal reproduction, reflected or mental – that is cerebral…. Life is wholly fugitive and temporary, but also wholly palpitating with reality and individuality, sensibility, sufferings, joys, aspirations, needs, and passions. It alone spontaneously creates real things and beings. Science creates nothing; it establishes and recognizes only the creations of life. And every time that scientific men, emerging from their abstract world, mingle with living creation in the real world, all that they propose or create is poor, ridiculously abstract, bloodless and lifeless, still-born…. [S]cience…is the perpetual immolation of life, fugitive, temporary, but real, on the altar of eternal abstractions. (Bakunin, 1970, pp. 54–57; cf. Leier, 2009, p. 310; Thorpe and Welsh, 2008)

Science, for Bakunin, becomes a source of domination when it seeks to impose its abstractions on the real world, remaking the world after the pattern of its abstractions (cf. Lemov, 2006; Scott, 1999). When abstraction becomes a power in the world it threatens a loss of richness and diversity and the evisceration and desiccation of the world. Echoing Marx’s metaphorical image of capital, Bakunin describes “devouring abstractions” as “the vampires of history,” depleting the world of its living complexity (Bakunin, 1970, p. 59; cf. Thorpe and Welsh, 2008).

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Despite the political rift between Marx and Bakunin, there is a striking parallel between both thinkers as critics of abstraction. This parallel begs the question of the relationship between the critiques of the economic and epistemological forms of abstraction that they respectively address. These two critiques may be brought together through a consideration of Sohn-Rethel’s extrapolation from Capital of a theory of the sociogenesis of the abstract worldview of modern science. This, then, leads to critical comprehension of the ways in which capitalism and science come together in the abstractification of the world, not only in representation but also in reality. Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 20) develops, from Marx’s analysis of the commodity and exchange value, the concept of “real abstraction.” Being determines consciousness. Abstraction arises first not in pure thought but in practice. Monetary exchange, an early example of which was in ancient Greece, and which took hold again in more universal and advanced form with the origins of capitalism in early modern Europe, was reflected in the intellectual development of a mathematically abstract conception of nature. Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 19) writes, “The form of commodity is abstract and abstractness governs its whole orbit.” Exchange value, embodied in the commodity and measured in money, exists as an abstraction from the qualitative use value of the object. Value exists outside and separate from (though made from and dependent on) the concrete material world. SohnRethel demonstrates that commodity exchange posits the movement of the commodity as if unaffected by time and physical change. According to SohnRethel (1978, pp. 48–49), Time and space rendered abstract under the impact of commodity exchange are marked by homogeneity, continuity and emptiness of all natural and material content, visible or invisible (e.g. air). The exchange abstraction excludes everything that makes up history, human and even natural history. The entire empirical reality of facts, events and description by which one moment and locality of time and space is distinguishable from another is wiped out. Time and space assume thereby that character of absolute historical timelessness and universality which must mark the exchange abstraction as a whole and each of its features.

Value is abstracted from its very source, in labor, in the sense that this source is occluded by its form in the operations of the market. Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 49) writes, The reference of value to labour, or rather the determination of value by labour, is not a conscious one, but takes place blindly, by the functional effect of the social exchange process as a whole.

The whole process of exchange is abstracted from, and occludes, the concrete labor of the working class as the basis for societal wealth. All purposes outside of capital’s own self-expansion are erased by the market. Christopher Caudwell writes, Labour now becomes, not labour to achieve a goal and to attain the desirable, but labour for the market and for cash. Labour becomes blind and unconscious. What is made, or why it is made, is no longer understood, for the labour is merely for cash, which now alone supports life.

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Hence, for Caudwell (1965, p. 101), the market puts society under the sway of the “ravages of bourgeois unconsciousness.” This unconsciousness of purpose and the indifference to qualitative content are features and effects of the exchange abstraction. Labor is fragmented and disempowered and unable to synthesize itself directly. Synthesis takes place on an entirely abstract domain. Commodity exchange involves the physical transfer of property. This material spatiotemporal event, or series of events, however, appears in the transaction as outside of time and space. “Thus,” Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 56) writes, “the negation of the natural and material physicality constitutes the positive reality of the abstract social physicality of the exchange processes from which the network of society is woven.” Capitalism, Sohn-Rethel emphasizes, accomplishes the interconnection of human activities separated by the division of labor, i.e., “the social synthesis,” by means of the market. It is the market that unifies and coordinates fragmented and atomized bourgeois society, blindly, by means of the invisible hand. The abstractness of social “second nature” in capitalism is reflected in, and makes possible, the scientific abstraction of mathematically specifiable laws of physical nature. Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 57) writes: “This real abstraction is the arsenal from which intellectual labour throughout the eras of commodity exchange draws its conceptual resources.” Out of the exchange abstraction arises a conception of the physical universe that excludes purpose, divine or human. Sohn-Rethel attaches particular significance to Galileo’s concept of inertial motion, which “opened the applicability of mathematics to the calculation of natural phenomena of motion.” This concept is an abstraction that reflects and arises from commodity exchange. Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 128) writes that “The pattern” of commodity production “is absolutely abstract…abstract, empty, continuous and homogeneous space and time of abstract substances which thereby suffer no material change, the movement being amenable to no other than mathematical treatment.” This abstract movement is in the background of life in market society but it …is not perceivable to our private minds. When it does indeed strike our minds it is in a pure conceptual form whose source is no longer recognisable; nor is the mechanism to which it owes its abstractness.

So just as market exchange obscures the source of value in labor, the intellectual abstraction that arises therefrom, in turn, obscures its own origins. Commodity fetishism therefore produces intellectual fetishism in which, in mechanical materialism, human agency is removed from nature and the human observer is posited in a contemplative orientation detached from the object of study. The detachment of the observer from object, and therefore intellect or mind from nature, reflects the detachment of intellectual from manual labor. Epistemology posits a mind outside nature. The capitalist division of labor establishes a rigid division between mental conception, which is monopolized by management, and manual labor, which is fragmented, deskilled, and denied the ability to direct itself and create a direct social synthesis in production.

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This echoes Marx’s argument in Capital that the relations of private property and the market, which establish capitalist private ownership of the means of production, and therefore the wage relationship in which labor power is alienated to the capitalist, also establish the rule of capital over labor. The domination of labor by capital is materialized in the factory in the domination of the worker by the machine. Marx (1990, pp. 548–549) writes: The separation of the intellectual faculties of the production process from manual labour, and the transformation of those faculties into powers exercised by capital over labour, is…finally completed by large-scale industry erected on the foundation of machinery. The special skill of each individual machine-operator, who has now been deprived of all significance, vanishes as an infinitesimal quantity in the face of the science, the gigantic natural forces, and the mass of social labour embodied in the system of machinery, which, together with those three forces, constitutes the power of the “master.” This “master,” therefore, in whose mind the machinery and his monopoly of it are inseparably united, contemptuously tells his “hands,” whenever he comes into conflict with them: “The factory operatives should keep in wholesome remembrance the fact that theirs is really a low species of skilled labour….”

Science is embedded in the machinery and its harnessing of natural forces and, via the machine, in the overall rationalized input-throughput-output system of the factory. This automated system, and the science embodied in it, is the property of the capitalist “master” who thereby owns and monopolizes intellectuality in the production process. The worker therefore takes the position of the physical object in the mechanical materialist universe. The worker confronts a physical system in the factory, which is, as if a force of nature, operating according to inhuman laws. Marx (1990, p. 549) points, in Capital, to the submission of the worker to the Newtonian system of the factory: “The technical subordination of the worker to the uniform motion of the instruments of labour” is achieved by a militaristic “barrack-like discipline” over an “industrial army.” The imperatives of the mechanical system are also the commands of private property owners. But the purposes of capital are rendered as an abstract deus ex machina setting in motion the mechanical movements of the factory. Sohn-Rethel (1978, pp. 139–185) explains transformations of production by reference to the transformation of exchange, namely the shift from competitive to monopoly capitalism. The technologization of production, i.e., the rising organic composition of capital, is driven forward by the pressures of competition. But this process entails rising costs of fixed capital necessary for production and therefore gives compounding advantage to large firms with the capital to sink these fixed costs. Technologization of production is therefore linked to concentration of capital and, through this, to the declining rate of profit, and secular stagnation. These processes are all entwined with the shift to the stage of capitalism that V.I. Lenin characterized as imperialism. The epoch of imperialism and monopoly capital is also the period in which science comes to be systematically applied as a force of production. The routinization and degradation of labor is accompanied by the growth of a separate branch of managerial work that monopolizes intellectuality at the behest of monopoly capital. Sohn-Rethel (1978, p. 157) writes

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The workman has, as it were, handed over his mind to a new institution which has come into existence – the modern management in charge of the economy of time peculiar to monopoly capital. (cf. Braverman, 1974; Clawson, 1980; Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich, 1977; Gouldner, 1979)

THE SUBSUMPTION OF SCIENCE BY CAPITAL A fundamental contribution of the Frankfurt School (to which Sohn-Rethel was an important, though underappreciated, contributor) was to develop the basis for a critical theory of science and technology drawing from, and interconnected with, Marxist critical theory of the alienated socioeconomic relations of capitalism (Aronowitz, 1988, pp. 121–145). In particular, Herbert Marcuse’s later writings and lectures developed the ecological implications of the school’s critique of instrumental reason and the domination of nature that is most associated with Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, and a major strand of ecological Marxist thought today has its roots in this Marcusean critique (Marcuse, 2019). Since Marcuse’s death in 1979, science and capital have become even more tightly integrated, with the intense commodification of scientific knowledge and the increasing involvement of universities and academic scientists in commodification, via intellectual property, and the restructuring of universities as sites of “entrepreneurial innovation” for the “knowledge economy.” Biotechnology, as a vehicle for the interconnected commodification of both knowledge and biological life, has been central to this restructuring of the goals of universities in such a way that their institutional values are increasingly subordinated to the production of economic value (Berman, 2015; Cantwell and Kaupinnen, 2014; Giroux, 2007; Harvie and De Angelis, 2009; Kenney, 1986; Slaughter and Leslie, 1999; Slaughter and Rhoades, 2009; Sotiris, 2012; Thorpe, 2008). Scientific work in biotechnology is capital-intensive and tightly coupled with the world of finance capital, which introduces market pressures, especially an emphasis on speed and hyperautomation (Sanbonmatsu, 2011, p. 25; Tyfield, 2012a, pp. 68–70, 90–116, 2012b, pp. 79–128). In this way, biotechnology represents a relationship to nature and to other species that arises from competitive pressures of the market. It produces commodified knowledge and its product is the commodification of organisms and their genetic inheritance and reproductive processes. Science today is riven with contradictions in its relationship to the natural world and these contradictions are implicated in environmentalism’s ambivalence toward science and technology. Science is, and must be, central to ecological thought. The ecological disaster into which capitalism has plunged the entire planet obviously cannot be understood except through science (Egan, 2007; Lindseth, 2013; Yearley, 1991). And, in spite of romantic primitivist currents of deep ecology, there is no way in which ecological balance between human society and the rest of nature can be achieved, and the metabolic relationship between human society and nature regulated, without being guided by scientific knowledge. Climatologists, ecosystem ecologists, conservation biologists, conservation geneticists, oceanographers, and many other fields of science now stand in an

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inherently critical relationship to capital and the capitalist state. Their scientific work exposes the destructive impacts of capitalist economic activity on the fabric of life on Earth and what this implies for the erosion of the material basis for human survival (Egan, 2007; Lindseth, 2013). In this way, science is essential to the development of reflexive modernization in which the unintended consequences of the technological control of nature necessitate a reflexivity that is, contra Giddens, impossible to achieve under the domination of society by the market (Thorpe and Jacobson, 2013). At the same time, however, the critical potential of science is blunted and forestalled by the continuing commitment, embedded in scientific institutions and culture, to an ethos of instrumental control and technological domination of nature associated with the earlier phase of “simple modernization” (Giddens, 1994, p. 80). The subordination of the goals of universities to corporate power and profit-making reinforces an antireflexive, instrumental orientation toward nature (Mirowski, 2013, pp. 334–342). This instrumental orientation performs an ideological function in that, by treating environmental problems as purely technical, it closes off attention to the social causation of environmental degradation in the dynamics of capitalism and the need for radical socioeconomic change. Hence, the physical processes of climate change tend to be treated in a natural scientific framework as autonomous and external objective processes subject to measurement and prediction, without this analysis of “natural” dynamics being integrated with a project of comprehending and seeking to transform the capitalist social dynamics from which they emanate. The success of science in measuring and demonstrating the responsibility of anthropogenic carbon emissions for rising atmospheric temperatures and other physical, ecological, and biological manifestations and effects of climate change stands in sharp contrast with the deadlock and inertia of efforts to move the global economic system away from fossil fuel dependence, leading to a pervasive sense of helplessness (Stoner and Melathopoulos, 2015). The resulting paralysis and impotence of science before environmental disaster is encapsulated by Debord’s observation that This science can do no more than walk hand in hand with the world that has produced it – and that holds it fast – down the path of destruction; yet it is obliged to do so with open eyes. (Debord, 2008, p. 79)

Science is held fast by, and impotent against, the power of capital over society, which has resulted in the entrenchment and ossification of environmentally destructive practices. The nonreflexive mode of simple modernization, seeking to transform the processes of nature through technology, while accepting social relations as given and unproblematic, is a capitulation to the power of capital to hold social relations fast. This technological orientation ideologically reinforces these social relations precisely by constructing the illusion that it is possible to ¨ ¨ sustain the unsustainable (Bluhdorn, 2007; Bluhdorn and Welsh, 2007, p. 187; Sarewitz, 2004). As Marcuse (1965, p. 11) wrote of the scientist who adheres to the Weberian doctrine of the separate spheres of science and politics: “Your neutrality is as compulsory as it is illusory” (see also, Thorpe, 2004, pp. 63–64, 2006).

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The actual powerlessness of the scientist in the face of entrenched capitalist power (contrary to all new class theory [King and Szel´enyi, 2004] of knowledge replacing money as the postindustrial basis of power) is masked and rendered into an illusion of power through technological control and performativity. David Noble (1986) observes that “The power relations of society, and the position of the designer within them, define to a considerable extent what is technically possible.” Scientists and engineers align themselves with corporate and state power because “it is the access to that power, with its huge resources, that allows them to dream…and the reality of that power that brings their dreams to life.” But only certain dreams are brought to life. They must be technological dreams, rather than of societal transformation. And they must be dreams of technologies that are understood by those corporations and government agencies funding and supporting them to fit with the purposes of the capitalist class and capitalist state and thereby reinforce the prevailing power relations. Noble explains, “Most industrial and military systems are designed with the expectation that such power will be forthcoming,” in other words, assuming an alignment of interest with the dominant class power, “and this social power thus underlies the technical person’s own power as a designer of ‘practical’ systems.” The subjectively experienced power of the technologist is real only within narrow limits set by capitalist class power, which ultimately determines what is and is not “practical.” In their narrowly channeled power, scientists and engineers become conduits for the material realization of the social power of the power elites who employ them and, ultimately, the power of the bourgeois class or corporate ruling class. Noble (1986, p. 44) writes, “The power of these ideas became coupled to the power of some people, enabling them not only to maintain their power but to enlarge it.” Although there is a rich history of scientific dissent, the dominant ideological commitment to neutrality, and the real constraining power relations that this ideology reflects, entail that scientists must eschew any ambition to interrogate and transform the social relations in which their problems and solutions are formed and their technological interventions performed (Egan, 2007; Fears and Epstein, 2017; Foster, 2013; Moore, 2008; Schmidt, 2000, 71–85; Thorpe, 2002). In effect, the doctrine of neutrality underpins the orientation of scientists and engineers toward the provision of technological fixes, in the mode of simple modernization, to problems that have their actual origin not in nature but in prior technological interventions and, behind these, the growth imperative of capital’s drive for accumulation, fed by the “treadmill of production” (Gould et al., 2008). The ideology of scientific neutrality continues to hold a powerful grip in the construction of academic, professional, and technical roles and social character associated with these roles (Schmidt, 2000). It is manifested in the way that, while there are important exceptions, many scientists and engineers continue to take for granted a narrowly instrumental and technological definition of their role. Today, this instrumental orientation is less framed in terms of the notion of “pure science” and associated Mertonian norms but, rather, in the more directly commercial and marketing-oriented incarnation of the “entrepreneurial scientist.” But while there has been a shift from “seeing like a state” under postwar military Keynesianism to seeing like a market under a neoliberal political economy of

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science, there is a common thread of Baconian enthusiasm for the “technological fix” (Dickens, 1996, p. 13; Horton, 2013; Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011; ¨ Scott, 1999; Strom, 2019). The commercialization of universities has been substantially driven by the emergence of commercializable biotechnology in the wake of the revolutionary determination of the structure of DNA by James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin and with subsequent scientific and technological developments from the Polymerase Chain Reaction to today’s CRISPR genetics. But in addition to these technical developments, which must themselves be understood to be expressions of the overall development of the social productive forces, biotechnology emerged in a particular historical political–economic conjuncture, the crisis of Fordism and Keynesianism, and the emergence of a general societal comprehension of the environmental degradation caused by Fordist growth and the growing recognition of “limits to growth” (e.g., Commoner, 1971, pp. 120–121; Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens III, 1972). Melinda Cooper (2008) argues that biotechnology and an emerging “bio-economy” seemed to promise that, by harnessing the reproductive powers of life, capital could escape both ecological and resource limits and also create new medical and pharmaceutical products and markets for the enhancement of human life (cf. Birch, 2017, 2018; Birch et al., 2010; Birch and Tyfield, 2013; Rajan, 2007; Tyfield, 2012a, pp. 90–116; 2012b, pp. 55–71; Walker, 2015). Chris Harman has characterized this period as seeing a political–economic shift in resources and emphasis from competition with the Soviet Union, which had taken the form of arms and space race, to market competition with reemerging competitor capitalist nation states and their monopoly–capital firms, as well as seeing the emergence of transnational corporations and the beginnings of the globalization of production that would reshape the industrial geography of the world. Harman (2010, p. 200) writes, “The dynamic of market competition was relentlessly undercutting the dynamic of military competition.” The commercialization of the biosciences, and their widespread supersession and replacement of the physical sciences as the fields bringing the most extramural funding into universities, and as a result shaping the culture and setting the broader academic agenda, has been a feature of this shift from a Cold War to a post-Cold War paradigm of research, intersecting with, as well as propelling, a shift from Fordism to post-Fordism (Beatty, 2000; Lenoir and Hays, 2000; Shapin, 2008, pp. 209–267; Tyfield, 2012b; Walshok and Shragge, 2013).

ARTIFICIAL LIFE ON A DEAD PLANET: THE POSTFORDIST BIOECONOMY AS DISASTER CAPITALISM The post-Fordist bioeconomy, however, increasingly takes the form of what Naomi Klein (2007) has called “disaster capitalism,” capitalizing on crisis, breakdown, and chaos. The planetary descent into climactic breakdown is propelled by economic and political forces. The technological fixes that the bioeconomy offers are incapable of addressing these causes and actually

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function as ideological evasion of the reality of these causes, thereby sustaining the unsustainable. In many ways, the break with Fordism supposedly represented by the bio-knowledge economy is superficial. The bioeconomy can be seen as applying Taylorist–Fordist methods to life itself, which is broken down into its component genetic parts and reassembled in commodified form. The bioeconomy markets solutions to environmental problems generated by the petrochemical agriculture that developed especially since the mid-twentieth century. In effect, the peddling of specific “solutions” to intrinsic and widespread environmental degradation caused by the petrochemical agriculture industry facilitates the growing dominance of agriculture by monopolistic vertically integrated chemical and pharmaceutical companies and contributes to greater counterecological intensiveness in agriculture. Or, as in the funding of research and design in synthetic biology in Craig Venter’s company Synthetic Genomics by ExxonMobil, fossil fuel companies at the forefront of environmental destruction invest in these biotechnological fixes as ways of sustaining their core counterecological business model (Synthetic Genomics, 2017). The contradictory combination of impotence to change the overall social– economic–political trajectory into deepening climactic and ecological catastrophe with immense technological power to make specific interventions in nature leads to the scientific search for technological fixes in order to transform ecological catastrophe into business opportunity. As political or regulatory solutions to climate change are stymied by entrenched capitalist interests and by the anarchic international system of nationstate competition, hopes for a solution are increasingly vested in a technological fix, through geoengineering, however fantastical such technological solutions appear (York et al., 2009). The notion of geoengineering comprises a range of proposals for cooling the planet through technological means, either by albedo modification, which involves attempting to increase the reflection of sunlight back into space so as to reduce the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth, or through carbon dioxide removal, which involves capturing atmospheric carbon and transferring it to various terrestrial or oceanic repositories. Geoengineering responds to anthropogenic climate change in the mode of simple modernization, potentially extending technological control to the level of the Earth system as a whole. As the crisis of global heating worsens, geoengineering is increasingly moving to the forefront of policy (Jacobson, 2018a, 2018b). Geoengineering represents the potentially self-propelling technologization of the planet’s geophysical processes as industrial activity based on continuing fossil fuel use throws the climactic system ever more out of balance, while technological means are sought to cool the climate (Altvater, 2016, p. 151). This would mean that the Earth itself becomes a capital-intensive system, requiring huge investments of capital to maintain its life-supporting systems. The common milieu of life, making possible all production and reproduction, is thus potentially transformed into an artificial milieu, dependent on and intertwined with capital. At the macro-scale of the Earth system, as well as the micro-scale of the genetic code, the reproduction of life is appropriated by, and subordinated to, the reproduction of capital.

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The reification of the living and the animation of the nonliving tends toward the environmental degradation of Earth so that life is no longer self-sustaining. For the promise of a future, the corporate technological utopians encourage us to look instead to the powers of capital, expressed in technological miracles of ¨ geoengineering, life in outer space, or uploadable intelligence (Strom, 2019; Thorpe, 2016, pp. 93–151). The renewal of capital as self-replicating, productive, self-valorizing value takes over from the renewal of life. Or, rather, the renewal of capital becomes the precondition for the renewal of life. Marx (1967, p. 827) wrote in Volume III of Capital: With the development of relative surplus-value in the actual specifically capitalist mode of production, whereby the productive powers of social labour are developed, these productive powers and the social interrelations of labour in the direct labour-process seem transferred from labour to capital. Capital thus becomes a very mystic being since all of labour’s social productive forces appear to be due to capital, rather than to labour as such, and seem to issue from the womb of capital itself.

As the powers of the living are annexed to technology, an asymmetric symbiosis with capital is increasingly imposed on the living world. On a geoengineered, technologized Earth, capital appears the womb of life. But this womb of capital is, in fact, hostile to life. As “self-valorizing value” capital appears as a supernatural agency capable of reproducing and increasing itself. Marx (1990, pp. 247–257, quoting page 255) writes, “it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth offspring, or at least lays golden eggs.” But this fertility of capital is the production of the nonliving: exchange value materialized as money. This reproduction is directly at odds with the reproduction of life. John Sanbonmatsu (2017, p. 18) writes, Like Midas, capitalism as a system of reification transforms whatever it touches – a river, a rainforest, the labor of landless peasants, a pig, or a sea turtle – into a lifeless thing, both figuratively and, in many cases, literally.

Like the vampire’s supernatural life, the occult life of the commodity is achieved at the expense of the draining and exhaustion of the vitality of the living.

THE INDIFFERENCE OF CAPITAL AND THE REAL SUBSUMPTION OF LIFE The growing integration of capital into the processes of the reproduction of life is evident at the microscopic scale in the commercially oriented field of synthetic biology, which represents a still more radical development beyond genetic engineering (Calvert, 2010; Kaebnick and Murray, 2013). Jairus Rossi (2018, p. 292) writes that “Synbio is premised on reducing or removing the messy contingencies of interactions between organisms, their DNA, and complex environments.” In a paper published in Science in early 2008, the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that its scientists had created a synthetic chromosome, synthesizing from laboratory chemicals the genome of the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium. This synthesis of DNA was a step toward Venter’s “ultimate goal of inserting the

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synthetic chromosome into a cell and booting it up to create the first synthetic organism.” In 2010, Venter confirmed that his team had accomplished this next step, thereby making a “synthetic cell” (Gibson et al., 2010; Robbins, 2010; Thorpe, 2013, pp. 631–632, 2016, p. 71). Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, who led the scientific team at the J. Craig Venter Institute, likened the production of the artificial genome to finishing the operating system of a computer: By itself, it doesn’t do anything, but when you install it on a computer, then you have a working computer system. It’s the same with the genome: the genome is the operating system for a cell and the cytoplasm is the hardware that’s required to run that genome.

The understanding of life in terms of hardware and software is bound up with the practical goal of the computer-assisted design of life. In Venter’s conception, the computer is the artificial womb for life. He called his new cell “the first selfreplicating species that we have on the planet whose parent is a computer” (quoted in Robbins, 2010; see also Thorpe, 2013, p. 632, 2016, p. 71). Venter has said that he is not just creating artificial life but that “We are trying to create a new value system for life” (quoted in Pilkington, 2007) and that “This will be changing our legal system and, in part, our value system” (quoted in Reeves, 2015). Venter’s “new value system” seems to involve the same erasure of qualitative difference in the service of the imposition of capitalist abstraction that Bowring finds encapsulated in biotech entrepreneur and science writer Gregory Stock’s credo: The more we succeed in modifying our biology and that of other animals, the more we will see it as something malleable that we can adjust and improve, and the more we will come to assess…therapies on the basis of risk and reward rather than philosophical meaning. (Stock quoted in Bowring, 2003, p. 7)

In the process of commodifying life, Venter constructs a new value system in the form of exchange value derived from intellectual property, and, potentially, new methods of production utilizing microorganisms as biomachines. This formal subsumption of life under exchange value is achieved through the real subsumption of life, in the sense of analyzing, taking control of, and reconfiguring the reproductive dynamics of living organisms for efficient commodity production. There is a revealing paradox in Venter’s attribution of parentage to the computer itself. Venter rhetorically eliminates his own claim to be “parent.” This claim arises precisely in what makes the new life-form a patentable invention and therefore Lockean property right, the role of the human agency and creativity of the members of Venter’s company and scientific research group (Doppelt, 2001). It is as if Venter cannot consistently combine recognition of human agency with his mechanistic materialism. Indeed, as Bowring (2003, p. 7) writes, this way of thinking “presupposes a human consciousness separate and abstracted from the nature…which is its own presence in the world.” The technological determinist, technofuturist rhetoric that frames biotechnology obscures the real transformative agency that is capable of creating new

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life, which is life, the creative, reproductive, energetic powers inherent in living things, themselves shaped in millennia of evolution, in this case a mixture of the capacities of the cell and human labor, which itself is the expression of human species life (Thorpe, 2016, pp. 99–103, 133–139). The computer is itself the product and embodiment of labor. The scientific and technological expertise of Venter and his team stands not only on the shoulders of giants but also on the shoulders of millions of anonymous contributors, the history of whose labor is embodied in the machines and techniques that Venter and his team employ. Marx (1973, p. 694) wrote in the Grundrisse that The accumulation of knowledge and of skill, of the general productive forces of the social brain, is thus absorbed into capital, as opposed to labour, and hence appears as an attribute of capital, and more specifically of fixed capital, in so far as it enters into the production process.

Venter’s attribution of parentage to the computer reflects and masks this transfer of human social productive power to machinery, which takes the form of fixed capital and appears to be the agent in the labor process, obscuring labor that has been subordinated to capital. Machinery absorbs and embodies all the knowledge and labor that went into the technology’s creation and production. This combines with the harnessing of the energy contained in fossil fuels to give machinery its Baconian power, the use of which belongs to capital. Knowledge, skill, and human and nonhuman energy all contribute to the power of the machine (or indeed the “biomachine” into which capital has turned natural processes) and therefore the efficiency with which it contributes to production and the speed that it gives to the production time intervening in the realization of surplus value. Marx (1973, pp. 694–695) writes: [I]n so far as machinery develops with the accumulation of society’s science, of productive force generally, general social labour presents itself not in labour but in capital. The productive force of society is measured in fixed capital, exists there in its objective form; and, inversely, the productive force of capital grows with this general progress, which capital appropriates free of charge.

While machinery in its use transfers value, this only means value that was created in the machinery’s manufacture in wage labor, i.e., productive labor for capital, and realized in the price paid for the machine. Capital, in the form of machinery, or fixed capital, appropriates the general intellect and all the past labor that has gone into its historical development. This past labor is, in fact, the entire cultural evolution of the human species, the attempt at quantification of which would be an absurdity. Capital appropriates this “free of charge.” The sustenance of human life and the powers of productivity rely on a great deal of labor and nature that is unpaid and to a large extent unrecognized by capital. There is a great deal of energy, matter, and activity that is necessary directly or indirectly for the reproduction of life and its biotic and physical conditions, but which is not productive of value for capital and not included in the capitalist “economy” as calculated in GDP. Capital utilizes all of this free of charge.

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Marx is very clear in the Grundrisse that the growth time of agricultural produce does not in itself enter into the production of surplus value. The seed is for the capitalist the same as the machine. It is an instrument of production and it passes value on to the product, hence the biological growth processes in production are themselves for the capitalist just time expended in the production process, which slows down the realization of the value contained in them and extracted from labor through the process of which they form a technological component. Hence: The slower return…here arises not from circulation time, but rather from the conditions themselves in which labour becomes productive; it belongs with the technological conditions of the production process…. Value, hence also surplus value, is not 5 to the time which the production phase lasts, but rather to the labour time, objectified and living, employed during this production phase. The living labour time alone…can create surplus value. (Marx, 1973, p. 669)

The fundamental point to be made about problems of the reproduction of living labor, and of the ecological and social preconditions for this reproduction, is capital’s basic indifference toward them, which is entailed by the abstraction that creates abstract labor and abstract exchange value. Capital is indifferent to all capabilities, skills, aptitudes, traits, desires, and needs of workers except those that are directly manifested in workers following orders: “The worker appears as superfluous to the extent that his action is not determined by [capital’s] requirements.” As a result, workers, not paid to think, are cut off from their own ability to cognize their own activity and the social division of labor into which it fits. “In machinery, knowledge appears as alien, external to him” (Marx, 1973, p. 695). So, workers are dispossessed of the science that is embodied in the processes into which they mingle their own labor. The realization of value on the market is a social process that abstracts from the complexity of the concrete material process of production. I. I. Rubin emphasized the necessity of a defetishized sociological understanding of abstract labor and the labor theory of value, an understanding achieved on the basis of the critique of alienation and the exposure of commodity fetishism. The market is the way in which bourgeois society achieves the social synthesis of the division of labor. In the market, the social synthesis that results is blind and indifferent. The social distribution and coordination of human labor is expressed in, and determined by, the inhuman dynamics of exchange value. Relations between things determine relations between people. The process of abstraction accomplished in the realization of exchange value on the market is integrally related to the process of alienation (Rubin, 2008, pp. 1–12, 131–158). The separation of their labor power from workers expresses the indifference of the capitalist to the workers’ own purposes and needs. The separation of their labor from workers creates a gulf of indifference between workers themselves and their own activity, and the material world on which they work. The capitalist is indifferent to the reproduction of the workers’ lives beyond the point when it is capable of creating surplus value. As Marx (1990, p. 381) said, “Apr`es moi le d´eluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation.”

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And just as the capitalist is indifferent to the lives of animals that form the raw materials of industrial agriculture, they are indifferent to the lives of people, animals, and species that are destroyed simply because they are in the way (Berman, 1988). Matthew Huber (2017, p. 49) writes that Marx emphasized “the indifference of capital to the concrete material inputs (or the concrete environmental consequences) when the abstract expansion of value (M-C-M9) is at stake.” The indifference of capital is a cause of the homogenizing effect of commodification: the imposition of a uniform abstract framework of exchange value on the world, producing a real homogenization of life as commodity relations come to invade all areas of life. Alfred Schmidt explained the relationship of abstraction as one of indifference as follows: As a determinant of exchange-value, labour is abstract, general and undifferentiated; as a determinant of use-value it is concrete, particular and composed of many distinct modes of labour. The exchange-value of a commodity has no natural content whatsoever. It is indifferent to its natural qualities because it is the embodiment of human labour in general measured by the time outlaid, and all the determinations of nature are extinguished in it. (quoted in Smulewicz-Zucker, 2012, p. 162)

Capital abstracts from, and is indifferent to, all qualitative differences of nature and culture. The process of mechanization “deprives the work of all content” (Marx, 1990, p. 548). Work is emptied of meaning for the worker. It becomes routine and “mechanically monotonous,” no longer an exercise of skill and therefore an expression of being, but alienated activity that is not experienced as the workers’ own (Wilhelm Schulz, quoted in Marx, 1964, p. 72). Deskilling is a deprivation of content from work: “The special skill of each individual machine-operator, who has now been deprived of all significance, vanishes” (Marx, 1990, p. 549). Workers and tasks become interchangeable much like the material standardized parts that, in the twentieth century, were a central component of the Fordist production process. As Harry Braverman (1974, p. 182) argued, Labor in the form of standardized motion patterns is labor used as an interchangeable part, and in this form comes ever closer to corresponding, in life, to the abstraction employed by Marx in analysis of the capitalist mode of production.

Marx (1990, p. 546) writes, Since the motion of the whole factory proceeds not from the worker but from the machinery, the working personnel can continually be replaced without any interruption in the labour process.

Hence the human being in the capitalist production process is reduced to an “abstract existence… as a mere workman” (Marx, 1964, p. 122). This is to be a workman in contrast to a railwayman, a carpenter, or weaver, etc. It is to have nothing, not even a skill to sell, but only one’s capacity to labor in the most simple, interchangeable, and abstract sense. This deskilling is a material expression of the evacuation of content, and in that sense abstraction, entailed by the

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structure of wage labor in which “time is everything, man is nothing; he is at the most, time’s carcase” (Marx, 1963, p. 54; cf. M´esz´aros, 2008, p. 47). The worker is an empty vessel of time in the sense that capital derives value not from the worker’s specific skills and specific tasks, but rather from labor (qua labor power) abstracted from all concrete activity and measured as labor time. The concrete activity, and the concrete life of the individual worker, is subordinated to the accumulation of abstract exchange value. This arises from the very nature of the relationship embodied in the wage and in the capitalist goal of the accumulation of surplus value. Therefore, Marx (1990, p. 548) writes, Every kind of capitalist production, in so far as it is not only a labour process but also capital’s process of valorization, has this in common, but it is not the worker who employs the conditions of his work, but rather the reverse, the conditions of work employ the worker.

The formal structure of domination, the abstract form of exchange value, acquires concrete content in the material conditions of work: “However, it is only with the coming of machinery that this inversion first acquires a technical and palpable reality” (Marx, 1990, p. 548). The formal subordination of the worker that is entailed by capitalist private ownership of the means of production and by labor’s status as a commodity to be bought and employed takes on real material form in the capitalist labor process in the material subjection of the worker to the machine. Money is the epitome of the rule of objects over people. In the value framework of capitalism, “men are nothing, the product everything” (Marx, 1964, p. 89). Just as the individuality of the worker is erased in the production process, the products of capitalism are also abstracted from the human characteristics of their producers, the social and geographical circumstances of their production, and from the context of their use. But even the product is not in itself everything. Rather, the product becomes a matter of indifference. It devolves into units of production. The exchange value of the commodity takes precedence over its use value. As it takes the form of capital, Marx (1964, p. 122) argues, “all the natural and social characteristic of the object is extinguished.” The primacy of exchange value means the dominance of quantity over quality: commodities can be traded for their monetary value in abstraction from qualitative considerations of their use. This primacy of exchange value was encapsulated in Donald Trautlein’s statement when he took over as chairman of Bethlehem Steel in 1980: “We are not in the business of making steel. We are in the business of making money” (quoted in The Morning Call, 2003). The business of making money is utterly indifferent to the life of the worker, as Trautlein showed, acting as the subjectivation or agent of capital, when in 1982 he presided over the closure of many of Bethlehem Steel’s plants, including its plant in Lackawanna, New York, in the face of growing international competition. World Socialist Web Site notes, Its closure in 1982 devastated Lackawanna, much of South Buffalo, and other nearby suburbs where workers lived as the ruling class carried out a ruthless strategy of closing industrial factories no longer deemed to be profitable enough. (Melanovski, 2016)

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According to Marx (1964, pp. 120, emphases in original), living labor has the misfortune “to be a living capital, and therefore a capital with needs.” Labor, Marx emphasizes, is human life, and as such is the biological life of the human organism and worker’s active expression of their life, as life activity. Labor is “life-engendering life” (Marx, 1964, p. 113). But the worker is at the same time treated as a commodity, and therefore a human embodiment of capital, facing all the precariousness of the market. The contradiction between use value and exchange value is embodied in the workers, in the contradiction between their concrete material, biological existence and the abstract value that they represent for capital and on which their concrete existence depends. Workers are concrete, real living beings in a system that is structurally indifferent to the workers’ concrete lives. Marx (1964, pp. 66–67) writes, In labor all the natural, spiritual, and social variety of individual activity is manifested and is variously regarded, whilst dead capital always shows the same face and is indifferent to real individual activity.

Massimo De Angelis (1995) argues cogently that the relationship of indifference that informs all dimensions of the capitalist labor contract, and that is expressed as abstract labor and abstract value – the indifference of capital to workers and the indifference of workers to their work, as well as the absence of limit to work that is entailed by abstractness – makes the wage contract and the form of abstract labor and abstract value an inherently political form, i.e., a relation of power. The way in which alienation is a relation of both indifference and power is indicated by the language of work: “You’re not paid to think.” “It’s business, not personal,” “on company time,” “the 9 to 5.” Indifference to all concrete qualitative content and to all individuality is conveyed by Marx’s statement that the worker is, for capital, “time’s carcase.” Marx (1963, p. 54) explains: “Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides everything; hour for hour, day for day.” The worker is time’s carcase in the sense in which Marx writes, in the Grundrisse, that, since the worker receives in wages “the equivalent of the labor time objectified in him,” the worker “sells himself as an effect.” This means that the worker’s value, for which he “sells himself,” is the objectified or reified effect of the socially necessary labor time involved in reproducing him. But capital employs the worker actively. So “He is absorbed into the body of capital as a cause, as an activity.” In this process, the worker’s agency becomes the agency of capital and the worker loses agency: Thus the exchange turns into its opposite, and the laws of private property…turn into the worker’s propertylessness, and the dispossession…of his labor, [i.e.] the fact that he relates to it as alien property and vice versa.

Abstract labor, then, is a relationship of total mutual indifference (Marx, 1973, p. 674). Exemplifying this instrumental orientation, financial journalist Jeremy Warner (2020) writes in the rightwing Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom that “from an entirely disinterested economic perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term by disproportionately culling elderly

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dependents.” Warner’s “entirely disinterested economic perspective” is precisely the indifferent perspective of capital, which has no interest in populations that are not a source of surplus value. This indifference, that is to say, abstraction, is constitutive of the form of exchange value. It also constitutes the structural violence of capitalism. This structural violence is the lasting legacy of an initial (but continually reenacted) immense amount of violence – that involved in primitive accumulation. The free wage labor of capitalism, the proletariat, is established by the massive violence of dispossession, displacement, and disinheritance in order to become “free” in the negative (liberal) sense of capitalist freedom. This renders the proletariat entirely dependent on the capitalist class for its existence. For the proletariat, capitalist freedom is “the freedom to starve to death.” Engels (1845) explained that precariousness is the essential, defining condition of the proletariat: The proletarian is helpless; left to himself, he cannot live a single day. The bourgeoisie has gained a monopoly of all means of existence in the broadest sense of the word. What the proletarian needs, he can obtain only from this bourgeoisie, which is protected in its monopoly by the power of the state. The proletarian is, therefore, in law and in fact, the slave of the bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death. It offers him the means of living, but only for an “equivalent”, for his work…. Fine freedom, where the proletarian has no other choice than that of either accepting the conditions which the bourgeoisie offers him, or of starving, of freezing to death, of sleeping naked among the beasts of the forests! A fine “equivalent” valued at pleasure by the bourgeoisie!

What Marx (1977, p. 72) called the proletariat’s “radical chains” are constituted by workers’ radical dispossession, arising at some prior point from primitive accumulation: their dispossession from the earth, from nature, and the means to labor. Giddens (1981, p. 10) notes that “The main form of sanction which employers hold over workers is that the latter are propertyless.” Therefore, the primary form of coercion in capitalist society is describable with words such as abandonment, disposability, exclusion, eviction, expulsion, and enclosure (Giroux, 2012; Sassen, 2014). Abstract labor is created by (in the sense of this being its necessary precondition) separating human beings from the means for life, i.e., from inorganic nature and from their own labor power. In capitalist society, money inserts itself between human beings and between human beings and their needs. To live requires money. Money, the cash nexus, mediates all human relations. Money is in this way the universal “pimp” (Marx, 1964, p. 165). The flow of social life becomes the flow of money. In this way, capital subsumes social relations, beginning with production and exchange relations in the wage and commodity, but this ramifies through all social relations, which are increasingly commoditized. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000, pp. 240–279) have written about Fordist mass society as real subsumption spreading out beyond the workplace itself to create a “factory society.” In an analogous and, in reality, interrelated sense, capital creates capitalized factory nature.

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Capital integrates itself into the reproductive processes of life on Earth just as it has integrated itself into the cyborged interfaced worker (Rikowski, 2003). Marx (1973, p. 704) writes in the Grundrisse: What was the living worker’s activity becomes the activity of the machine. Thus the appropriation of labour by capital confronts the worker in a coarsely sensuous form; capital absorbs labour into itself – “as though its body were by love possessed.”

Marx (1990, p. 302) makes the same allusion in Capital, Volume 1: By turning his money into commodities which serve as the building materials for a new product, and as factors in the labour process, by incorporating living labour into their lifeless objectivity, the capitalist simultaneously transforms value, i.e. past labour in its objectified and lifeless form, into capital, value which can perform its own valorization process, an animated monster which begins to “work”, “as if its body were by love possessed.”

The reference is to Goethe’s Faust, as Rob Latham (2002, p. 26) elucidates, …specifically to the refrain of a drinking song about a corpulent rat that is poisoned by a cook and becomes wildly maddened, “as if” – in Walter Kaufman’s translation – “love gnawed his vitals.”

The image is one of a body animated against its will by uncontrollable spasms, in a “parody of amorousness.” The rat’s seemingly lustful paroxysms are caused by an alien agency inside it, one of death not life. This double entendre works in the Grundrisse to give the passage a necrophiliac eroticism, a joining of life and death. Marx provides his own further double entendre, or dialectical reversal: the corpse, the dead matter of capital, dead labor, is animated by an alien force within. This alien force, the poison, is living labor. This is the negation of the negation, the alien within the alien: the uncanny agency animating capital is revealed to be capital’s antagonist – labor.1 In Capital, Marx emphasizes the Golem or vampire-like character of capital as living dead. The image of the vampire as living dead monster captures the paradoxical, dialectical quality of capital as the ossified objectification of past activity, which itself is active, as it circulates and as it comes to life, in the form of machinery, to transform and produce. The relationship between life and dead matter is inverted so that purposeful activity of living labor is subjected to purposes carried out by the unconscious and, in that sense, purposeless machinery. This inversion between life and death, and between consciousness and unconsciousness, is suggested when Marx (1964, p. 119) writes that alienation is “vitality as a sacrifice of life.” The power of money under capitalism represents “the complete domination of dead matter over mankind” (Marx, 1964, p. 102). The bourgeois class is the subjectivation of this dead matter and its agency: “the rule of the capitalist over the worker is the rule of things over man, of dead labour over the living” (Marx, 1990, p. 990; cf. Neocleous, 2003, p. 680). Capitalist class power, the power to command, is abstractified in the managerial bureaucracy and in the technology of production itself, which materializes class power and relations of command (Noble, 1985). Marx (1990, pp. 510–511) described the factory machinery as “Cyclopean” monsters, fueled by “their consumption of

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auxiliary substances such as oil, coal and so on,” and thereby acting “without the intervention of human labour” and therefore as being themselves “like a force of nature” (cf. Beynon, 1975, p. 109). Past labor, appropriated by capital and objectified in machinery, together with the fossil fuel energy of past biological life, operates as if a force independent of human agency, which capital harnesses and uses as its own (Commoner, 1977; Malm, 2016). In the form of the machine, or fixed capital, nature confronts the worker in alien form, as property of the capitalist. Nature, or “the sensuous external world” is the worker’s “means of life” both in the sense that it is the precondition for the worker’s material activity, but also in the sense that nature provides the worker with physical sustenance. Alienated as private property controlled by the capitalist and outside the control of the worker, however, nature “ceases to be a means of life” (Marx, 1964, p. 109). It ceases to be the object of the worker’s activity, since that activity itself is no longer the worker’s and it ceases to be the worker’s sustenance because that sustenance is now provided, meagerly, through the mediation of the wage. Nature takes on, for the worker, the form of the machinery, but in so doing has become a “power inimical to him,” which threatens the worker’s sustenance by throwing him out of work (Marx, 1990, pp. 557–564). In Amazon warehouses, workers are absorbed into a massive, relentless, and physically controlling mechanical system (The Economist, 2014; McClelland, 2012). Amazon has now designed an electronic bracelet, to be worn by the worker, that vibrates in order to direct the worker’s hand when they are picking products from shelves: “One of the patents outlines a haptic feedback system that would vibrate against the wearer’s skin to point their hand in the right direction” (Solon, 2018). Capital colonizes the sinews and nerves of the worker in the workshop, a phenomenon that becomes increasingly insidious as surveillance and control technology develops.

ABSTRACT LIFE: ANIMALS AS “FUNCTIONAL BIOMACHINES” Just as capital colonizes the body of the worker, it even more deeply colonizes and reconfigures the bodies of nonhuman animals. The control of life through genetic engineering and biotechnology allows the intervention in reproductive processes so as to configure these for efficient commodity production (Ferrari, 2017). In this process, life is rendered abstract. Particular qualitative differences (for example, between species) are overcome as genes are moved around and spliced between organisms and as, in synthetic genomics, the disassembly of life into its most basic components facilitates the assembly of new forms of life as patented living commodities. Bowring (2003, p. 134) argues that “modern biotechnology…allows human beings to disregard animals’ natural form of life.” At its most extreme, “its goal is to transform the natural world into a universe of functional bio-machines” (Bowring, 2003, p. 143). Karen Davis describes what this abstraction of animals from the conditions in which they evolved their species life means qualitatively:

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CHARLES THORPE AND BRYNNA JACOBSON These animals are thus totally separated from the natural world in which they evolved. They are imprisoned in alien, dysfunctional, and disease-prone bodies genetically manipulated for food traits alone, bodies that in many cases have been surgically altered creating a disfigured appearance.

Battery chickens, entirely domesticated with no life apart from their use by humans, are “imprisoned in total confinement buildings within global systems of confinement and international transport.” As living dead species, they “become extinct under conditions equivalent to their eternal rebirth in a bottomless pit” (Davis, 2011, pp. 41–42; cf. Harris, 2017, pp. 58–59). Animals are separated, and in that sense abstracted, from ecosystems and ultimately from their very being as animals. Mary Trachsel (2017, p. 77) has written: Hidden from view and consigned to abstract economic categories, like “agricultural commodities,” “livestock,” and “pork-production units,” or to lifeless categories such as “meat” and “pork,” Iowa’s pigs are…an “absent referent,” a set of animals “made absent as animals for meat to exist.”

The meat industry is a long-standing clear case of animals with their lives very literally under the control of capital, ultimately being killed for commodification and consumption. In the modern era, the capitalist drive for maximizing profits has made fattening, killing, and processing animals for meat fast and efficient. The mechanical precision of killing, housed in mechanized slaughterhouses, which are exploitative to laborers, especially migrant and minority laborers, and take exploitation of animals to the extreme, has been cultural knowledge since Upton Sinclair’s 1906 The Jungle (Sinclair, 1965; cf. Boggs, 2011, pp. 75–76; Ribas, 2016, pp. xiii–xv, 11, 45–50, 126–127; Sebastian, 2017; Shukin, 2009, pp. 87–130; Torres, 2007, pp. 46–49). More recently, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations that maximize the fattening of animals at the expense of their health and well-being as well as that of the surrounding environment have further abstracted livestock, especially cows, away from their historical ways of being, such as grazing grass, toward quick weight gain with corn feed (itself a plant turned abstracted commodity) in dense conditions (see Pollan, 2006, ch. 2–4). Full abstraction is obtained in the final commodity, modern meat hermetically sealed under plastic disguising its origins as a living, breathing animal (Smulewicz-Zucker, 2012, p. 165). Moreover, new technologies further the extent of abstraction within the meat industry. For example, animals’ genomes are reengineered through genetic splicing in order to enhance desirable traits of livestock animals as commodities. Matthew B. Wheeler (2013), an unwavering proponent of animal subjugation to biotechnologies, defines a transgenic animal as …one that has integrated a gene or DNA sequence (a “transgene”), which has been transferred by human intervention, into the genome of a cell. For the purposes of discussion, a transgenic animal is defined as one that has stably incorporated the transgene into its germ-line and is able to pass the transgene on to its offspring.

As an advocate of animal biotechnology, Wheeler argues that more needs to be done to improve “product composition and production efficiency, especially in

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growth, disease resistance, and reproduction.” This statement implies animals to be nothing other than commodities that can be tweaked and improved for their sole purpose in satisfying the interests of human commerce. To this end, Wheeler (2013) argues “Genetically modified (transgenic) livestock, stem cells, and other emerging biotechnologies will have important roles in producing more and higher quality food derived from livestock.” There is an implicit assumption that the purpose of certain species of animals is to commercially feed humans and that the “quality” of their being – from their genetic code in every cell of their bodies to their physiological whole – is defined by the marketplace of meat production and consumption. Wheeler (2013) argues, “There are many potential applications of transgenic methodology to develop new and improved strains of livestock.” The abstract language used in advocacy of transgenic technology erases any significance from the fact that what is being produced are living animals. Life appears in this language as just another technology of production. But since these genetic manipulations are incorporated and passed on to subsequent generations, such “strains of livestock” become living, breathing, and reproducing commodity lines. The article contains a photographic figure showing a transgenic sow laying on a metal floor with 10 piglets suckling through metal bars. According to Wheeler (2013), Practical applications of transgenics in livestock production include enhanced prolificacy and reproductive performance, increased feed utilization and growth rate, improved carcass composition, improved milk production and/or composition…, modification of hair or fiber, and increased disease resistance.

True to the capitalist imperative, this list of benefits encapsulates the drive to maximize profit while minimizing inputs. Even the terms that speak to the purpose of these animals’ lives being their intended death are abstract (for example, “improved carcass composition,” the animal’s musculature measured as yield of different cuts of meat) a discursive parallel to the hermetically sealed packages of meat that will eventually conceal the animal. Distinct from livestock, silkworms are another species that has for thousands of years been domesticated, exploited, and commoditized. They also are now subjects of transgenic gene alteration. For example, scientists at Kraig Biocraft Laboratories have created transgenic silkworms “edited” to include “several genes for spider-silk proteins” such that the silk they spin includes desirable properties of spiders’ silk (Offord, 2017). According to Jon Rice, a researcher on this project, “Spider silk is unique,” being simultaneously very strong but with high elasticity, and scientists cannot “recreate that synthetically” (quoted in Offord, 2017). The unique toughness of spider silk “beat[s] the sturdiest manmade fibers such as nylon or Kevlar several times over” (Offord, 2017). Spider silk and all of its spectacular properties, of course, evolved with spiders to serve the particular purposes of a spider’s own life needs. Unable to make polymers comparable to spider silk themselves and unable to domesticate the solitary and territorial spider, but coveting its silk to be appropriated for human purposes, scientists have enlisted the more docile silkworm species into the quest (Xu et al.,

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2018). By “editing” (a euphemistic term for manipulating the very genetics of an animal) spider genes into silkworms, humans achieve the creation of something that could not otherwise be “man-made” except in a secondary sense. This involves humans rewriting genetic code of animals to then make something they cannot make themselves. Neither the spider nor the silkworm may consent to genetic alteration or gain anything for themselves from the transaction. The silkworms will diligently spin silk as part of their own life cycle and if the same process is used on these animals as most silkworms, they will be boiled alive for their effort while the company that created and patented the transgenic profile will profit significantly. Kraig Biocraft Laboratories already “holds a milliondollar contract with the US Army, which is exploring possible uses [of one of the transgenic silk products] in defensive clothing and other gear” (Offord, 2017). The involvement of the US military provides an indication of the broader ecology of exterminism in which the technologization of life is embedded (Lindseth, 2012). Both transgenic silkworms and livestock exemplify the treatment of animals as abstract machines that can be reengineered to better produce desired commodities. Other animals suffer the fate of being replaced rather than transformed.

THE ECOLOGY OF THE NONLIVING: ROBOTIC BEES AND ARTIFICIAL TREES In her groundbreaking 1962 scientific analysis and societal wake-up call, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson eloquently explained the consequences of chemical poisons and warned of the risks involved in a continued course of overreliance on such chemical compounds. There is a delicate balance between living beings and their physical and chemical environment: living organisms and the environment are adapted to each other and changes imposed by new chemical compounds can have drastic and widespread effects distorting this delicate balance (Carson, 2002, pp. 53–83; cf. Commoner, 1971, p. 32). Once released, chemical poisons are indiscriminate in the harm they create, with risks of disrupting the balance of life for whole ecosystems with consequences for human and nonhuman animals well beyond the intended targets of such pesticides (Carson, 2002, pp. 15, 99, 242, 246). Carson specifically addressed threats to bee habitats in the context of the use of herbicides destroying plants’ symbiotic interconnectedness with bee populations. In her discussion of herbicides targeting unwanted vegetation, Carson (2002, p. 73) wrote: Such vegetation is also the habitat of wild bees and other pollinating insects. Man is more dependent on these wild pollinators than he usually realizes. Even the farmer himself seldom understands the value of wild bees and often participates in the very measures that rob him of their services. Some agricultural crops and many wild plants are partly or wholly dependent on the services of the native pollinating insects. Several hundred species of wild bees take part in the pollination of cultivated crops – 100 species visiting the flowers of alfalfa alone. Without insect pollination, most of the soil-holding and soil-enriching plants of uncultivated areas would

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die out, with far-reaching consequences to the ecology of the whole region. Many herbs, shrubs, and trees of forests and range depend on native insects for their reproduction; without these plants many wild animals and range stock would find little food. Now clean cultivation and the chemical destruction of hedgerows and weeds are eliminating the last sanctuaries of these pollinating insects and breaking the threads that bind life to life.

Despite the scientific knowledge as early as mid-century when Carson wrote (and folk knowledge long before this) of interconnected ecosystems and the crucial role of insect pollinators, unfortunately, in the time since Silent Spring was published, not only has bee habitat diminished further, but more potent chemical threats have emerged and garnered widespread use. Capital’s intervention in the natural world breaks the interconnectedness of ecosystems, creating entropic chaos where once there was living, self-organizing, complexity. Capital creates its own necroecology. Due to multiple and compounding factors, honey bee colonies have experienced widespread collapse in recent decades. Starting around 2005, significant drops of up to 30 percent in bee populations began and in subsequent years some beekeepers estimated up to 40–55 percent of hives collapsing (e.g., Wines, 2013). This complex but disturbing trend was labeled “colony collapse disorder” and generally attributed to a multitude of factors. A federal study in the United States published in 2013 “attributed the massive die-off in American honey bee colonies to a combination of factors, including pesticides, poor diet, parasites and a lack of genetic diversity” (Riley, 2013; cf. Broder, 2013).2 The effect has been that roughly one-third of honey bee colonies in the United States collapsed between 2006 and 2013 (Riley, 2013; cf. Wines, 2013). Wild bees have had similar fates. According to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, bumble bees, “vitally important pollinators of wild plants and agricultural crops worldwide” have experienced significant decline: “the relative abundances of four species have declined by up to 96% and…their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23–87%” in North America within a twenty-year period (Cameron et al., 2011, p. 662). Dave Goulsen et al. (2015) write that “The species richness of wild bees and other pollinators has declined over the past 50 years, with some species undergoing major declines and a few going extinct.” Concurrently, …the demand for insect pollination of crops has approximately tripled, and the importance of wild pollinators in providing such services has become increasingly apparent, leading to concern that we may be nearing a “pollination crisis” in which crop yields begin to fall. (Goulson et al., 2015)

One specific threat to bee populations has been the use of “neonicotinoid seed coatings applied to flowering crops” that some studies have “shown to increase mortality in honey bees by impairing their homing ability and to reduce the reproductive success of bumble bees and solitary bees” (Woodcock et al., 2017). In 2013, the European Union instituted a moratorium on neonicotinoid chemicals in areas frequented by pollinators during which the effects could be studied and evaluated. In 2018 the European Union expanded its ban on neonicotinoid pesticides “to all field crops, because of growing evidence that the pesticides can harm domesticated honey bees and also wild pollinators” (Stokstad, 2018). In

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early 2020, the European Union in effect widened its ban through denying approval for the neonicotinoid pesticide, thiacloprid. This time, however, “following a January 2019 study looking into the safety of thiacloprid,” the European Union “decided to completely prohibit its use” (Nosowitz, 2020). These bans have faced concerted opposition by the chemical industry and agricultural interests. Nevertheless, the EU moratorium and subsequent ban on neonicotinoids reflects European openness to applying the precautionary principle in guiding environmental decisions. This stands in contrast to the US zeitgeist that seems to mirror its criminal standards of “innocent until proven guilty” when it comes to environmental destruction. At the same time that the European Union was passing its initial moratorium, which was instituted to allow for study of the chemicals’ effect before determining future policy, the US government acknowledged the possible role of neonicotinoid chemicals in bee colony collapse, but would not ban these pesticides suspected in colony collapse because there was not yet conclusive evidence to justify the economic consequences of a ban. Rather, the United States asserted that more studies should be done, but that in the meantime there would be no limitations on neonicotinoid use. Moreover, in 2018 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (a misnomer under the Trump administration) approved “emergency” spraying of “sulfoxaflor – an insecticide the agency considers ‘very highly toxic’ to bees – on more than 16 million acres of crops known to attract bees” (Center for Biological Diversity, 2019). Biologist Nathan Donley is cited as saying Spraying 16 million acres of bee-attractive crops with a bee-killing pesticide in a time of global insect decline is beyond the pale, even for the Trump administration…. The EPA is routinely misusing the “emergency” process to get sulfoxaflor approved because it’s too toxic to make it through normal pesticide reviews. (Center for Biological Diversity, 2019)

Meanwhile the crisis of bee colony collapse continues. Neonicotinoids, sulfoxaflor, and other contributing chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are still on the market and heavily used in the United States and elsewhere despite their suspected role in bee colony collapse in conjunction and interaction with each other and the other human-induced factors that include habitat destruction, encroachment, climate change, and loss of symbiotic biodiversity. In response to this dangerous cocktail of factors contributing to bee colony collapse, which are all driven by activity of human economic maximization, there are proposals to solve this critical existential problem (created by human industry, technology, and economy) with none other than human invention and technology. It is treated as unthinkable to change human practices, technologies, laws, and property relations, that are creating the threat to the survival of pollinating species on which a massive web of other species’ (including human) survival also depends. Instead, interest has grown in the possibility of artificial bees. Technological enthusiasts are working on developing robotic bees, tiny drone “bees” tasked with pollinating crops once serviced by actual bees. Teams “in labs around the world,” including Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States, have been working on robotic bees projects with the goal of replicating and replacing or

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assisting bee-based pollination (van der Schaft, 2018). In addition to university scientists, large corporations are taking an interest in artificial bees, including Walmart, which in 2018 filed a robotic bees patent (Gohd, 2018). Relying on robotic drones, of course, ignores the intricate and complex interrelations and interconnections within ecosystems. Carson (2002, p. 73), for example, encapsulated the coevolution of bee species with their symbiotic flowering flora using the example of one such relationship: By the precise and delicate timing that is nature’s own, the emergence of one species of wild bees takes place on the very day of the opening of the willow blossoms.

Of course, there are many other examples of the coevolution of bees with the flora they support in timing, physiology, and other factors of symbiotic compatibility. The attempt to create mechanical replacements for worker bees parallels the capitalist tendency of degrading and abstracting workers to replaceability and interchangeability. It contrasts with understanding bees as unique, important, and highly specialized members of ecosystems. Pollinators have evolved to fill a vast and complex ecological need that is not easily replicated. One journalist, Crystal Ponti (2017), writing on the subject of robotic bees observes “even if cost were no object, an army of pollinating robot bees would face myriad obstacles.” She cites entomologist Marla Spivak in laying out the enormity of the agricultural project. For example, tackling the million acres of California almond orchards with each individual flower requiring pollination, an endeavor that annually requires the trucking in of two million bee colonies each with up to 20,000 bee foragers, begging the question of whether bees could really be replaced by robots and “How many robots would be needed” (Spivak quoted in Ponti, 2017). More broadly, Spivak points to the challenges in attempting to replace the adapted diversity of the 20,000 species of bees each suited to pollinating particular flowers “with unique flight patterns and body sizes to get into different flowers” (Ponti, 2017). Treating animals as if they are replaceable by robots to fill an identified ecological function (or human economy-serving function in the case of crop pollination) is emblematic of a much broader and entrenched reductionist attitude toward nature. This anthropocentric view (asserting the dominance of humans and assuming the role of nature as being to serve them) disregards the notion that nonhuman animals have any intrinsic right to exist and to thrive irrespective of their services to the human economy. It also disregards ecological views that see the interconnectedness of species in a complex web of life that cannot be reduced to individual transactional functions. The imposition of the abstract rationality of the market onto natural systems is capital’s Midas touch. The race to develop robotic bees parallels a similar proliferation in efforts to create artificial trees. Similar to allowing continued use of bee-harming pesticides while engineers work to create (and patent) robotic bees, society has been allowing continued deforestation at an alarming rate while scientists work to develop (patentable) machines that mimic the function of trees in capturing and converting atmospheric carbon dioxide. Scientific teams at universities and labs

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around the world are competing to produce cost-effective and competitive processes to capture carbon dioxide from ambient air, something plants and especially trees are quite good at. In the United States, a search for “carbon capture” patents in the last 10 years brings up more than 28,795 results.3 Some endeavors have progressed to model industrial scale, including the Canadian company, Carbon Engineering, which works on geoengineering in the form of carbon dioxide removal through Direct Air Capture technology. Distinct from existing efforts of carbon capture from point sources, like from the smokestacks of power plants or large factories, Direct Air Capture takes on the more technologically challenging task of capturing emissions, after the fact of pollution, from the ambient air. The company professes the ideal: “We believe we can create a future in which our children and neighbours inherit the same planet we’ve enjoyed; where we deliver prosperity and well-being while avoiding environmental impact” (Carbon Engineering, 2019b). In realizing this vision, the company lists their accomplishments of scaling up: From our pilot facility in Squamish, Canada, we have fully demonstrated our Direct Air Capture technology and are now commercializing. Our team and partners are working to build industrial-scale Direct Air Capture facilities that will each capture one million tons of CO2 per year – which is equivalent to the work of 40 million trees. (Carbon Engineering, 2019b)

In this explanation, they implicate that industrial carbon capture is to be understood as synonymous with carbon captured by trees. Equating trees to carbon capture machines reduces trees to a singular function connected to the climate change crisis, while ignoring the myriad of other functions trees serve in providing habitat for other species, their other complex and defining roles in ecosystems, let alone any moral obligations to protect trees for their own sakes. While rainforests in Indonesia and elsewhere continue to be converted into oil plantations, at the expense of all the species that lived in these rich ecosystems, the Amazon rainforest has been allowed to burn at unprecedented rates in the past year, and other forests continue to be converted into single-species plantations or to be replaced with other human economic activity, the quest continues to create carbon capture machines that simulate trees at industrial scales. Such reductionism has been dominant in modern society and reinforced by the proliferation of reductionist sciences focused on very specific questions and geared away from considering the vast complexities of ecology. In his magnum opus, The Closing Circle, Barry Commoner (1971, p. 21) identified the increasing tendency toward reductionism in thinking about the environment and warned that this tendency is illusionary especially in the face of the mounting environmental crisis. Commoner explicated what he calls the laws of ecology: (1) everything is connected to everything else (the idea of interconnections); (2) everything must go somewhere (in nature there is no waste that is not recycled into new environmental processes and problems occur when new substances are introduced into a system where they do not belong and cannot be cycled into the system); (3) nature knows best (human-made introductions to natural systems are likely to be detrimental and therefore prudence should be exercised when

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developing and releasing such compounds); and (4) there is no such thing as a free lunch (“every gain is won at some cost”) (Commoner, 1971, pp. 33–48). Each one of these “laws” points to the intricate complexity of ecology and the interrelation of species and their environment. Reducing bees to pollinating robots or trees to carbon capture machines is antithetical to the holism of an ecological approach to understanding nature. Rather, the creation of artificial life to replace actual life being killed off by human activity constitutes a reductionist view imbued with particular economic interests and ideology. Returning to Carbon Engineering (2019a), the for-profit company that has shown success at ramping up its carbon capture machines, it is interesting to note their funding. The company lists its top investors as including “Bill Gates, Murray Edwards, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, LLC, Chevron Technology Ventures, and BHP” as well as “top-tier government agencies in both Canada and the USA.” Of the private investors with the exception of Bill Gates, every single one is a fossil fuel company, subsidiary, or owner. Fossil fuels are the ultimate example of commodifying and reanimating the remains of living beings who are long dead. Ironically, profit is being sought by technoentrepreneurs and their fossil fuel investors in technological solutions to the environmental crises that resulted from profiteering technological development in the first place. While capitalist society has been characterized by exploitation, alienation, and commodification of human beings, it has also had parallel effects on nonhuman animals and the ecosystems in which they live. The subsuming of life – humans in the form of labor; plants, animals, and whole ecosystems in the form of “natural resources” – into the capitalist economy has endangered the basis and substance of life with ever increasing urgency of existential risk. The environment and nonhuman animals have been especially vulnerable to destruction by the dominance of a market system demanding infinite growth (Gould et al., 2008). Beyond the direct exploitation of other species for agriculture, the meat industry, animal testing, and so on, the specifically human activities related to the modern economy have drastically reshaped the world and affected all living beings on it through economic “externalities” – consequences borne by others than those who caused them. Hence, animals without exchange value or potential for exploitation in the production of exchangeable commodities are not left untouched by industrial capitalism, but conversely are quite affected and particularly vulnerable to habitat encroachment, forced adaptation changing their mode of living, and even “biological annihilation” central to “Earth’s ongoing sixth mass extinction event” (quotes from Ceballos et al., 2017). The ongoing mass extinction and loss of biodiversity within and between species result from externalities of economic growth, particularly in the forms of pollution, habitat encroachment, deforestation, climate change, and ocean acidification. Direct and indirect harm to animals often coincides. For example, not only are marine species threatened directly by overfishing, but also by “externalities” (i.e., matters of indifference), such as plastic pollution that leads to ingestion of plastics by ocean fishes (e.g., Boerger et al., 2010; Miranda and de Carvalho-Souza, 2016). Not only do forest dwellers, from insects to primates, suffer from deforestation but also from climate change (a quintessential externality of economic activity) making remaining

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forests more vulnerable to pests and drought (Steffen et al., 2018, p. 8255). The attack on the world’s biota has been multipronged and thorough. While humans have come to live with existential threat to humanity becoming increasingly normalized (Thorpe and Jacobson, 2013, pp. 101–103), nonhuman animals similarly experience the very real existential threats of individual demise, absolute or functional extinction, as well as loss of historical habitat threatening their lives literally. For those who survive these existential threats, they too are often forced to change the way they live away from their natural mode of being toward one adapted for human interference or even experience genetic manipulation by human interference. Ironically, as animal life is lost and diminished in the wake of economic development, the same system has been advancing the creation and refinement of artificial life (Thorpe, 2013). New technologies aim to co-opt, incorporate, and emulate animal traits, while the survival of the emulated animals themselves is under dire threat.

CONCLUSION ¨ Ingolfur Bluhdorn and Ian Welsh (2007, p. 187) argue that we live in a postecologist era, characterized by a general trend of technological and managerial boosterism that coexists with “a fixation on economic growth” and, perhaps ironically, “the normalization of environmental crisis.” They suggest that the “reassuring belief in the compatibility and interdependence of democratic consumer capitalism and ecological sustainability has become hegemonic” stifling ¨ other viewpoints, especially those that are inconvenient (Bluhdorn and Welsh, 2007, p. 186). The politics that emerge from this postecologism are the “politics of unsustainability” and the “simulative politics” which constitute a new mode of ¨ trying to “sustain what is known to be unsustainable” (Bluhdorn, 2007). Building upon this notion of unsustainability, we have highlighted how abstraction has come to consume not only labor in the traditional Marxist sense but also life itself. Perpetuating the very processes that drive the sixth extinction, scientists and entrepreneurs market technological fixes to address the dying world. Bees are replaced with pollinating robots. Trees are replaced by carbon capture machines. Silkworm genetic code is replaced with spider DNA. The sixth extinction is wiping out the evolved genetic inheritance of biodiversity and eviscerating wild nature. Industrialized agriculture is imposing what Pat Mooney of the environmentalist NGO, the Rural Advancement Foundation International (renamed ETC Group), has called “a plague of sameness” in the form of monoculture and intensive breeding of a narrower and narrower range of breeds (Glavin, 2006, p. 214; Thorpe, 2016, p. 63). There is a loss of differentiation in the world: “It is about the bleeding away of differences in the living world, and of differences between captivity and freedom, between the real and the fabricated” (Glavin, 2006, pp. 30–31). What is created by the capitalist appropriation of life is a spectacle of nature, “the autonomous movement of the nonliving” (Debord, 1983, thesis #2). According to Bowring (2003, p. x), the biotechnological transformation of nature indicates the “dissolving boundary between intervention and

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experimentation.” As science allies itself with capital in the transformation of the living world, it imposes on the world a form of rationalization that not only makes living beings more amenable to technoscientific manipulation and control but also imposes a quantitative abstraction on the world in ways that disrupt natural connections and rhythms. Bowring (2003, p. xii) writes, Masquerading as the triumph of freedom over necessity, this vision requires the wholesale adaptation of those organisms to mechanistic values and imperatives – to the mathematical principles of speed, exactitude, processing power, causation and universal exchangeability – which bare scarce resemblance to the world as we experience it, to the truly human world.

The order and form that are imposed on nature do not represent a genuine humanization of nature. The epoch of the globalization of human species activity is not Anthropocene but Capitalocene (Moore, 2016b). It is the production not of humanized nature, but of capitalized nature, nature subsumed by capital and its reproductive capacities reconfigured for efficient commodity production. At the same time, the entropic disruption of the planet’s systems by capitalist production and waste leads to an assault on the conditions of life, and a planet thinned of complex life, biodiversity replaced by simplified ecosystems (Glavin, 2006; Stolzenburg, 2008). The Capitalocene is a deathscape, a necrocene as Justin McBrien insightfully puts it. “Extinction,” McBrien (2016, p. 117) writes, “is both the immediate success and ultimate failure of the real subsumption of the earth by capital” (cf. Sanbonmatsu, 2011, p. 31). What Toscano calls the “culture of abstraction,” to the extent that it reflects, as Sohn-Rethel argued, abstract labor and the abstraction of exchange value, is also necroculture, in the sense that it imposes on the world, through formal and real subsumption, a capitalist logic of abstraction that is counterecological and inimical to the complex interrelationships that form what Jason W. Moore (2016a, p. 3) calls “the web of life” or “nature as a flow of flows.” Capital imposes its own simplified and reductionist framework of value, which subsumes all qualitative difference under, ultimately, a single quantitative measure, that of money. While nature is particular, capital is indifferent to the distinction between a bee and a robot, seeing only the performance of a discrete instrumental function, a necessary step in the realization of profit (cf. Kallis and Swyngedouw, 2018). Capital shoves out of the way, bulldozes, chainsaws, poisons, displaces all that it cannot profitably subsume. The culture of abstraction produces monoculture and parking lots where once there was complex and diverse life. In a world dominated by money, Marx writes, “everything is itself something different from itself...all is under the sway of inhuman power.” Money makes “the world upside-down” (Marx, 1964, pp. 156, 169; Thorpe, 2016, p. 18). To the extent that the reproduction of life comes under the sway of money it is under the sway of an alien power, which harnesses both human labor and the reproductive powers of living things but in so doing subsumes them under an inhuman and counterecological logic. To the extent that capital is able to remake the world according to this logic, producing the Capitalocene, it produces an ecology of death. This argument does not depend on extending or transforming the law of

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value to include nonhuman “work” or to include what Moore (2015) calls “cheap nature.” Rather than a transformed law of value, ecological destructiveness of capitalism is best understood in terms of the fundamental narrowness of the law of value, and the vast gulf of abstraction between exchange value and the concrete complexity both of human productivity and of the reproductive processes of biological life on the planet (Foster and Burkett, 2018). What most fundamentally connects the culture of abstraction with the ecological destruction, the destruction of life, and the necro-Capitalocene, is indifference. Exchange value abstracts from all qualitative features of the worker as a living human being to recognize only a measure of alienated abstract labor power as time. Capital is indifferent to the life of the worker outside the time that the worker puts into the augmentation of capital. Capital is indifferent to the conditions for the reproduction of the worker’s life. The only thing about which capital is concerned is the extraction of labor power in the form of surplus value. Everything else is a means to that end. Capital subsumes labor not only formally under exchange value in the wage contract but also subsumes labor in its real qualitative content. But as it does so it subsumes labor under its generalized indifference, seeking to eliminate all qualitative complexity from labor. Capital similarly subsumes nature, reconfiguring reproductive processes to fit with and facilitate rationalized capitalist production (an extreme manifestation of which is in the BioBrick used in synthetic ¨ biology [Boldt and Muller, 2008, p. 388; Boldt, 2013, pp. 38–39; Thorpe, 2016, p. 72]). Subsuming human activity and nonhuman nature in the form of human and natural resources, within a common monetary measure of value, capital is indifferent to qualitative differences (between species, ecosystems, or human skills and cultures) that do not matter for profit-making. Subjectively, indifference takes the form of carelessness and mindlessness, indifference to human and animal suffering and ecosystem destruction, a loss of meaningful connection to a materially degraded world, a world marked by the pervasiveness of what C. Wright Mills (1951) called “organized irresponsibility,” a world that seems impervious to what Stock dismisses as “philosophical meaning.” Indifference is also ignorance. Commodity fetishism and its abstractions form a veil of Maya between human consciousness and material reality. Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker draws on Alfred Schmidt to argue that, just as the commodity form conceals the social relations of labor materialized in the commodity and expressed in reified form in its exchange value, the commodity form also conceals nature. Schmidt indicates, “The products of labour become commodities, and therefore no longer incorporate the living interaction between men and nature, but emerge as a dead and thing-like reality” (Schmidt, quoted in Smulewicz-Zucker, 2012, p. 163). Smulewicz-Zucker (2012, p. 163) argues that, correspondingly, the commodification of animals hides the animal as a living being: Perceived as a commodity, it becomes impossible to ethically relate to the animal that was used to make the commodity because the animal appears as something different…. Just as our awareness of the natural properties in the commodity is diminished, our awareness of the animal used to make the commodity is also diminished.

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Smulewicz-Zucker (2012, p. 167) suggests that commodification is both epistemic and moral occlusion, since the obscuring of animals’ material life and vitality also prevents conceptualizing them as beings in relation to which humans are capable of empathic understanding and in relation to which we have moral responsibility (cf. Dickens, 1996, pp. 14–15). Commodification reduces animals to means and reduces human thought, science, to narrowly instrumental manipulation and calculation, in which means are alienated from ends. Commodification produces a world deprived of natural habitats, hostile to life, and devoid of human meaning. The possibility of reflexivity, and therefore of a truly reflexive modernization, is structurally blocked by the very process of abstraction that is inherent in the existence of the commodity.

NOTES 1. Latham interprets the reversal as meaning that, “The valiant proletarian cook will slay the demonic capitalist rat” (Latham, 2002, p. 26). 2. At the time of writing (November 2019 and rechecked April 2020), the United States Department of Agriculture page for this study (https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ documents/ReportHoneyBeeHealth) contains a “Page Not Found” error message. It seems that research on pollinators is among the list of environmentally relevant government documents purged from public access by the Trump administration. 3. Search conducted December 2, 2019, using patents.google.com.

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MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? REFLECTIONS ON OBJECTIFICATION AND INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF ANIMALS IN THE ECONOMY Wolfgang Leyk ABSTRACT Human–animal economic relations range from exploitative objectification and mass killing of animals in industrial livestock to species-appropriate husbandry or collaboration of humans and animals in therapy or rescue work. Should they be abolished or are there options for their moral permissibility? I propose using a three-level model to distinguish between morally impermissible and acceptable economic relations of humans and animals. A further step explores how an animaloriented economy can be implemented on existing markets against the background of a philosophical theory for acceptable use of animals in the economy. Rather than developing a theory, it suggests research projects for an animal friendly economy. Market sociology reveals that sophisticated markets are a potential platform for animal welfare and that they allow a countermovement against animal exploitation. This understanding of markets also connects animals to value theory or to the idea of social cost. This way a consistent theoretical frame for animal welfare in economy is imaginable and suggested for further research. Keywords: Animal ethics; human–animal relations; industrial farming; heterodox economics; objectification; Kant

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND In this chapter, I introduce a three-level analytical model of objectification and instrumentalization of animals in the economy, which is rooted in Kantian The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 107–121 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035005

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philosophy. It helps to develop ethical criteria for human–animal relations with the intention of drawing a line between morally permissible and socially acceptable instrumentalization of animals. Research on animals in the economy generally centers around animal welfare. This requires some preliminary remarks. First, it must be noted that animal welfare is not a consistent concept. It is often value-based and reflects on animals as morally relevant beings. It uses terminology related to normative philosophical concepts, implying assumptions about freedom, subjectivity, or autonomy. Terms range from “exploitation,” “commodification,” “slavery and abolition,” to more subtle philosophical terminology like “instrumentalization,” “animal harm,” or “neglected preferences.” This normative philosophical conceptualization of animal welfare in bio- or animal ethics is increasingly brought together with an empiric “scientific” approach like ethological research (Fraser, 2014; Rossi and Garner, 2014). Meanwhile animal welfare is also a research object for social sciences. Market research shows growing concern about intensive animal husbandry. Against the backdrop of social acceptance and behavioral economics, markets increasingly target customer demands for species-appropriate animal keeping. Often the quality of animal welfare is presented as a marketing device to sell goods to conscientious buyers (Buller and Roe, 2012; Torsonnen, 2015). Conventional producers, though, develop a defensive strategy to reject these critiques as irrational and inappropriate. These conflicting positions on animal welfare require a complementary analytical tool that brings together diverse perspectives on animal welfare for interdisciplinary work. Animal welfare is not simply a philosophical or scientific issue that refers to the quality of animal life. It reflects social and cultural understandings. In economics, the idea of animal welfare relates to economic ethics, which considers whether or not accounting practices include quality aspects like animal welfare or neglect them. Objectification is a concept particularly suitable for bringing these diverse perspectives together. In bio- and animal ethics, it is a value-based concept about unpermitted instrumentalization of animals being used as a means for profitmaking. Economic objectification transforms animals into commodities. Lately, animal ethics have increasingly been connected to empiric, e.g., ethological insights. This approach allows us to clarify the extent and intensity of objectification. A closer look at the Kantian roots of objectification reveals that distinct modii of objectification and instrumentalization should be differentiated and that a careful use of this terminology is advisable (Camenzind, 2018b). It is largely unknown that social sciences also reflect on “objectification” from a different perspective. For social sciences, like sociology and economics, objectification is a multifactorial process that brings together different stakeholders and cultural commitments or public opinion. More than 100 years ago, Georg Simmel in his philosophy of money conceptualized objectification as dynamically arising along with a desire for goods and conditional for the exchange of goods (Simmel, 2003, pp. 60–76). This objectification process is charged with convictions, emotions, or public interest. Sample products are organic, fair-trade, or “animal friendly” products. Objectification is characteristic for sophisticated, quality-minded, or societally embedded markets that have developed beyond the idea of quantitative demand and supply. These objectification heuristics can be connected to early market

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sociology and are currently explored in a diversity of mainly sociological research activities (Beckert, 2014; Dewey, 1938; Hirschmann, 2014; Luhmann, 1988; Reckwitz, 2017, 2020; Simmel, 2003). They depend on a background of societal differentiation. On these markets, exchange takes place against the backdrop of a learning and adaptive economy with interaction of experiential learning, value concepts, and knowledge of distinct stakeholders and groups (Dewey, 1938, 1939a; Miettinen, 2000). Within this conceptualization, animal welfare or “common sense” about moral relevance of animals creates new consumer needs that can be considered “novel properties” that are emergent or additionally acquired during exchange (Gr¨abner and Kapeller, 2015b, p. 5; Singer, 1974, pp. 501, 512, 1975/2009). This complementary perspective on objectification displays divergent objectification dynamics. In philosophy, objectification as unpermitted instrumentalization devaluates someone as a means to an end and is considered morally impermissible (Camenzind, 2018b, p. 365; Grimm, 2016). During exchange, objectification allows a product to be upgraded, given that it can be reincorporated into the subjectivity of economic agents and their cultural context (Camenzind, 2018a, p. 227; Mila, 2005, pp. 69–79). In other words, it can be imbued with new values, conceptions, and understandings. While in bio- or animal ethics, objectification (unpermitted instrumentalization or Versachlichung) renders animals a means to the end of human profit, “objectification” during exchange reinstates them into human culture. According to Simmel, the specific meaning of culture is fulfilled when human beings incorporate objects that are initially not part of them into their being. This new frame of reference connects “objects” to ideas and cultural commitments. It implies no philosophical position on animals but renders animals “works of art,” a world in itself “against all that exists external to it” (Simmel, 2003, pp. xxvi, 51). This concept potentially anticipates Bourdieu’s understanding of objectification as conditional for human existence (Mila, 2005, p. 212). Objectification facilitates decisions because it focuses on selected features of a product and reduces complexity to lifestyle and taste (Bourdieu, 1994, p. 77; Reckwitz, 2017, 2020). Simmel’s philosophy of money is a passionate plea for the reintroduction of cultural perspectives into a world at the mercy of economic rationality. As a collective term, objectification allows interaction of value-based normatives and science-based descriptive concepts. This combination of methods is a crucial factor when modeling a concept for animal objectification in the economy. It must integrate normative requirements like minimum standards for animal welfare or “common sense morality,” but also be open for situation analysis (Singer, 1974, p. 501). It should be noticed that the idea of animal welfare is not only a philosophical concept but it is also shaped by its economic context. Ethical pragmatism for animal objectification in the economy is based on interaction of situational analysis and principles in balanced deliberation or reflective equilibrium (Grimm, 2010; Rawls, 1971, 48ff; Singer, 1974). They do not target ethical indifference or “greenwashing” of animal use in the economy, but rather explore possible options for transformation. This research strategy is largely encouraged by a study on objectification, which explores different modii of objectification, such as self- or consented objectification (Camenzind, 2018a). These preliminary

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remarks allow a first draft for a more precise ethical assessment of objectifying economic relations between human and animal.

A THREE-LEVEL MODEL FOR ANIMAL INSTRUMENTALIZATION IN THE ECONOMY A three-level model targets potential morally permissible options for objectification of animals in the economy against a background of differentiated objectification heuristics. It suggests three levels of animal objectification ranging from (1) weak objectification (like self-instrumentalization or consented instrumentalization) to (2) animal friendly objectification, up to (3) exploitative objectification. This model is based on the observation that the lives of objectified animals are different. Pets (Level 1) are allowed a better life than industrially kept livestock (Level 3). Most Level 3 animals are slaughtered for their meat, while others are working in cooperative human–animal relations as therapy animals or K9 dogs (Level 1 or 2). Animal husbandry in organic farming can be distinguished from intensive livestock keeping. Analysis of these different Levels is complicated by the observation that even animal-friendly economic relations (Level 1 or 2) are embedded in a (Level 3) system of profit maximization and animal exploitation. Puppies for the pet industry are transported under dire conditions. Animals not meeting prospective users’ expectations are killed. Any complete assessment of situations potentially requires a look at the total supply chain. As any chain, supply chains are only as strong as their weakest link. Many animals living under favorable Level 1 or 2 conditions actually deserve a Level 3 classification due to the fact that they are exploited or killed eventually along the supply chain. These facts alone justify categorical demands for the abolition of any economic human–animal relations (Francione, 1995; Steiner, 2008). But this multilevel model of animal objectification does not target a normative framework. It explores criteria for assessment of situations with special interest in situations allowing better animal treatment. For economic human–animal relations, it also uses the term “instrumentalization,” which can be considered a feature and practice of objectification insofar as animals are a mere tool for the objectifier’s purpose, that is profit (Nussbaum, 1999, p. 218) (Table 1). Table 1. Three-level Approach toward Objectification/Instrumentalization. Instrumentalization Modus

Relation and Power

Practice

Self (consented)instrumentalizations

Reciprocal, mutual benefit, “eye-level,” animal competence Mutual benefit, property, symmetric/asymmetric (weak), harm avoidance, awareness of needs Asymmetric, quantification, maiming, denial of rights, harm

Pets, liminal animals team partner (K9), family member Species appropriate, freerange keeping, welfare options, “humane slaughter,” vulnerability Industrial keeping slaughterhouses, breeding for profit

Instrumentalization objectification

Exploitative objectification

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

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Level 1: Self-instrumentalization and Consented Instrumentalization Level 1, human–animal relations facilitate the highest degree of animal autonomy. Relations purport to be based on partner, rather than on ownership, and there is high esteem for animals such as pets, K9, or therapy dogs. Currently, there is a lack of scientific insights about animal consent or their readiness for cooperation. Level 1 classification therefore can only rely on an auxiliary construct: Since animals can neither talk nor sign a contract, Level 1 selfobjectification is established by “factual” consent like pets staying voluntarily with their owner or regularly returning for feeding. Level 1 allows mutual benefit of humans and animals. K9 dogs are a good example. Humans are taking advantage of dogs’ playing and hunting instinct. Companionship in these working relations is close, almost “eye to eye.” It implies food, shelter, grooming, medical care, and mutual companionship. On getting old, these animals are often taken into family or quality sanctuaries. Some service dogs may even have received military honors and it is societally consented that these animals are not eaten. Working as an animal can be very exhausting. Pictures of rescue efforts after 9-11 show tired humans and their animals, working side by side, which is sometimes interpreted as animal exploitation. But humans will say that the experience of meaningful work, exhaustion, and recovery can be rewarding. It is evident that ethological research is needed for better understanding of Level 1 human–animal relations. For the moment, Level 1 classification must rely on inductive (rational) reasoning about criteria for consent, assuming possible criteria for animal consent (Camenzind, 2018a, p. 297). Level 2: Permitted Instrumentalization with Economic Purpose Level 2, this classification explores the moral permissibility of objectification with a market perspective. It implies consented instrumentalization or weak nonpermitted instrumentalization like being born on a farm. These modii of instrumentalization do not necessarily result in objectification (Camenzind, 2018b, p. 366). The idea of “objectification” in economic theory is not necessarily charged with moral judgment. It is in the true sense of objectification applied to employees as human capital or human resources. But the case for animals is more complicated because human employees have consented to this objectification by contract, which is not the case with animals. Currently, consent cannot be used as a criterion for positive evaluation of objectification. Level 2 classification mainly relies on a value-based, scientific, or socially approved concept of implemented animal welfare. The main feature of Level 2 is mutual benefit. Animals exchange their products for good husbandry conditions, such as when animal husbandry includes species-appropriate, low-stress handling while considering animal psychology and needs (Grandin, 1999). Social life is possible; free-range husbandry and supply of natural food are conditional. Farm animals in Level 2 conditions might have a shorter life span than in nature, but they live much longer than their companions in intensive livestock farming. Mothers and young animals are kept together. This kind of animal rearing is presented as a strong selling argument for

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selected quality-oriented markets. It is evident that Level 2 depends on a common and cultivated attitude toward animals, but there are also significant differences between the first two Levels. Level 2 animals change their status from partner or companion to being property, which is considered a further feature of objectification (Nussbaum, 1999, p. 257). Some argue that this position, which includes a focus on animal welfare, still justifies killing animals for meat in a “painless-way,” so-called “humane-slaughter,” like on-farm slaughter (Humane Slaughter Association, 2018; Kemmerer, 2007). The underlying assumption is that one would prefer a good life with a painless death. For a final decision, it makes sense to apply vulnerability as a complementary criterion for assessment of instrumentalization (Camenzind, 2018a, p. 267). Killing an animal, luring it with friendly words and fondling into the hands of its slaughterer, constitutes a breach of trust and contempt of the animal. Killing an animal for its meat is slaughter, which is clearly outside the frame of Level 2, while euthanizing an animal due to old age or pain would be morally permissible if criteria like involvement of a vet are fulfilled. But things are complicated: Level 2 farmers will justify killing their animals and remark that slaughter is a painful experience to them but that they nevertheless accompany their animals to this point. Yet, remorse on the side of the killer does not justify the action. The issue of slaughter is so serious that it should also be referred to by the categorical criterion of a consistent supply chain. Breeding, keeping, and finally killing animals for meat must be assessed within Level 3, no matter what kind of husbandry is involved. The only option for meat consumption within Level 2 objectification would be eating an animal that has completed a natural life span and is euthanized due to illness or old age. It would be fatal to this model, if ethical assessment did not make a distinction between intentional slaughter for economic profit or such a contextualized killing. Animal friendly farming on Level 2 though may allow husbandry for a diversity of animal products such as wool, eggs, or dairy. It could apply to a large quantity of animals. Level 2 farming does not necessarily imply any judgments on the size of farms. Animal welfare can easily be implemented on farms with several hundred animals provided there is enough space. However, large-scale husbandry will probably impede animal welfare. Level 2 instrumentalization is thinkable against the background of sophisticated Simmelian or Bourdieuan markets concerned with animal welfare. But there is an obvious limitation associated with the marketing of animal welfare with a concept like “Sellfare,” which targets customer expectations for better products, rather than focusing on the relevance of the being of animals themselves (Buller and Roe, 2012; Torsonnen, 2015). “Sellfare” arguments, like “better feeding” or free-range, are often used to advertise a higher-quality product, particularly meat. This kind of animal-welfare governance targets humans and still reveals itself as “application of power,” which should be put into Level 3, which focuses on commodification (Torsonnen, 2015, p. 43). Nevertheless, Level 2 instrumentalization is the only concept that allows a morally permissible connection of animal welfare interests and the pursuit of profit.

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It requires serious governance, a set of criteria based on values or science, as well as continuous monitoring, for compliance. Level 3: Commodification, Mass Commodification, Objectification, and Exploitation The case of Level 3 objectification is clear: Animals are killed and exploited for products. There is no interest in quality standards like animal welfare. Quantitative aspects are paramount. Output figures must be achieved in the shortest time, at the lowest cost possible. There is a diversity of troubling practices, many of them are not known to the public, while some of them have become symbolic representations of industrial animal husbandry. These practices include confinement of gestating hogs, tail docking, shredding male chicklets, and keeping pork on slatted floors. Level 3 producers are aware of social acceptance issues. They invest in marketing campaigns that celebrate various animal welfare practices. Their choice of welfare options is random, as they target single issues of customer acceptance. There is no strategic or systemic approach, beyond erasing public concerns. A characteristic intervention is to provide toys or better animal feed to improve the lives of pigs while at the same time keeping them on slated floors and in farrowing pens. Mass slaughter is at the end of this process and it means terror for the animal. Up to 10% of animals are killed unstunned or pregnant while being slaughtered. With a secure food supply, WHO recommendations for reduced meat consumption, and the increased availability of new meatless products, there is no justification for Level 3 objectification. Giving priority to human interest is the only reason to justify Level 3. However, Level 3 objectification is less a matter of individual decision. It is inseparably embedded in orthodox economics with its normative requirements for growth, price decreases, and accumulation. Level 3 can no longer be assessed as being morally permissible.

PARADIGM SHIFT: A THEORETICAL BACKGROUND FOR INSTRUMENTALIZATION Granted that Level 2 instrumentalization is acceptable, the threefold model of objectification suggests a paradigm shift from Level 3 to Level 2 husbandry. Here, I explore how it can be embedded into the existing societal and economic context. The starting point for this transformation is the observation that intensive livestock farming and Level 3 objectification characterize a last and dramatic stage in animal instrumentalization. It is during the last 100 years that this type of large-scale animal husbandry has evolved (Heidegger, 1977), whereby poultry was the first to be raised in large numbers for egg production and eventual slaughter. In the 1970s, pig farmers shifted to factory farming and were soon followed by cattle farmers. Today, in the United States, up to 99% of all animals farmed for human consumption are raised on factory farms, and intensive livestock farming has become the standard for animal husbandry (Reese, 2019).

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Morally there is a diversity of highly problematic practices and technologies. This situation has stimulated philosophical discussion on animal rights and the moral importance of animals (Donaldson and Kymlicka, 2011; Francione, 1995, 2010; Linzey, 2009; Rowlands, 2012; Singer, 1975/2009; Steiner, 2008; Regan, 2001, 2004). Findings result in demands for the abolition of any human–animal economic relations (Francione, 2010). However, exploitative objectification is much more than a moral problem incurred by the moral failure of some profithungry people. It is systemic, a carefully orchestrated process, embedded in economic and cultural dynamics that bring together a diversity of agents and interests. It is an immediate consequence of the economy as it is organized at the moment, and it is embedded in a system of normative assumptions and practices. Level 3 instrumentalization connects easily to the economic growth paradigm. It results in maximizing efforts like breeding super-muscly, hulking animals that provide unusually large amounts of meat in accelerated production cycles. Level 3 instrumentalization is typical for markets predicated on endless growth and the mass supply of products that are as cheap as possible. It is increasingly criticized not only by animal rights activists but also by the public at large, veterinarians, and ecologists. It implies negative aspects like ecological consequences, inadequate product quality, fairness issues, and finally animal harm. Paradoxically intensive livestock farming has created its own countermovement with increased demand for alternative farming practices like organic farming, which has grown to almost 10% of the market share. Concern for animal welfare is shaping sophisticated markets and animal friendly Level 2 husbandry is being explored again. Within these niche markets, new economic human–animal relations are imaginable. Donaldson and Kymlicka (2015) have argued that use of wool or dogs’ guarding instincts does not inevitably affect animal moral relevance. For instance, some people have lived together with sheep and determined that shearing was good for the animals. As convinced vegans, they were not allowed to use the wool and they ended up burning it, given the normative position to never instrumentalize animals (Donaldson and Kymlicka, 2011, p. 136). But according to Donaldson and Kymlicka (2015, p. 62), it is not respectful toward sheep to burn their wool, as this denies sheep the capability to support their fellow animals or humans and it implies a certain disregard for animals’ potential contribution to human–animal relations. They are not targeting a normative universal background but rather aiming at dynamic and situational analysis providing a political frame for peaceful coexistence of humans and animals. They provide numerous examples and cases that inspire further research regarding how to assess consented relations of humans and pets and what distinguishes them from forced instrumentalization. Only a differentiated concept of objectification will allow such casuistry. It is not an intellectual challenge to morally assess Level 3 objectification. Instead, it is considering how to transform markets and societies that challenge us with important questions such as how to assess “on-farm-slaughter” of “happy” animals, appropriately reared according to their species. Or how we assess seemingly cooperational and consented working relations of human and animals. The frame of reference is the realization that the economic agency allows modii of

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instrumentalization beyond exploitation. Reciprocal instrumentalization and selfor consented instrumentalization are the foundation of any coordinated economy, which is not only focused on profit but also a social activity that allows and organizes production and distribution of products (Smith, 1776/2007). Adam Smith’s baker provides daily bread for money and in addition the cabdriver delivers me home for payment (Camenzind, 2018b, p. 366). The question is whether the baker and cabdriver instrumentalize themselves or consent to being instrumentalized by their customer. Reciprocity also means that the customer is instrumentalized if the person is lured by the smell of freshly baked bread or the offer of a quick ride home in the taxi. Camenzind (2018a, p. 321) shows that there is a lot to be gained from a transfer of Kant’s anthropocentric philosophy to human–animal relations and consideration of different intensities of permissible or impermissible instrumentalization. Evidently the idea of instrumentalization does not necessarily imply objectification, exploitation, and, in the case of animals, their exploitation. It is open to reciprocity. These initial remarks show that the idea of morally permissible instrumentalization of animals can be related to values and hopefully sometimes to scientific ethological insights. The only remaining challenge is an economic one. Level 2 products will be more expensive than Level 3 products. But how can higher prices be realized on markets that for years have suffered from price decline and overproduction? In the next section, I consider how these developments can potentially connect to ecomarkets that have gone beyond demand and supply and are “embedded” in society and respect interests beyond immediate exchange and profit (Polanyi, 1944).

IMPLEMENTING ANIMAL WELFARE IN LEARNING AND EMBEDDED MARKETS There is a troubling incongruence between Level 2 animal economy and the reality of twenty-first century capitalist markets, which only reluctantly follow a strategy of slow advances toward Level 2 objectification, although shortfalls in these markets like overproduction, price decrease, and miserable margins of profit are evident. Currently, producers reject quality demands as irrational, yet they feel dependent on customers willing to pay the “right price” (Arnot et al., 2006; Bourdieu, 1994; Danish Council on Ethics, 2016; De Pelsmacker et al., 2005; Dransfield et al., 2005; Hildenbrand et al., 2017). Disagreement, mistrust, and irritation are shaping the exchange of food and this scenario intensifies whenever animal products are involved. Research on social acceptance problems misses the role of market coordination and governance in these actions and mainly targets the psychological or behavioral component of individuals (Christoph-Schulz, 2018; Groß and Roosen, 2018; Rovers et al., 2017, 2018). In contrast, transformation to Level 2 objectification is demanded by a growing number of people as a new desirable paradigm for animals in the economy. This focuses on qualitative contextual or relational aspects, ranging from moral codes, animal welfare, sustainability, to “food citizenship” (Food Ethics Council, 2017; Heidbrink et al.,

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2011; Lorenz, 2006; Priddat, 2007; Stehr, 2007). There is a rift between economic interest for profit at any price and people’s desire for quality and fairness, demands which orthodox economics assesses as being irrational. Transformation toward Level 2 requires a changed economy and suggests research options. A decisive factor is that the understanding of markets must transform beyond supply and demand markets. In his concept of a democratic economy, John Dewey introduced the idea of “experiential learning” with reflection and economic action interacting. “Learning” markets develop toward better knowledge (Denis, 2015; Dewey, 1939a; Stikkers, 2011). They possibly achieve something like “common sense,” regarding animal welfare, which relates to Simmel’s idea of sophisticated markets. These markets turn negative externalities into selling advantages by proactive strategy. Heterodox economic analysis allows us to understand restrictions as “innovations,” as a chance for entrepreneurship in a Schumpeterian sense or as “emergent properties” (Gr¨abner and Kapeller, 2015a, 2015b; Schumpeter, 1934). Markets not only serve the exchange of goods. They are an interface of individual welfare and social relations. They bring together individual choice and macroeconomic aggregates (Dobusch and Kapeller, 2013; Gr¨abner and Kapeller, 2015a, 2015b; Kapeller, 2015). Exchange is embedded in culture and society. It inspires multiple interests of different stakeholders like consumer needs, farmers’ struggle for economic survival, and societal and individual welfare concerns. Producers earning their living will focus on quantitative cost and expense. Consumers will focus on either the price they are willing to pay or the welfare issues with which they are concerned. Once again society has an interest in quality from food safety to moral values. Often these interests are contradictory. They do not result in cooperation for a common goal, but in development of competing institutions or interest groups. This can be described as a relational trialogue during exchange (Fig. 1). Relational and learning democratic markets bring these interests together (Dewey, 1939a; Stikkers, 2011). They incorporate all economic actors as equal partners and rebuild a model of cooperation and shared responsibility. Democracy and participation are necessary for reaching an adequate awareness for economic and social problems and an idea of “reasonable value” (Dewey, 1939a; Hermann, 2011). Dewey’s (1939b) metaethics of value provide an interesting subject for further research on valuing, pricing, and the incorporation of value-

Society, Ins tu ons

Producer

Fig. 1.

Exchange Animal Welfare

Customer

Relational Trialogue during Exchange.

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based emotions or convictions. This concept of embedded instrumentalization is fundamentally distinct from Level 3 and exploitative commodification. Supply and demand are still a price-building mechanism, but they are complemented by others. Exchange then would be shaped by a comprehensive idea of value with respect to a diversity of stakeholders and this intensifies even more if the traded “good” as in the case of animal welfare is of societal interest. Concern for animal welfare is a countermovement against economization of everything, even nonmarketable things like nature or in this case animal welfare. Polanyi (1944) refers to this dialectical process, whereby efforts to embed the economy within social customs and controls are opposed by the dominating class in an ongoing struggle, as a “Double Movement” (also see Block, 2008). Level 3 objectification requires “disembedding” values like animal welfare from social control. Level 2 re-embeds them into a regulated societal context.

ANIMAL WELFARE AS SOCIAL COST Price pressure is a key argument against Level 2 animal husbandry. This finding should motivate research on prices, valuation dynamics, and their interdependence with different modii of instrumentalization. Usually quality perspectives like animal welfare are brought about by external interventions or normative governance (McMullen, 2016; Pacelle, 2016). Consumers comply with paying voluntary surcharges. But it should be explored if Level 2 commodification can be approached with reference to economic rationality. Theoretical backdrop in economics can be negative externalities or social cost. The idea of social costs is escalating dramatically with the current outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic: Social costs are not only infringed values like animal welfare, long-time effects of fertilizers, or liquid manure on water. Health hazard and costly precautionary measures to combat the dangers of epidemics originating from animal husbandry should be factored in. For this, economics should establish …theoretical frameworks which show the possible relationships which connect the many variables of economic reality, thereby enabling individuals and governments to make reasoned choices in full understanding of the probable consequences of their action. (Kapp, 1950, 1975, p. 283)

It will be a challenge for further research to identify to what extent animal harm affects society and its economy. Attempts at climate compensation show that the accounting of these costs can be developed as an incentive system for changes in market prices and commodification. For rationalization of such a concept, Kapp (1950, 1975, p. 301; Coase, 1960; Coulson, 2016; KPMG, 2014; Marciano and Ramello, 2014; also see Ramazotti, 2012) proposed establishing a price system of societally consented standards. They can be made accessible for customers’ daily shopping experience by use of a decision matrix, helping them in their choice of better products (Mepham, 2013a; Mepham, 2013b). Contrary to an orthodox approach, these social costs do not occur due to imperfections of markets, but are deliberately incorporated in product value during commodification.

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CONCLUSION Objectification and instrumentalization of animals are usually considered morally impermissible by the endorsers of animal rights and animal welfare, because they imply cruel and exploitative practices, forced relationships, derogatory “objectification,” and denial of rights. Evidently, they are tightly connected to economics predicated on the growth paradigm and markets seeking the lowest prices possible. But with reference to Kant’s intricate reflections on instrumentalization, a new differentiated perspective on objectification and instrumentalization can be developed, which leads beyond harm–benefit analysis because it allows for animals’ economic agency against the backdrop of reciprocity, trust, and mutual benefit. This idea is linked with heterodox economics, incorporating societal interests and value commitments into such analysis. Instrumentalization of animals must not necessarily be exploitative, if it is connected to reasonable valuing, sophisticated markets, and society. It is but one step in a “teleological chain” extending beyond immediate exchange (Simmel, 2003). Once the economy is re-embedded and freed from its current growth dynamic, a paradigm shift to animal friendly husbandry associated with Level 2 objectification is conceivable. This new society would employ scientific standards, shared values, and true cost valuation, and in the case of animals, a better understanding of their consent and readiness for cooperation.

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PART II CASE STUDIES OF THE COMMODIFICATION OF ANIMALS

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THE COMMODIFICATION OF LIVING BEINGS IN THE FUR TRADE: THE INTERSECTION OF CHEAP RAW MATERIALS AND CHEAP LABOR Tamar Diana Wilson

ABSTRACT The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fur trade in the United States and Canada that sent hundreds of thousands of furs to Europe and China relied on “Cheap Labor” and the abundance of “Cheap Raw Materials,” that is to say, living beings such as sea otter, land otter, beaver, and seals. Native American labor, procured by and paid through trade goods in a kind of “putting out” piece-rate system, was cheap partially because their lives were maintained/ reproduced through traditional agricultural or hunting and gathering economies. The commodification of fur-bearing animals led to their sharp decline and in some cases near extinction. Cheap labor and cheap living beings interacted dynamically in unison to enable capital accumulation under mercantile capitalism. At the very end of the nineteenth century, fur farming as a petty capitalist enterprise became common in Canada and the United States, and more recently has expanded greatly in China. Keywords: Commodification of animals; fur trade; fur farming; cheap nature; cheap labor; cheapened animal life The history of the commodification of animals for their fur accelerated four centuries ago as trapping activities spread throughout what would become the United States and Canada. As Gibson (1992, p. xi) relates: From the middle 1780s, when Russian galiots penetrated the Gulf of Alaska and British snows (brigs) reached Nootka Sound, the fur trade was the dominant economic activity on the

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Northwest Coast…. For more than half a century the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Nootka…, Salish and Chinook Indians in particular spent much of their time hunting fur bearers and trading their pelts, especially the “black skins” of sea otters, to Russian, British, and—above all—American shipmasters for metals, firearms, textiles, and foodstuffs. The Yankee Nor’westmen dealt the skins at Canton for teas, silks, and porcelains, which they then took for sale to European and American customers. More and more land furs were traded on the Northwestern Coast from the mid-1810s until the early 1840s, by which time the depletion of all of the fur bearers by over-hunting, the depression of the fur markets by civil strife or changing fashion, and the depopulation of the Indians themselves by disease and warfare had reduced the Northwest trade to insignificance. (Gibson, 1992, p. xi)

This account was focused just on the Northwest coast of the United States. Fur trapping also took place on the East coast and then farther inland as the animals being hunted were driven to near extinction. They formed part of the natural resources that were appropriated in the interests of capital accumulation. Jason W. Moore (2015), in his Capitalism and the Web of Life and other articles in his vast repertoire of publications, argues that historically capitalism has overcome its “natural limits” by exploiting “Cheap Nature” which consists of the “Four Cheaps”: cheap labor power, cheap food, cheap energy, and cheap raw materials. As part of their objectification, it is considered that animals and animal products are merely raw materials. A fifth category could have been added, that is cheapened animal life. For example, wildlife is captured to provide entertainment in zoos and circuses, slaughtered for their inputs into “traditional” medicine, decimated to fabricate decorative commodities such as bear skin rugs or ivory figurines, presented as focal point of “safari” adventures, and killed for their fur to make hats and coats and cloaks. Moore’s category of Cheap Nature could cover all of these, but has not been theorized. His reasoning concerning Cheap Nature will nevertheless be applied to the commodification and exploitation of fur-bearing animals in the United States and Canada in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It will be held that unlike much of today’s exploitation of fur-bearing animals such as minks and ermines in factory farming conditions, an obvious commodification of their beings, the otter and beaver, the wolf and the fox, the seal and the nutria, among other animals whose skins were used both in high fashion and for winter clothing as well as blankets, were part of the “Cheap Nature” (Moore, 2016, 2017, 2018). The appropriation of these animals has long fed and continues to feed into capital accumulation. Some mention of these fur farms will be made in the last section of this chapter. Concerning “the workings of the system that sees wealth entirely in terms of value generated by exchange,” John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark (2009, p. 1) underscore that “External nature—water, air, living species—outside this system of exchange is viewed as a ‘free gift.’” Tragically, the commodification of some of these living species can lead to their extinction or near extinction. Sometimes only changes in fashion or the shift to other items of consumption can save them. In this chapter, I explore how otter and beaver were seen as part of the “free gifts” extracted as part of “cheap raw materials” and were commodified as exchange capitalism (mercantilism) spread throughout the Pacific Northwest and with some reference to the East coast. I also explore how the labor force engaged

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in fur trapping provided “cheap labor power” since it was partially reproduced under conditions exterior to the spreading capitalism. It will be seen that aspects of current capital dynamic, such as precaritization of the work force, were present since the beginning of capitalist expansion, even – if not especially – in its mercantilist form. This is certainly the case when shipowners and large companies such as the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company utilized Native American, M´etis (offspring of indigenous peoples and whites), and other labor partially reproduced in noncapitalist social formations in their quest for furs. In the final section, I will consider the commodification of animals on fur farms, with reference to the practices in the United States, Canada, Europe, and China.

“CHEAP RAW MATERIALS” In their article “Marx and Alienated Speciesism,” Foster and Clark (2018, p. 1) present how Karl Marx (1970, p. 239) was aware of the degradation of animal life under capitalism. They introduce the term “alienated speciesism,” which, among other things, highlights how the capitalist system “reduces animals to machines within factory farms” (Foster and Clark, 2018, p. 18). This reduction to the status of machines, first amplified by Ruth Harrison (1964) in her book Animal Machines, can be considered one of the instances of extreme objectification of living beings and a denial of their sentient livingness. Such objectifying speciesism can be applied to the hunting of fur-bearing and other commodifiable parts of living beings, from pangolins to elephants, as well as their commodification on fur farms. The disregard of animals as subjects with rich emotional lives ranging from fear to sympathy to joy (Masson, 1996), and their objectification as inputs into a productive process that would result in profit-making, were part and parcel of the exploitation of animals in the fur trade. Many nations were involved in the commodification of these fur-bearing creatures, and their appropriation can be seen as part of the dynamic of the world-capitalist system that exhibits intermittent and continuous forms of precarious labor. In Furs, Fortune, and Empire, Eric Jay Dolin (2010) points out that the demand for furs in Europe led to the scarcity of fur-bearing animals by the early 1600s. Beginning in the late 1500s, beaver fur was sought to make hats and the demand for their fur led to the extinction of the European beaver (Dolin, 2010, p. 22). In North America, fur trading “took center stage” in the economy by the end of the sixteenth century (Dolin, 2010, p. 10). In North America in the early 1600s, there was competition for furs between Dutch, English, and French settlers. The harvesting of these animals by the French was vast: on the average 15,000 to 20,000 furs, mostly beaver, were sent to France each year (Dolin, 2010, p. 35). The primary export of the Pilgrims in 1630 were furs (Dolin, 2010, p. 63). Soon all the beaver within the reach of Plymouth Colony had been exterminated (Dolin, 2010, p. 35). The fur trade had also increased in the local markets of New England partially because of the demand for hats made of beaver furs. In the late 1680s, Virginia alone exported an

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average of 20,000 furs a year (Dolin, 2010, p. 106). As the beaver population diminished the Dutch, the French, as well as Swedish fur traders along the Delaware River came to be seen as problematic competitors by English interests, and even more so since the beaver were being driven to extinction (Dolin, 2010, chapter 6). All contenders used the labor of indigenous peoples. Alcohol and guns, among other items, were traded for furs, leading to widespread disruptions in Native American communities (Dolin, 2010, pp. 83–84). For example, the possession of guns made intertribal rivalry over the fur trade more violent and alcohol led to intratribal violence. Since women processed the furs, polygamy became common among the more successful fur trappers (Kardulias, 1990, p. 50). There was increased social stratification when certain members of the tribe became middlemen, amassing wealth and, thereby, influence (Warburton and Scott, 1985, p. 40). Considering the case of the agricultural Huron as fur trade middlemen for the French Kardulias (1990, p. 43) considers the extent of the fur trade: Between 1620 and 1630 the French exported between 12,000 and 30,00 beaver skins annually to Europe…. By the 1680 the amount had reached 140,000 per annum (one skin 5 one pound)…. New England supplied an annual average of over 40,000 pelts in the seventeenth century…. In the early nineteenth century Europe received up to 200,000 beaver skins a year from America.

That was the export of furs primarily from the East coast of the United States, and initially oriented toward European consumption; on the Northwest coast the commodification of fur-bearing animals was initially oriented toward China. Whereas the Russians, beginning in 1741, were the first to engage in the Northwest sea otter fur trade, by 1780, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States were in deep competition with them and among themselves (Gibson, 1992, chapter 1). From 1772 to 1823, the British-owned Northwest Company, often utilizing American firms, sent the sea otter pelts to China. The shipments from this one company “annually averaged…36,822 pelts in 1792–96, 20,000 to 25,000 in 1804–08, and 15,000 in 1813–23” (Gibson, 1992, p. 26). Because of declining animal populations as well as increased competition, some companies harvested fewer pelts over the years. New England merchants became heavily involved and Americans eventually came to monopolize the trafficking of sea otter pelts in Canton, China, exchanging them for such items as teas, textiles, and porcelains in demand both in New England and in Europe (Gibson, 1992, pp. 53–55). Notably, Americans on the East coast began sending furs to Canton as well. In 1876, 13,000 seal skins were shipped to that region in China (Dolin, 2010, p. 163). The trade in sea otter pelts began to subside prior to the 1820s, since the population of the animals had radically decreased (Dolin, 2010, p. 164). Beaver pelts were then commodified by both the British and the Americans (Gibson, 1992, chapter 4) and the search for furs, wolf and fox among others, became concentrated inland. John Jacob Astor, whose fortune was earned from trading in furs, established the American Fur Company in 1808, and had posts throughout the United States. Taos, New Mexico (which was under Spanish control until Mexican Independence in 1821), was one of the many centers the Astor enterprise controlled (Dolin, 2010, p. 268). The number of trappers in the area grew and the

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land otter furs they hunted dwindled to such an extent that they moved to hunt in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. Although indigenous peoples initially used traditional trapping methods to supply furs to the capitalist enterprises, by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the use of steel traps became common. The result was that more animals were trapped, which led to “the virtual extinction of some species” (Kardulias, 1990, p. 37). Citing Frederic Howay (1926), Rennie Warburton and Stephen Scott (1985, p. 34) hold that, in the case of sea otters, their “population became virtually extinct thirty years after the beginning of the trade.” Concerning the near extermination of living beings, Eric Jay Dolin (2010, p. 311) remarks on the situation in the nineteenth century in regard to fur-bearing animals of multiple kinds: …there were years during this period in which more than four hundred thousand skunk were killed for their furs, more than five hundred thousand racoon, and well over 2 million muskrat—and for each of these animals the tallies sometimes went much higher. The latter part of the century also saw a dramatic increase in the number of beaver killed. After years of not being trapped, their numbers had rebounded, and although the market for beaver hats was small, the pelts were still widely used for trimming coats and making muffs. Fur seals and otters, too, were once again fashionable, especially after the United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, in the bargain of the century. From 1870 through 1890 the Alaska Commercial Company was given a lease by the United States government to kill up to one hundred thousand male northern fur seals…annually.

Dolin notes that this quota was usually exceeded. The commercial seal hunts, which began in the sixteenth century, continue in Canada to this day. In the sea otter, land otter, and beaver trade (but also in the hunting of fox, wolf, deer, and buffalo), an indigenous labor force was appropriated, mostly in the form of subcontracting. M´etis and whites also formed a component of this cheap labor force and competed with the Indians as trappers and canoers; many also married Indian women, who had the task of curing the skins.

“CHEAP LABOR” The definition of cheap labor used here, following the insights of Rosa Luxemburg (2003), is labor that is reproduced or partially reproduced outside of the wage labor nexus of capitalism. Thus, it can include, among others, agriculturalists/peasants and hunters and gatherers. There is a broad literature concerning seasonal labor by peasants under capitalism of which two are notable for their theorization: Claude Meillassoux’s (1981) Maidens, Meal and Money, focused on seasonal migration in Africa, and Alain de Janvry’s (1981) The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America. Meillassoux (1981, p. 100) argues that labor power is composed of three elements: “sustenance of the workers during periods of employment (i.e. reconstitution of immediate labor power); maintenance during periods of unemployment…; replacement by breeding of offspring.” When workers are paid only a direct wage for hours worked, as are rotating migrants, for example, their maintenance and

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reproduction takes place outside the sphere of production and within the domestic subsistence mode (Meillassoux, 1981, pp. 102–103). Although trappers seldom received a “direct wage,” the results of their work were paid by the common capitalist practice of piece-rate remuneration, but via trade goods rather than money. de Janvry’s central thesis is centered on the concept of the semiproletarianization of the peasantry. He holds there is a “functional dualism” that …emerged between the capitalist sector, on the basis of hired semiproletarian labor, and the peasant sector, which produces use values and petty commodities on the basis of family labor and delivers cheap wage labor in the capitalist sector. (de Janvry, 1981, p. 84)

Again, payment by piece rate, for each pelt surrendered, can be substituted for the idea of wage labor. It is also important to note as well that many indigenous horticulturalists also supplied food stuffs to colonists. Notably, some of the indigenous peoples, especially those on the East coast such as the Iroquois, were agriculturalists and with their occasional and often seasonal forays into fur trapping, the animal products of which fed into the mercantile capitalist system, could be subsumed under the label of a semiproletarianized peasantry. In the Northwest, many indigenous trappers, such as the Tlingit, were hunters and gatherers. Yet the same type of functional dualism and the separation of the processes of maintenance/reproduction can be generalized to them. Ron Bourgeault (1983, p. 45) opines that the northern Canada fur trade in the Hudson Bay basin “initially transformed Indian labour into that of a peasantry caught in the web of feudal relations of production.” He holds that mercantilism is a stage between feudalism and capitalism and that the commanding officer in the fur-trading posts parallel the relationship between lords and their serfs (Bourgeault, 1983, pp. 47–48). Although it is controversial to view the system as feudalistic (see, for example, Andre Gunder Frank’s 1990 (1967) rejection of the idea of feudalism in Latin American developmental history). Bourgeault (1983, pp. 48, 52–53) advances at least two ideas that could converge with Meillassoux’s and de Janvry’s analyses. First, merchant capital found it beneficial to reproduce precapitalist formations in the quest for profits. Second, trappers who were bound to the Hudson Bay Company and the North West Company by contract were peasant-like in that they were responsible for their own social reproduction. In terms of applying the idea of trappers being a semiproletarianized peasantry, Allan Greer (1981, p. 191), focusing on nonindigenous small farmers in the Sorel Parish of Canada who transported furs seasonally, holds that: Rural areas, particularly poor communities, were admirably suited to filling the labour needs of the Northwest Company. Since the demand for canoemen fluctuated from year to year and since a large number of seasonal workers was always needed, there was little place in the fur trade for a genuine proletariat. Instead, traders found they were best served by land-owning peasants who could sustain themselves between stints in the Northwest.

In sum, Greer holds that subsistence farmers from this region in Canada engaged in temporary, intermittent migration in the transporting of furs while also cultivating small plots of land. Though they may have held their land in a

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private property regime, their structural position is similar to that of the indigenous peoples who sowed unfenced common lands. It was also similar to the structural position of hunters and gatherers whose maintenance/reproduction took place largely on the margins of the capitalist system. Analyzing the fur trade in British Columbia, Warburton and Scott (1985, pp. 28–29) begin with two premises: first, that merchant capital is not in itself productive, rather its profits are based on the circulation of commodities; and second, that merchant capital “is involved in the circulation of commodities produced in non- or pre-capitalist modes of production.” They point out that many Native Americans involved in the fur trade acted as middlemen, both acquiring furs from inland groups and attempting “to monopolize the trade by keeping neighboring groups from access to European ships” (Warburton and Scott, 1985, p. 33). With guns being traded for furs, intertribal conflict increased in intensity and depredation. The middlemen organized the trapping and transportation of pelts, thereby earning large amounts of wealth, which, in turn, made them more influential in their communities (Warburton and Scott, 1985, p. 40). Looking at the influence of the Hudson Bay Company on the growth of what they call “incipient capitalist relations,” Warburton and Scott (1985, p. 91) argue that its activities “were typical of industrial capital.” Among other things, the company encouraged the production of agricultural goods to lower the cost of its increasingly bureaucratic labor force and the settling out of employees – all of which led to the commodification of land (Roy and Spraakman, 1996). Thus, the interaction of “cheap” raw materials – the sentient beings killed – and a cheap labor force fostered the cheap commodification of land appropriated by settlers for the purposes of agricultural production. Arguing that the fur trade can be considered one segment of Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1974) world system, P. Nick Kardulias (1990, p. 25) considers that “the Indian role in the fur trade can be considered as a craft specialization.” He further argues that …the fur-trade is an example of the evolution of a specialization in a non-state society in response to the intrusion of a world-system, but with is affected people facilitating the process to receive the benefits of the network. (Kardulias, 1990, p. 28)

Those benefits included manufactured items including such goods as implements made from iron or copper such as chains, kettles, axes, and knives. Kardulias (1990, pp. 33–34) opines that many horticultural Native Americans may have turned their attention from cultivation of crops to trapping, while hunters and gathers would have intensified their trapping activities, thus illustrating how world systems processes can disrupt local economies through affecting how people earn their livelihoods and by provoking processes of stratification within local communities. Although, following Kardulias, fur trapping could be seen as a “craft specialization,” it was one with particularly capitalist undertones. Indigenous peoples were paid by piece rates: so many furs for a chisel, so many furs for a kettle, etc. Marx (1990, pp. 694–695) points out that the quality and intensity of labor is controlled under piece-rate “wages.” If the Native Americans provided

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inferior pelts, they would be discounted in the trade relationship; if they trapped fewer pelts, they would receive fewer commodities in return. Piece rates, according to Marx (1990, p. 695), lead to “an organized system of exploitation and oppression.” He continues: The latter has two fundamental forms. On the one hand piece-wages make it easier for parasites to interpose themselves between the capitalist and the wage-labourer, thus giving rise to the “subletting of labour.” The profits of these middlemen come entirely from the difference between the price of labour which the capitalist pays, and the part of that price that they actually allow the worker to receive…. On the other hand, piece-wages allow the capitalist to make a contract for so much per piece with the most important worker…at a price for which this man himself undertakes the enlisting and payment of his assistants. (Marx, 1990, p. 695)

The Northwest coast Indians tapped the living beings further inland after the decline of fur bearing on the coast, as also happened on the East coast, paying in trade groups per piece much less than they earned. There were also chains of middlemen throughout the fur trade. The indigenous middlemen sold the furs to a non-Native American trader who was responsible for gathering together the pelts for the fur company. These white middlemen possessed a number of skills. Besides acquaintance with the countryside in which the furs were trapped, they were able to judge the quality of furs and how many trade goods should be exchanged for them (Roy and Spraakman, 1996, p. 63). Looking at the internal bureaucracy of the Hudson Bay Company and the North West Company after they were amalgamated, S. Paul Roy and Gary Spraakman (1996, p. 65) diagram the hierarchy within the company, which could be conceived as chains of middlemen as well. There were trading post agents, district agents, governors of Southern and Northern regions, and in England, the governor of the company, the committee established to advise on the fur-trading operations, and above them all, the shareholders. On all working levels within the company, personnel were hired by contract. To depart from Roy and Spraakman’s model, the indigenous trappers could be seen as independent subcontractors with all the precarity involved as has been historically and contemporarily present in the current world-capitalist system. Wallerstein’s (2011, pp. 193–197) discussion of the putting-out system, with some modifications, has relevance here. The producer (trapper and curer of pelts) worked alone or in small family (or tribal) groups, using personal tools, whereas, the producer in Wallerstein’s account received the raw materials from a merchant–entrepreneur who then had the right to purchase the finished product (Wallerstein, 2011, p. 193). The fur trapper would often be advanced trade goods with the proviso that his catch would be sold to the agent who advanced them. According to Wallerstein (2011, p. 195) Under putting-out, the direct producer formally owned the means of production, but de facto became an employee of the merchant-entrepreneur, who controlled the producer’s real income and appropriated his surplus-value without being yet in a position to ensue his maximal efficiency by direct supervision at the workplace.

Unequal exchange in the fur trade has been noted by Warburton and Scott (1985): “The value of the trade goods exchanged was less than the profits realized

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from the sale of furs in Asia, Europe and the Eastern United States.” Thus, the “income” of indigenous peoples was undercut. The buyers of furs were essentially employers who controlled what trade goods would be offered and in what quantities, while not having direct supervision over the trappers. Both those who work in putting-out systems and those who are subcontracted share a similar structural position. Such precarious arrangements have been true throughout the history of capitalism and continue today with much of the same characteristics for, for example, workers in the building trades and workers in the GIG economy.

CONTEMPORARY COMMODIFICATION OF FUR-BEARING ANIMALS Although the Canadian seal hunt decimates thousands of animals annually, 85% of the pelts from nonmarine fur-bearing animals are now sourced from fur farms (Animal Legal & Historical Center, 2010; PETA, 2020). The countries where most fur farms are located are the United States, Canada, China, and the European Union. However, over 10 countries in Europe have banned fur farming, the most recent being Norway, whose ban will go into effect the end of 2024 (Eurogroup for Animals, 2019). Fur farming is not just a contemporary phenomenon. Mink, raccoon, marten, and lynx farming was common in Ontario, Canada, beginning in the 1866–1887 period and foxes were farmed on Prince Edward Island in the 1890s (Fur Institute of Canada, n.d.). In 2010, over 2.6 million pelts were produced on the Canadian fur farms, which now spread across every province in the country, and were valued at about 192.5 million dollars (Fur Institute of Canada, n.d.) Mink farming began in the state of New York in the Civil War years. Minks are produced in greater quantity than other forms of fur-bearing animals and are considered of greater value. In 2017, there were 245 mink farms in the United States, producing 3.3 million pelts valued at 130 million dollars annually. In 2018, in Canada, there were 98 mink farms producing 1.76 million pelts worth $70.5 million dollars per year (Truth About Fur, n.d.). In 2014, 42.6 million mink, 217 million foxes, 155,000 raccoon dogs, and 206,000 chinchillas were slaughtered in the European Union (Humane Society International, n.d.). In 2014, in China, 60 million mink, 13 million foxes, and 14 million raccoon dogs were killed on fur farms (China Daily, 2015; Humane Society International, n.d.). The production of fur-bearing animals in China accounts for more than one-half of world total fur production and employs about 5 million laborers (China Daily, 2015). Although the general consensus of the nonprofits following the fur industry is that it takes place on family farms, it is unclear if contract farming is involved or if the employed labor force is a cheap and superexploited one as is the case of industrial livestock and poultry farming. Zhang (2019, p. 537) notes that because of the exodus of young people from the countryside to the cities, most of those employed on Chinese in the fur farming industry are women and the elderly. In any case, it illustrates the commodification of animals in the interest of profit-making.

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The life of farmed fur-bearing animals is a misery. They are imprisoned in small wire cages and cannot perform any of their natural behaviors; the stress of their confinement leads to their self-mutilation, crippling, reproductive failure, and high infant mortality and stereotypical behaviors (The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals, n.d.; Humane Society International, n.d.; PETA, 2020; Pickett and Harris, 2015). Their slaughter is painful and brought about by such methods as gassing and head to tail electrocution.

“CHEAP NATURE”: IN THE WAY OF A CONCLUSION Moore’s Four Cheaps are mutually constituted and reinforcing and all constitute “accumulation by appropriation” (Moore, 2017, 2018). Thus, cheap food relies on a cheap labor force, often maintained and reproduced outside of a national capitalist formation – such as the farmworkers, often undocumented who engage in circular migration into the US agricultural fields. It has also been noted by a number of animal rights proponents that factory farms and slaughter houses rely on low-waged immigrant or racialized labor (e.g., Nibert, 2002; Rifkin, 1993, chapter 18; Sebastian, 2017), a point also made by Upton Sinclair in his 1906 novel The Jungle. Slave labor in the silver mines of Zacatecas and of San Lu´ıs Potos´ı and in the cotton fields of the US south constituted a cheap labor force that enabled capital accumulation as did the imported Chinese labor in the guano fields of Peru, used to fertilize the agricultural fields of Great Britain. Nibert’s Animal Rights, Human Rights (2002) delves into the “entanglements” of speciesism, racism, sexism, and classism, all of which constitute a mutually reinforcing system of oppression fueled by the search for profits. Although he does not use the concepts of Cheap Nature, Cheap Labor, or cheapened animal life, his book resonates with those concepts. He shows how the oppression of animals is linked to the exploitation of labor, which includes indigenous peoples’ labor (e.g., Nibert, 2002, p. 113). The subcontracting of Native American and other labor into the various tasks involved in assassinating living beings (the work of men) and preparing their pelts for sale (the work primarily of women) allowed mercantile capitalist enterprises to make higher profits than it would have by utilizing a permanent waged labor force. Thus, a cheap labor force interacted with the sentient “raw materials” of species life. Middlemen played the role of subcontractors under contemporary capitalism’s precarious work agenda and those who supplied furs to the middlemen played the role of a precarious semiproletariat working for piece rates. Precarious work is integral to capitalism, from its very beginning to the present (e.g., Wilson, 2019). In the case of the fur trade, precarious labor relations, or cheap labor, took center stage in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ assassination and near extinction of living beings who formed part of “Cheap Nature.” A new form of commodification took place with the advent of fur farming. Beginning in the late nineteenth century in the United States and Canada, it has spread around the world. Some countries, especially in the European Union, are banning fur farms because of the cruelty they represent. Fur farming exists under

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contemporary capitalism and is aimed at profit-making, as is the continued trapping of furs; it continued the trend of commodification of animals (Cheap Nature) under mercantile capitalism. Great cruelty to sentient beings is involved in both forms of commodification, and both rely the exploitation of cheap/ marginalized labor.

REFERENCES Animal Legal & Historical Center 2010. Detailed discussion of fur animals and fur production. Available at: www.animal.law.info/articles/detailed-discussion-fur-animals-and-fur-production Bourgeault, R.G. 1983. The Indian, the M´etis and the fur trade: class, sexism and racism in transition from “communism” to “capitalism”, Studies in Political Economy, 12(1), 45–80. China Daily 2015. Official statistics key to China’s fur farming industry. Available at: www.chinadialy.com.cn/business/2015-08/20/content_21659731.htm Dolin, E.J. 2010. Furs, Fortunes, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America, New York, NY, W. W. Norton & Company. Eurogroup for Animals 2019. Dyrevernalliansen: Norway bans fur farming. Available at: www.eurogroupforanimals.org/news/dyrevernailliansen-norway.bans-fur-farming Foster, J.B. and Clark, B. 2009. The paradox of wealth: capitalism and ecological destruction, Monthly Review, 61(6), 1–18. Foster, J.B. and Clark, B. 2018. Marx and alienated speciesism, Monthly Review, 70(7), 1–20. Frank, A.G. 1990 (1967). Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Fur Institute of Canada n.d. Overview of the fur farming industry. Available at: https://ur.ca/furfarming/a-look-at-the-fur-farming-industry Gibson, J.R. 1992. Otter Skins, Boston Ships and China Goods: The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1785–1841, Seattle, WA, University of Washington Press; Montreal, QC, McGill-Queen’s University Press. Greer, A. 1981. Fur trade labour and lower Canadian agrarian structures, Halifax, 16(1), 196–214. Harrison, R. 1964. Animal Machines: The New Factory Farming Industry, New York, NY, Ballantine Books (Republished in 2013 by CABI books, Boston, MA). Howay, F.W. 1926. Discovery of the Northwest Coast, The Canadian Historical Association Annual Report, 5(6), 88–94. Humane Society International n.d. The fur trade. Available at: www.hsi.org/news-media/fur-trade/ de Janvry, A. 1981. The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press. Kardulias, P.N. 1990. Fur production as a specialized activity in the world system: Indians in the North American fur trade, American Indian Culture & Research Journal, 14(1), 25–60. Luxemburg, R. 2003. The Accumulation of Capital, New York, NY, Routledge Classics. Marx, K. 1970. Early Writings, London, Penguin Books. Marx, K. 1990. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1, New York, NY, Penguin Books. Masson, J.M. 1996. When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Life of Animals, New York, NY, Penguin Random House. Meillassoux, C. 1981. Maidens, Meal, and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Economy, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press. Moore, J.W. 2015. Capitalism and the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital, London, Verso. Moore, J.W. 2016. The rise of cheap nature. In Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, Ed. J.-W. Moore, pp. 78–115, Oakland, CA, PM Press. Moore, J.W. 2017. The capitalocene. Part I: on the nature and origins of our ecological crisis, Journal of Peasant Studies, 44(3), 594–630. Moore, J.W. 2018. The capitalocene. Part II: accumulation by appropriation and the centrality of unpaid work/energy, Journal of Peasant Studies, 45(2), 237–279.

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Nibert, D. 2002. Animal Rights, Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation, Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield. PETA 2020. Fur farms. Available at: www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for- [Accessed 15 March 2020]. Pickett, H. and Harris, S. 2015. The case against fur factory farming: A scientific review of animal welfare standards and ‘WelFur’ respect for animals. Respect for Animals. Available at: www.respectforanimals.org Rifkin, J. 1993. Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, New York, NY, Penguin Books. Roy, S.P. and Spraakman, G. 1996. Transaction cost economics and nineteenth century fur trade accounting: the relevance of a contemporary theory, Accounting History, 1(2), 55–78. Sebastian, M. 2017. Deadly efficiency: the impact of capitalist production on the ‘meat’ industry, slaughterhouse workers, and nonhuman animals. In Animal Oppression and Capitalism, Ed. D. Nibert, pp. 167–183, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC. The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals n.d. What is wrong with fur farming. Available at: www.thefurbearers.com/the-issues/fur-farming/what-is-wrong-with-fur-farming Truth About Fur n.d. Fur production farming. Available at: www.truthaboutfur.com/en/mink-farming Wallerstein, I. 1974. The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, New York, NY, Academic Press. Wallerstein, I. 2011. Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press. Warburton, R. and Scott, S. 1985. The fur trade and early capitalist development in British Columbia, Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 5(1), 27–46. Wilson, T.D. 2019. Precaritization, informalization, and Marx, Review of Radical Political Economics. doi: 10.1177/0486613419843199 Zhang, R. 2019. Economic operation of fur industry and rabbit industry in Shandong province, Revista Cient´ıfica, 29(3), 534–543.

CAPITALISM HAS GRANTED WOLVES A TEMPORARY REPRIEVE FROM EXTINCTION Alexander Simon

ABSTRACT Human presence tends to decrease biodiversity and often results in the local extinction or even global extinction of megafauna. The focus here is on how humans have affected wolf populations in what are now known as the contiguous 48 United States. While the arrival of indigenous peoples to the region produced the extinction of some species and a reduction in wolf populations, the cultural values and economic system, i.e., capitalism, utilized by the European invaders led to anthropogenic decimation of wildlife species on an unprecedented scale and the near local extinction of wolves. Although capitalism almost led to the local extinction of wolves in the contiguous 48 US states, it also produced an educated, affluent urban class concerned with protecting endangered species. Unlike farmers and ranchers, this urbanized class does not view wildlife as a potential economic threat. The vast majority of contemporary Americans, i.e., 96%, do not engage in sport hunting, so most do not view apex predators as unwanted competitors for game species. Moreover, many individuals who belong to the urban affluent class, even those who do not engage in wildlife viewing or other forms of outdoor recreation, value biodiversity. Since the late twentieth century, this has resulted in the preservation of existing wolf populations and reintroducing wolves to some of their historical ranges. These trends are likely to continue in the coming decades. However, capitalism should not be viewed as a system that initially decimated wolf populations and eventually created an economic class that saved them. It is argued that, due to its growth imperative, if left unchecked, capitalism will ultimately destroy wolves and many other species that have been granted temporary reprieves from extinction. The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 137–160 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035007

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Keywords: Wolves; capitalism; ranchers; hunters; extinction; urbanization; environmentalism

INTRODUCTION In the last two centuries, capital’s growth imperative has endangered or led to the extinction of a multitude of species (Foster, 1999; Kolbert, 2014). The focus here will be on wolves in what are now the contiguous 48 US states. The history of Euro-American perceptions and interactions with wolves illustrates how capital’s growth imperative can both destroy wilderness ecosystems and, through the processes of urbanization and the creation of well-educated, relatively privileged urban and suburbanites, lead to a politically engaged, environmentally conscious class concerned with protecting wilderness and endangered species. The history of the Euro-American relationship with wolves further illustrates how perceptions of wildlife have become increasingly more positive during the past several decades. Public opinion and government policies have not shifted as dramatically regarding any other species. At the start of the twentieth century, wolves were perceived as barriers to capital accumulation, an existential threat to humanity, and were the target of a federally subsidized eradication campaign. By the close of the century, they were protected under federal law and reintroduced to small fractions of their historic ranges by the federal government. In the twenty-first century, wolves are celebrated for their roles in restoring ecosystems and their contributions to the ecotourism industry (Coleman, 2004; Lopez, 2004; Robbins, 2020). It is argued that in addition to decimating wildlife populations and creating an urban proletariat, capitalist agricultural methods and capitalism’s tendency to concentrate populations in urban centers also produced three demographic categories in the United States that continue to affect the viability of wolf populations: owners of private “livestock” who often perceive wolves and other wildlife as threats to their livelihoods; sport hunters who often perceive wolves as unwanted competition for “game”; and an educated and relatively privileged urban and suburban class who tends to be concerned with biodiversity and wilderness preservation (Manfredo et al., 2018; Manfredo et al., 2020; Nibert, 2002; Skogen and Thrane, 2008). In the 1990s, various environmental groups, whose supporters are primarily composed of middle and upper-class urbanites and suburbanites, began to successfully advocate for the reintroduction of wolves into some of their historic ranges (Coleman, 2004). Thus, it is argued that capitalism both decimated wolf populations by creating interest groups opposed to their existence and created a social class that has had some success in advocating for reintroducing wolves to some of their historic ranges. However, this should not be taken to mean that capitalism ultimately created an environmentally conscious, educated urbanized class that, through its activism, will ensure the survival of wolves and biologically diverse wilderness ecosystems. If left unchecked, capital’s economic growth imperative, its need to constantly increase the human population, and its tendency to concentrate humans in large urban centers are far more likely to exacerbate the sixth extinction event – regardless of the creation of wilderness preserves or legislation to protect endangered species – which is

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already underway and is an existential threat to wolves, humans, and numerous other species (Magdoff and Foster, 2011; Stuart and Gunderson, 2019). First, the history of how indigenous peoples affected wolf populations in what would later become the contiguous US states will be summarized. Second, the history of the creation of private property, “livestock,” and “livestock owners” in North America and how these changes nearly led to the local extinction of wolves will be summarized. Third, how the processes of wilderness destruction and urbanization led to the development of sport hunting in the United States and the reasons that many sport hunters are opposed to wolf reintroduction programs will be detailed. Fourth, it will be shown that in addition to devastating the natural environment and creating an urban working class in the United States, capitalism also created an environmentally conscious, educated urban and suburban class that has had some success in implementing wolf reintroduction programs in the lower 48 states and preserving some of the last remnants of habitat that are suitable for wolves and other wildlife. Finally, it is argued that these victories will only be temporary if capitalism’s growth imperative is left unchecked.

WOLVES AND PEOPLE BEFORE PRIVATE LAND AND LIVESTOCK Wolves may have initially benefitted from the first wave of human migration to North America. Archeological data indicate that early human immigrants to North America hunted both mammoths and mastodons with Clovis fluted projectile points. Like wolves, these early human arrivals to North America hunted cooperatively and in packs. Haynes (2002) contends that these early hunters may have collaborated with wolves. When humans act in concert with canines to hunt, it is often a very effective and lethal partnership. There is some debate on whether the extinction of mammoths and mastodons was anthropogenic, caused by climate change, or a combination of the two stressors (Nogues-Bravo et al., 2008). Whatever the case may be, mammoths and mastodons became extinct in North America approximately 11,000 years ago (Haynes, 2002). The dangers faced by indigenous hunters, the dire necessity of successfully hunting wildlife, the technologies, e.g., primitive bows and spears, and hunting methods they employed prior to the introduction of firearms led them to admire wolves. The weapons they utilized necessitated being dangerously close to megafauna. Thus, hunters had to cooperate and pursue megafauna in large groups. When hunting large animals, such as bison, injuries and deaths were common (Haynes, 2002). Like early indigenous hunters, a wolf pack’s survival depends on successful hunts. They hunt cooperatively. It is common for wolves to be killed or injured when pursuing megafauna. They share the bounty of their hunts with their packs and defend their hunting territories from rival packs. Thus, cultures that rely primarily on subsistence hunting for food tend to recognize the traits they share with wolves and hold wolves in high regard (Hunt, 2008; Lopez, 2004; Preston and Harcourt, 2009).

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Owning land in common, as opposed to private property rights, and not keeping “livestock,” also made indigenous peoples less likely than Europeans to perceive other humans, wolves, and other wildlife as unwanted competitors for wildlife and other resources. Although there was, and is, a great deal of cultural diversity among the indigenous peoples who occupied, and continue to occupy, what would eventually become the United States, most of these cultures did not allow individuals to privately own land or claim to own living wildlife. Land that was cultivated was communally owned. Although there was warfare among tribes over hunting territories, all members of a tribe had usufruct rights to a tribe’s hunting territory (Holly, 1994). Subsistence hunting cultures tend to have similar norms governing ownership and distribution of wildlife. Although a hunter cannot “own” living wildlife, they may claim ownership of an animal once they have killed it. While being a skilled hunter is a valued skill in hunting cultures, hunters can only enhance their statuses by sharing the meat and other body parts of their kill with their communities. These norms help to ensure that a resource, that is often scarce, is distributed equitably (Dowling, 1968). These norms also precluded hunters from claiming that someone else in their tribe or nonhuman predators had killed “their” animal. Not conferring private ownership of land and other living animals to individuals, coupled with nonanthropocentric worldviews, saved indigenous peoples – at least until the European invasions – from contending with some of the “crimes” and categories of animals that Euro-Americans continue to confront (Holly, 1994). Although many indigenous peoples had norms regarding ownership and distribution of the body parts of dead animals, before the invention of the concept of private ownership of other animals or “livestock,” neither other human community members nor other animals could infringe upon a person’s private property rights by killing an animal (Dowling, 1968). Without “livestock,” chicken thieves and cattle rustlers cannot exist. Moreover, “varmints” cannot exist unless humans believe that they can own other animals and that they are the only species worthy of moral consideration. Prior to the European invasions, indigenous peoples were also spared the multitude of problems that arise from having an economic system, i.e., capitalism, that is predicated on the growth imperative (Magdoff and Foster, 2011). For instance, they did not have to constantly grow their economies by increasing the amount of natural resources they utilized, create markets for a perpetually increasing volume of goods, or constantly increase their populations to create more workers and consumers. Thus, unlike twenty-first-century capitalism, the economies of indigenous peoples in the early 1800s did not pose a threat to the survival of humanity and a multitude of other species (United Nations, 2019). It also appears that some indigenous cultures may have understood the roles that apex predators play in ecosystems (Ripple and Beschta, 2005). Although they held wolves in high regard, indigenous peoples sometimes killed wolves. They were occasionally killed for their fur or when wolves appropriated animals that human hunters had already killed, such as from their fish traps and meat caches. However, these killings were often accompanied by feelings of regret and concern for the tribe’s well-being. For instance, the Cherokee believed that

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killing wolves could cause deer and other prey species to disappear. Thus, when wolves were killed, the goal was never to make the species extinct (Lopez, 2004). This stands in sharp contrast to the desire of early Euro-Americans to drive wolves to extinction. Even Aldo Leopold, one of the founders of the modern environmental movement, earlier in his career, advocated for decimating populations of wolves and mountain lions. Later in life, Leopold’s perception of the role that wolves play in ecosystems resembled the Cherokee view. Leopold (1949/1989, pp. 130–132) wrote: I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death…In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the highlined junipers.

As will be discussed below, it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that Western scientists began to understand the role that apex predators play in ecosystems – an understanding of ecosystems that the Cherokee have evidently possessed for centuries. This is not to say that the economies of indigenous peoples had no impact on wolf populations. Snares, corral traps, pitfall traps, and deadfall traps were sometimes used to kill wolves (Cluff and Murray, 1995; Lopez, 2004). In their Corps of Discovery journey to the west coast of North America, Lewis and Clark found the greatest densities of wolves and other wildlife in the buffer zones between warring tribes of indigenous peoples (Martin and Szuter, 1999). It should be noted that the participation of some indigenous peoples in the fur trade with Europeans integrated them into the global capitalist economy and increased their impacts on wildlife (Kardulias, 1990). This was primarily due to the unequal exchanges between European fur traders and indigenous peoples. The pelts of beaver, mink, bear, wolves, and other fur bearers were traded in exchange for industrially produced goods such as fabrics and cooking utensils. Far more resources, in the form of the body parts of wildlife and the labor of indigenous people, were required to obtain these industrially manufactured items than were required to make comparable items utilizing traditional production methods. For instance, in the early nineteenth century, in what is now Wisconsin, a French trader was trading one yard of cloth for 8–10 deer skins or 24 muskrats. European traders also contrived new wants among indigenous peoples for items such as firearms and alcohol and engaged in unequal exchanges for these goods as well (Kay, 1985).

THE CREATION OF LIVESTOCK AND PRIVATE LANDOWNERS Unlike the indigenous peoples of North America, Europeans had the concepts of private land and private ownership of nonhuman animals. Regarding nonhuman animals and land as private property generates very different outcomes than

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when land is communally owned and living wildlife belongs to no one. For instance, during the eighteenth century, in the Holy Roman Empire, common people did not have the right to hunt wildlife. This right was even denied to small landowners who had wildlife on their lands. The royals “owned” wildlife and had the exclusive right to hunt. Royals also had the right to pursue wildlife that were in the fields of small landowners. This often resulted in crops being trampled by horses and fences being destroyed. In eighteenth-century England, commoners could be executed for taking the “king’s” deer (Eliason, 2012). In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx (1984) lamented that lands that had once been held in common in Scotland had been turned into privately owned treeless “deer forests” where wealthy individuals could hunt. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the nineteenth century, because they were perceived as infringing on private property rights by killing wildlife and domestic animals, wolves were widely hunted and trapped throughout Europe. In England, they have been locally extinct for over 500 years (Coleman, 2004). When Europeans arrived in North America, they imported a Lockean view of land. John Locke (1698/1994) believed that God had given the earth to all humans as common property. However, a person could claim private ownership if they “improved” the land, e.g., extracted resources from it, with their own labor. Moreover, he maintained that a person could privately appropriate the fruits of the labors of other people and other animals. Locke (1698/1994, pp. 186–187) contended that Thus the grass my horse has bit, the Turfs my servant has cut, and the ore I have digg’d in any place where I have rights in common with others become my property.

He maintained that people who appropriated land that was once part of a commons were not being selfish. By extracting resources, they had increased the aggregate amount of wealth available to humanity, which made their act virtuous. Locke further maintained that the indigenous peoples of North America were not utilizing the land in a “rational” way and that Europeans should “improve” the land by more efficiently exploiting it. In addition to importing the concept of private property to North America, the European invaders also imported “livestock” – along with slaves and indentured servants – to Jamestown in the early 1600s (Coleman, 2004). Thus, an interest group, i.e., livestock owners, was created that continues to feel entitled to kill anything they perceive as a threat to their investments. From a Lockean view, wildlife that kills livestock, or humans who appropriate livestock they do not “own,” have not appropriated from the commons, they have stolen from the livestock owner – this was the case in the 1600s, and remains the case today, even if the livestock is grazing on lands held in common such as federal lands. Since the early 1600s, livestock owners have frequently demanded that the state subsidize their businesses by killing wildlife that infringe on their private property rights and compensate them when predators kill their livestock. Euro-Americans intended to “improve” the New World by replacing wildlife with livestock and wilderness with privately owned agricultural land. Indigenous peoples and most wildlife were perceived as barriers to economic growth and

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private profits. The focus here is on the decimation of wolf populations, but it should be noted that Euro-Americans were just as ruthless in eradicating indigenous peoples and other wildlife species as they were in their war against wolves. For instance, General William Tecumseh Sherman clearly considered indigenous peoples human vermin. In regard to the Sioux, he maintained: The more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed in the next war, for the more I see of these Indians the more convinced I am that they all have to be killed or maintained as a species of paupers. Their attempts at civilization are simply ridiculous. (Sherman quoted in Kaempf, 2009, p. 655)

By claiming that indigenous peoples were not civilized, it can be inferred that part of Sherman’s rationalization for genocide was that he did not think that indigenous peoples had the desires or abilities to utilize Euro-American agricultural methods, which from a Lockean perspective, were more rational because they resulted in a greater accumulation of goods than hunting, gathering, or horticulture. Another participant in the wars against indigenous peoples was more explicit regarding the desirability of exploiting land in a manner that would maximize private profits. William Gilpin was an army officer who fought in the First Seminole War in Florida. He subsequently became governor of the Colorado Territory. He advocated decimating the bison herds and replacing them with livestock as he claimed that each bison that was killed could be replaced with three cows or sheep (Matthews, 1992). While raising livestock was more consistent with Lockean notions of land use than subsistence hunting, the mass slaughter of wolves and bison and the sale of their body parts were viewed as short-term – i.e., until these species were exploited to the brink of extinction – economic booms. The same merchant firms that built fortunes shipping bison robes to New York, Montreal, London, and beyond also exported wolf pelts and the gray and black fur was used to trim fashionable Victorian jackets and other clothing. (Wise, 2013, p. 53)

In addition to wolves and bison, other wildlife, that were perceived as threats to livestock or crops, e.g., bears, deer, rabbits, crows, ravens, were also systematically killed. “Circular hunts” were a common method of killing wildlife. A group of people would form a large circle, drive wildlife into the center of the circle by tightening its circumference, and use clubs, firearms, and other weapons to kill any wildlife that had been captured (Cluff and Murray, 1995; Nibert, 2002). Wolves were considered worse than other “vermin.” They were not only perceived as threats to livestock, early Euro-Americans believed they were an existential threat to humans. Many early Euro-Americans believed in werewolves, and apocryphal tales of bloodthirsty wolves massacring entire families were widely circulated. As will be discussed below, hunters were not held in high regard by Euro-Americans until the late nineteenth century. However, people who were adept at killing wolves were considered heroic individuals who were defending their communities (Coleman, 2004). Starting in the 1600s, local governments paid bounties on wolves. These government subsidies to livestock owners have continued ever since. As the Euro-

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Americans moved west, they continued to decimate wolf populations. In the 1800s, through giving lands in the western territories to corporations, giving land to individuals through federal programs such as the Homestead Act, and allowing private livestock owners to graze on federal lands, the US government subsidized the expansion of private land, livestock, and livestock owners (Buhle, 2001). In 1915, Congress ordered the Bureau of Biological Survey to kill the few remaining wolves in the contiguous 48 states. The few wolves that were left had become adept at avoiding traps, poisons, and rifles. Therefore, the federal government hired professional trappers to kill the last wolves. By 1940, wolves were virtually locally extinct in the 48 contiguous states (Coleman, 2004). In the twenty-first century, state and federal governments continue to subsidize livestock owners by offering bounties on some predator species and hiring professionals to trap or poison wildlife. Coyotes, who are often killed by wolves, benefitted from the absence of wolves. Prior to the European invasions, there were no coyotes east of the Mississippi River. They have expanded their range to the eastern states and have continued to thrive in the Western states. On behalf of livestock owners, the federal government currently spends $140 million annually to kill coyotes and other “varmints” (Flores, 2016). States like Utah continue to offer bounties on coyotes (Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, 2019). This occurs despite the fact that Cluff and Murray (1995, p. 495) contend that bounties are usually ineffective means of reducing populations of wild canines and that “wildlife biologists consider bounties as rural welfare rather than an acceptable management tool.” Wolves returned to the American West when they were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995. Since this time, they have established packs in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Oregon. This has led to the return of bounties on wolves in some states and to a return of livestock owners demanding that governments subsidize their businesses by killing wolves and compensating them when wolves kill cattle and other domestic animals (Peacher, 2019). According to the Executive Vice President of the Idaho Cattle Association, Cameron Mulrony, “When wolves steal our livestock, they harm our bottom line.” (Mulrony, 2018). Wolves do occasionally kill sheep and cattle in some of the Western states. However, it should be noted that their economic impact on the livestock industry as a whole is small. Muhly and Musiani (2009) studied the number and causes of deaths of sheep and cattle in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in 2005. The largest causes of death were digestive problems, metabolic problems, and respiratory problems. They noted that “the monetary value of cattle and sheep killed by wolves was less than 0.01% of the total income of all producers” (Muhly and Musiani, 2009, p. 2445). Moreover, the majority of cattle and sheep reside in states that have few or no wolves. In 2019, there were 94,759,700 head of cattle in the United States and 5,230,000 head of sheep. The three states studied by Muhly and Musiani, i.e., Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, had a combined total of 6,300,000 head of cattle in 2019, or 6.5% of the national total, and 780,000 sheep or 15% of the national total (United States Department of Agriculture, 2019a, 2019b). Thus, wolves cannot be considered a significant threat to the viability of

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the US livestock industry or food security. It should be noted that due to the massive quantities of feed and water required to produce beef and the significant amount of greenhouse gases emitted by cattle, it is arguable that the cattle industry, rather than wolves, is an existential threat to food security (RojasDowning et al., 2017). When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in the 1990s, ranchers and hunters expressed, and continue to express, a great deal of hostility toward environmentalists and the federal government (Coleman, 2004; Simon, 2013). Although wolves do not present a significant threat to the viability of the livestock industry, they are likely seen by livestock owners as a barrier to private profits that was intentionally inflicted upon them, as opposed to metabolic or digestive problems in their livestock, which are likely seen as incorrigible and “natural” barriers to accumulation. Thus, wolves, which were once indigenous throughout the contiguous 48 states, are now implicitly perceived by some livestock owners as a foreign invasive species that was imposed upon them by the federal government.

THE CREATION OF SPORT HUNTERS IN THE UNITED STATES Contrary to the claims made by what McGuigan (2017) has referred to as the “hunting industry,” i.e., weapons manufacturers, big box sporting goods stores, and advertising supported media, hunting was not a common practice, nor was it a revered practice, among early Euro-Americans (Simon, 2019). For instance, when Lewis and Clark were recruiting volunteers for their Corps of Discovery expedition, Lewis was dismayed that most of the recruits had no hunting experience (Ambrose, 1997). Until the late nineteenth century, hunters were often castigated for behaving like indigenous peoples and appropriating meat and other animal products in a manner that was far less efficient than raising livestock and (Dizard, 2003; Herman, 2005). For instance, Dr. Benjamin Rush (1790/2020, pp. 60–61), who was among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, maintained that hunting …hardens the heart by inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering upon animals…. It is unnecessary in civilized society where animal food may be obtained from domestic animals with greater facility…consumes a great deal of time, and thus creates habits of idleness, [and]… frequently lead men into low, bad company.

In short, in addition to not being considered civilized, due to its inefficiency, hunting was not “rational” from a Lockean perspective. Capitalist agricultural methods decimated wildlife and wilderness ecosystems, led to a decline in the demand for agricultural labor, and increased the demand for workers in industrialized centers. The scarcity of wilderness led to the emergence of the conservationist movement in the nineteenth century, and the scarcity of outdoor recreation opportunities led some prominent citizens to advocate for wider participation in these activities (Foster, 1999). By the late 1800s, the Manhattan born and raised Theodore Roosevelt, and other prominent

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sport hunters, became concerned that urban dwelling men were becoming frail and pusillanimous (Fine, 2000). He maintained that hunting was a means of giving men opportunities to engage in rigorous exercise and to develop masculine qualities (Roosevelt, 1885/2004). The popularity of hunting among EuroAmericans increased throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Road building and the wider availability of automobiles destroyed more wilderness areas and gave more hunters easier access to wildlife. The gains made by the labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s enabled some working-class people to participate in hunting (Fine, 2000). By the 1950s, one out of four men participated in some form of hunting (Dizard, 2003). As will be discussed below, participation in hunting has significantly declined since then. Holding anthropocentric worldviews, embracing concepts such as private property, not having the survival of their communities depending on successful hunts, and utilizing very lethal and accurate weapons, i.e., rifles, shotguns, and compound bows, combine to make many Euro-American hunters perceive wolves and wildlife differently than indigenous peoples did prior to the introduction of firearms. As mentioned above, when hunting megafauna, the weapons traditionally used by indigenous peoples made it necessary to hunt in groups and injuries and fatalities were common (Haynes, 2002). Moreover, like wolves, subsistence hunters depended on successful hunts for their group’s survival. As mentioned above, recognizing the similarities between wolves and human hunters led many indigenous cultures to admire wolves (Lopez, 2004). Utilizing highly powerful and accurate weapons changes hunting tactics. Modern rifles are accurate for hundreds of yards. A well-placed shot can quickly kill even the largest animals. This eliminates the necessity of cooperating with others to kill megafauna and greatly reduces the risk that wildlife present to hunters. Roosevelt recognized how firearms had changed human–wildlife interactions. He maintained that the dangers posed by grizzly bears were “greatly exaggerated” and that …no game is dangerous unless a man is close up, for nowadays hardly any wild beast will charge from a distance of a hundred yards, but will rather try to run off. (Roosevelt, 1885/2004, p. 305)

Perhaps not hunting like wolves makes it more difficult for Euro-American hunters to admire them. Unlike many Euro-Americans during the 1600s through the 1700s, Roosevelt did not fear wolves. However, he despised them for preying on livestock and wildlife that human hunters wished to kill. Roosevelt (1885/2004) wrote approvingly of an incident in which wolves were dragged to death behind galloping horses. Like many conservationists and hunters during the late 1800s and early 1900s, he not only wanted to make wolves extinct, Roosevelt wanted to exact revenge on wolves for infringing on property rights and killing wildlife that humans wished to kill (Coleman, 2004). In the twenty-first century, some hunters continue to harbor animosity toward wolves and environmentalists who seek to protect them. In hunting magazines, and newsletters from organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Safari Club International, and Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, wolves are

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often portrayed as a threat to the survival of deer, moose, and elk populations and the survival of sport hunting (Simon, 2013). These groups are well organized and well funded and actively seek to prevent wolf reintroduction programs and support practices such as shooting wolves from aircraft in Alaska (Simon and Clark, 2019). Like organizations that represent livestock owners, some hunting organizations support bounties on wolves. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (2019) recently voiced its opposition to a ballot initiative to reintroduce wolves to Colorado and funded a bounty on wolves in Idaho (Koehler, 2019). As mentioned above, it has long been acknowledged that hunting is an economically inefficient means of appropriating food. However, promoting the hunting industry can be very lucrative for trophy hunting groups. Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops are long-time supporters of Safari Club International and other trophy hunting organizations (Dallas Safari Club, 2019). The Dallas Safari Club boasts that its annual convention, which has a multitude of corporate sponsors, has raised over $5 million over the past five years (Dallas Safari Club, 2020a). It offers perspective sponsors access to “an affluent market of traveling sporting enthusiasts to market or promote your product or service” (Dallas Safari Club, 2020b). Some of the attendees of trophy hunting conventions are clearly affluent. In 2020, at Safari Club International’s annual convention, one bidder paid $150,000 and a second bidder paid $190,000 for the two available slots to accompany Donald Trump Jr. on an Alaskan hunt for Sitka black-tailed deer (Safari Club International, 2020). It should be noted that unlike Euro-American livestock owners, contemporary hunters are in no danger of sustaining economic losses from wolves. Hunting for meat, in most cases, is economically inefficient (Dizard, 2003). Moreover, hunting equipment, which in addition to expensive weapons, may include items such as boats, airplanes, four-wheel drive vehicles, ATVs, horses, horse trailers, and the like, can be a very costly form of recreation. In 2016, hunters spent over $26 billion on equipment and trip-related expenses (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2016). The high cost of hunting is likely among the reasons that only 2% of people who have household incomes of less than $35,000 and 7% of people who have household incomes ranging from $40,000 to $99,000 hunt (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2016). Even if wolves were a threat to the survival of ungulates – which they are clearly not – if for some reason recreational hunting was banned, hunters would have other forms of recreation and conspicuous consumption available to them (Ripple and Beschta, 2005). Their incomes would not be at risk and they would be in no danger of losing a deeply rooted Euro-American tradition. As mentioned above, widespread participation in hunting among Euro-Americans is a relatively recent phenomenon (Dizard, 2003). Like some ranchers who consider wolves a significant and unnecessary threat to livestock, while apparently accepting other threats as natural and incorrigible, some trophy hunting organizations implicitly view the privatization of wildlife as part of the “natural” workings of the market and implicitly view wolves as an invasive species that was unnecessarily imposed on them by the federal government. In the early twentieth century, Aldo Leopold (1925/1990, p. 156) recognized that privately owned land denied many would-be hunters access to wildlife

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and maintained that hunting was “becoming a rich man’s privilege, whereas, it has always been a poor man’s right.” Trophy hunting groups like Safari Club International promote the private ownership of wildlife by awarding their members trophies for killing captive wildlife on privately owned game farms (Simon, 2019). The Mule Deer Foundation also privatizes wildlife by auctioning deer tags in Utah. The foundation’s president, Miles Moretti, defended the practice of reserving access to wildlife for the wealthy by contending “Can a guy buy a tag every year for $200,000? Yes. So, it’s not fair? Well, life’s not fair. This is a way to raise money for wildlife” (Moretti quoted in Barringer, 2012, p. A29). As mentioned above, these same organizations oppose wolf reintroduction programs. It appears that when nonwealthy hunters are denied access to wildlife, it is implicitly viewed as one of the “natural” consequences of capitalism. Conversely, the presence of wolves is seen as an unnatural consequence of the policies of a tyrannical federal government. For instance, in the film, Wolves in Government Clothing, that was produced by Americans for Prosperity – an organization funded by the Koch brothers – wolf reintroduction is portrayed as an example of government overreach. At one screening at an antiwolf rally in Albuquerque, that was funded by Americans for Prosperity, the audience was offered some of the works of Ayn Rand (Cart, 2013).

CHALLENGES TO PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS, ANTHROPOCENTRISM, AND THE CREATION OF AN URBAN-BASED ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS CLASS In addition to creating sport hunters and livestock owners, the social construction of private property and the processes of industrialization and urbanization also resulted in an urban working class and an educated, relatively privileged urban class. This, in turn, led some workers and public intellectuals to radically challenge capital’s exploitation of land and labor as well as property rights (Foster, 1999). As will be detailed below, in addition to shaping the perceptions and agendas of activists, the process of urbanization also changed, and continues to change, the general public’s perception of wolves and other wildlife as well as how the public interacts with wildlife (Manfredo et al., 2018; Skogen and Thrane, 2008). In the late seventeenth century, Locke (1698/1994, p. 337) warned that the state interfering with the “lives, liberties, and estates of the peoples” was an existential threat to human freedom and happiness. In the nineteenth century, Marx contended that the creation of private property, as opposed to the state infringing on property rights, oppressed humanity. The enclosure of the commons had increased economic inequality and literally given property owners the power of life and death over the propertyless. As mentioned above, Locke maintained that a person’s labor had the power to bring them wealth by appropriating resources from the commons. Marx recognized how the enclosure

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of the commons limited the powers of labor and robbed the propertyless of their autonomies. In the “Critique of the Gotha Program,” he contended: The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labour; since precisely from the fact that labour depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labour must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labour [nature]. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission. (Marx, 1875/1978, p. 525)

The enclosure of the commons and capitalist agricultural methods made subsistence farming impossible for most rural workers and decreased the demand for agricultural labor. Thus, began the process of urbanization that is still occurring (Foster, 1999; Marx and Engels, 1848/1978). Capitalist agricultural techniques and urbanization led to environmental degradation and human misery in both urban and rural areas. In Europe and the United States, propertyless workers were concentrated into the toxic environments of urban slums and workplaces. This, in turn, created social movements that aimed to improve working conditions and urban environments (Clark and Foster, 2006; Foster, 1999). Marx observed that urbanization had also created a “metabolic rift” in which the nutrients of manure and food waste were not recycled back into the soil of rural areas and instead became pollutants in urban areas. Thus, the soil of the country was degraded and the towns became more polluted (Foster, 2000). Despite the toxic environments of the urban slums and the harsh working conditions that the proletariat were forced to endure, Marx and Engels “saw the forces of enlightenment and civilization in their time as emanating principally from the towns” (Foster, 1998, p. 175). However, they contended that the creation of large urban centers undermined the well-being of rural workers by depriving them of vibrant intellectual communities and subjected the urban proletariat to unhealthy physical environments in their worksites, homes, and public places. Marx and Engels advocated a more evenly distributed population as a means of addressing these social ills (Foster, 1998). The urban middle and upper classes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries enjoyed a large degree of economic security and were freed from concerns that wildlife was a threat to their livelihoods. Some members of these privileged classes were able to extend their fields of concern to wilderness and wildlife. Nibert (2002) utilizes Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs as a framework for understanding this phenomenon. Once an individual’s basic physical needs are met, they are more likely to have empathy and goodwill toward others (Nibert, 2002). Like the creation of an urban-based labor movement, the creation of an urban-based environmental movement was among the unintended consequences of capital’s exploitation of land and labor. As Nibert (2002, p. 226) explains, Wealth generated by capitalist oppression facilitated the growth of a middle class in the nineteenth century and socialist worker struggles in the twentieth century contributed to social reforms such as minimum wage and other labor protections and the creation of the welfare state.

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It has long been recognized that meeting basic physical and emotional needs increases the likelihood that an individual will value wilderness and wildlife. As Aldo Leopold (1949/1989, p. xii), whose family had made its fortune from its desk factory, stated in the mid-twentieth century, “These wild things, I admit, had little human value until mechanization assured us of a good breakfast” (see also, Meine, 2010). In their recent empirical study of Americans’ views of wildlife, Manfredo et al. (2018, p. 17) partially attribute the transition, that began in the mid-twentieth century, toward more positive views of wildlife to “growing economic stability in society which insulated many people from concern around fulfilling basic human needs for subsistence.” This phenomenon is also present in Norway and other nations. Skogen and Thrane (2008, p. 20) maintain that Studies conducted in several countries during the last 30 years have concluded that the environmental movement derives its fundamental support from those groups within the middle class that are highly educated; employed in ‘nonproductive sectors’ and have incomes in the medium range.

The conservationists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt, were predominately urban economic elites. They recognized that unfettered capitalism was an existential threat to wilderness and wildlife (Sandlos, 1998). However, these early conservationists primarily valued nature for its economic utility and its ability to produce “game” animals for sport hunters. Their goals were limited to saving capitalism from its worst excesses as opposed to replacing it with a socially just and ecologically sustainable economic system. In that way, they resembled many contemporary environmentalists like Al Gore (1993) and contemporary mainstream environmental organizations, e.g., the Nature Conservancy (Klein, 2014). As mentioned above, conservationists such as Theodore Roosevelt, considered apex predators, e.g., wolves and mountain lions, unwanted competition for “game” and assumed that removing them from the landscape would have no adverse consequences. As will be detailed below, these assumptions regarding the value of apex predators would not be challenged by the scientific community or environmentalists until the middle of the twentieth century. Aside from some business interests, the main adversaries of the early twentieth-century conservationists were preservationists, who believed that nature should be preserved for its aesthetic value rather than conserved for its economic value. By the 1930s, some environmental activists would alarm mainstream conservationists by questioning the sanctity of private property rights and the sustainability of capitalism’s growth imperative. For instance, the socialist Robert Marshall (1901–1939), who served in the upper echelons of the US Forest Service, called for expanding public ownership of forests and subordinating accumulation and private profits to the public good. In the 1930s, he was investigated by the House of Un-American Activities Committee, which accused him of supporting communism through his radical activism (Foster, 1999). Aldo Leopold, who is considered one of the founders of the modern environmental movement, did not self-identify as socialist nor anticapitalist (Meine, 2010; Pepper, 1996). However, he did question the social value of perpetual

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economic growth and accumulation. In the 1940s, he maintained “Now we face the question whether a still ‘higher standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free” (Leopold, 1949/1989, p. vi). Although he did not call for the abolition of private property, he did challenge the prerogatives of landowners by maintaining that in addition to property owners having rights they also had obligations to “preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community” (Leopold, 1949/1989, pp. 224–225). Leopold’s land ethic concerned some environmentalists. In 1935, Leopold’s fellow environmentalist, Jay Norwood Darling, would warn him in a letter, I can’t get away from the idea that you are getting us out into water over our depth by your new philosophy of wildlife environment. The end of that road leads to socialization of property. (as quoted in Klein, 2014, p. 185)

By the close of the twentieth century, the ecological sustainability of capitalism and its human impacts were being challenged from a multitude of perspectives and multiple radical environmental organizations, and some labor unions identified capitalism’s growth imperative as an existential threat to nature and society and challenged the sanctity of property rights (Bari, 1994; Bookchin, 1993; Daly and Cobb, 1994; Foster, 1999, 2000; Naess, 1989). Urbanization also changed the general public’s perception of wildlife and the manner that it interacts with wildlife. Manfredo et al. (2020) maintain that urbanization creates higher levels of social isolation and increases the prevalence of pet ownership, anthropomorphism of pets and wildlife, and fulfilling one’s emotional needs through interacting with pets. These, in turn, led to greater empathy with wildlife and decreased support for killing wildlife. They note, …with modernization came less risk and more benign association with wildlife, reducing societal incentives to persecute wildlife once seen as harmful. Likewise, an elevated need for social belonging resulted in a growing motivation to establish relationships, yet this occurred in a modernized context, where lifestyles were becoming more impersonal. It is unlikey that these conditions alone would have been sufficient to lead to a shift in wildlife value orientations. Yet combined with the human tendency toward anthropomorphic thinking, they provided the mechanisms that forged the rise of mutualist values. These new values fostered attitudes that are antithetical to traditional wildlife management practices like lethal control (of nuisance animals), and diminished interest in activities like hunting and fishing. (Manfredo et al., 2020, p. 2)

Manfredo et al. (2018) gathered survey data from all 50 states regarding the public’s attitudes regarding wildlife. They divided the respondents into the following categories: traditionalists, mutualists, pluralists, and distanced. Traditionalists believe that wildlife’s value stems from its utility to humans, are more likely than other categories to contend that wildlife that poses a threat to property rights should be killed, and are more likely than other groups to believe that the well-being of wildlife should be subordinated to property rights. Mutualists tend to see wildlife as part of an extended social network and tend to anthropomorphize wildlife. Moreover, they are more likely than other categories to feel that property rights should be subordinated to the well-being of wildlife. Pluralists have attitudes of both mutualists and traditionalists. It is context dependent. For

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instance, a pluralist may engage in elk hunting and support wolf reintroduction programs. The “distanced” category consists of individuals who have not thought much about issues related to wildlife and do not have strong opinions regarding these issues. Interestingly, the majority of people, regardless of the category they have been placed in, believe that protecting declining or endangered species is more important than protecting property rights. Only about 20% of traditionalists surveyed agreed that private property rights were more important than protecting endangered or declining species. This is a dramatic change from a century ago when the official policy of the federal government was to make wolves extinct in the contiguous 48 states (Coleman, 2004). At the national level, mutualists are the largest group. Thirty-five percent of the US population were categorized as mutualists, traditionalists are 28% of the population, pluralists are 21% of the population, and people who are “distanced” are 15% of the population. The authors found that “Higher income, urbanization, and education at the state level were associated with a higher prevalence of mutualism orientations among state residents” (Manfredo et al., 2018, p. 17). In the Western states – where political conflicts regarding wolf reintroduction programs have already occurred or are likely to occur in the future – between 2004 and 2017 the percentage of mutualists had an average increase of 4.7% and traditionalists had an average decrease of 5.7%. In the three states where wolf reintroduction programs have been the most controversial, i.e., Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, they, respectively, have 38.9% traditionalists, 47.9% traditionalists, and 38.9% traditionalists. These same states, respectively, have 24.9% mutualists, 23.9% mutualists, and 21.9% mutualists. Between 2004 and 2018, the percentage of the Wyoming population that was categorized as traditionalist increased by 3.4%. However, the percentage of traditionalists during this same period declined by 18.1% in Montana and declined by 19.1% in Idaho. These differences may be due to the declining population of Wyoming. Moreover, Wyoming does not have any large urban centers. Its largest city, Cheyenne, has approximately 64,000 residents (US Census Bureau, 2018). In contrast, the populations of Idaho and Montana have been rapidly increasing and both states have cities with 100,000 residents or more (US Census Bureau, 2019a). As urbanization and population continue to increase in most Western states, it is likely that the percentage of traditionalists will continue to decrease and the percentage of mutualists will continue to increase. These trends have placed those who support killing wolves in the minority. Even having a majority of traditionalists in the state does not necessarily mean that the majority of residents support killing wolves that have preyed on livestock. In densely populated states like Massachusetts and Connecticut – which have no wolves – and the majority of the populations fit into the mutualist category, support for killing wolves that prey on livestock is 23% and 27.7%, respectively. In Montana and Idaho, which are majority traditionalist states that have both wolves and wolf predation on livestock, support for killing wolves that prey on livestock is 47.8% and 48.6%, respectively. In Wyoming, which as mentioned above, is experiencing a decline in population, 53.9% of respondents

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expressed support for killing wolves that had preyed on livestock (Manfredo et al., 2018). If the present trends of population growth and urbanization continue to occur in most Western states, it can be assumed that support for killing wolves that have preyed on livestock will decline. These shifting views of wildlife have affected the manner in which the public interacts with wildlife. As mentioned above, urbanization and gains made by the labor movement in the mid-twentieth century enabled some workers to have access to motor vehicles as well as the time and the money to hunt (Fine, 2000). The percent of the population that participated in hunting peaked in the 1950s, with approximately 25% of men engaging in some form of hunting (Dizard, 2003). Its popularity has been declining since then. By 2016, only 8% of men and 1% of women participated in some form of hunting. Younger people participate in hunting at lower rates than older people. Four percent of people between the ages of 18 and 44 years participate in some form of hunting. Six percent of people between the ages of 45 and 64 years participate in hunting. Only 3% of the population 65 years or older participate in hunting (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2016). Thus, as the current cohort of people between the ages of 45 and 64 years ages and begins to die off, participation in hunting is likely to continue to decline. Wildlife viewing has become far more popular than killing wildlife for sport. In 2016, only 4% of the US population over the age of 16 years hunted wildlife. Approximately one-third of US residents over the age of 16 years engaged in some form of wildlife watching. In contrast to declining numbers of hunters, participation in wildlife viewing increased by 20% between 2011 and 2016. Also, in contrast to hunting, participation in wildlife viewing does not appear to significantly decline after the age of 65 years. People between the ages of 55 and 64 years engaged in the highest rate, i.e., 48%, of wildlife viewing and 37% of people over the age of 65 years engaged in wildlife viewing, which is a higher rate of participation than the general population. Only 16% of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 years viewed wildlife as a form of recreation in 2016 (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2016). However, wildlife viewing is positively correlated with education and income. Thus, as this latter cohort ages and gains higher incomes, more education, and more leisure time, it can be assumed that their participation levels will increase and that wildlife viewing will continue to increase in popularity. Like other wildlife, the public’s interest in viewing wolves has also increased. It is estimated that the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park has resulted in an increase in spending in the local ecotourism industry by approximately $35 million annually (Licht et al., 2010). The presence of wolves has led to a group of very engaged and dedicated wolf viewers in Yellowstone. Through viewing these wolves on a daily basis, wildlife professionals and laypeople alike have become very familiar with the habits of various packs and individual wolves. This has resulted in some wolves, e.g., “06” and “wolf 8” gaining celebrity statuses (Blakeslee, 2018; McIntyre, 2019). In Juneau, Alaska, one famous wolf, known as “Romeo” had several books written about him. After his death, about 50 people and numerous dogs attended his memorial service and a plaque was dedicated to

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his memory (Simon, 2013). If the present trend of urbanization continues, the public’s interest in wolves and wildlife in general will likely continue to grow.

INCREASING POPULATIONS OF WOLVES In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, wolves have benefitted and will likely continue to benefit – at least in the short term – from the shift in public attitudes that were caused by urbanization and economic security among the middle and upper classes. As mentioned above, in the early 1900s, the federal government became actively involved in making wolves locally extinct in most of the contiguous 48 states. Toward the end of the twentieth century, attitudes toward wildlife had clearly shifted. In 1969, the Endangered Species Act was enacted. In 1973, the US Department of Fish and Wildlife placed the few wolves that still remained in the contiguous 48 states on the list of endangered species. In addition to outlawing the killing of the remaining wolves, the act required the federal government to take affirmative action to create viable populations of wolves (Coleman, 2004). Toward this end, in 1995, 31 wolves were imported from Canada and released into Yellowstone National Park. The wolf population expanded and some wolves migrated out of the park. There are now approximately 1,700 wolves living in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon (Robbins, 2017). Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone to benefit one species, i.e., wolves. However, researchers have found that by creating a “trophic cascade” the return of this apex predator has enhanced biodiversity and has stabilized populations of elk and bison within the park (Ripple and Beschta, 2005). Mexican Gray wolves, which are an extremely endangered subspecies, were released in New Mexico and Arizona in 1998 and have grown to a population of 151 wolves. Mexican Gray wolves are also being bred in captivity (New York Times, 2019). With the aim of enhancing genetic diversity in this small population, wildlife biologists went to the extreme of placing pups born in captivity into wild Mexican gray wolf dens. The desperate measure was successful (Carswell, 2016). In the states where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced, i.e., Arizona and New Mexico, support for killing wolves that prey on livestock is only 20.9 and 26.1, respectively (Manfredo et al., 2018). Therefore, given the successful attempts to enhance genetic diversity among the population of wild wolves and the public’s tolerance for them, it may be possible to establish a genetically diverse and viable population of Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico. Thus far, wolf reintroduction has occurred as a result of federal legislation and there has often been fierce resistance to these programs by citizens and state governments in the Western states (Coleman, 2004). In Colorado, an initiative will be voted on in 2020 that would require the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission to devise a plan to reintroduce wolves by 2023. The Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund is the initiative’s main proponent. Among the initiative’s main opponents are the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which is a

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hunting organization, the Rocky Mountain Farmers’ Union, the Colorado Farm Bureau, and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association (Ballotpedia, 2019). In Colorado, 34.8% of the adult residents are mutualists and 28.1% are traditionalists (Manfredo et al., 2018). Thus, given that mutualists are in the majority, the initiative may pass and Colorado may have a viable wolf population. Some wealthy individuals – including some who have made large profits from the fossil fuel industry – are expanding protected habitat for wolves and other wildlife (Hegyi, 2019). In Montana, the “American Prairie Reserve” is utilizing private funds to purchase tracts of land from private landowners to create protected habitat for wolves, bison, and other wildlife. The goal is to create the largest protected area, i.e., 5,000 square miles, for wildlife in the contiguous 48 states. Pete Geddes (2015), who is the American Prairie Reserve’s director stated “‘environmental entrepreneurs,’ as we call ourselves, are creating alternatives to the traditional models of nature protection – filling a void left by governments either unwilling or unable to act.” Thus, a small portion of the profits made from unsustainably appropriating resources from the earth are being diverted to protect wolves and other wildlife. If present trends continue, populations of wolves will likely continue to expand – at least in the next two decades – on both public and private lands in the Western states.

CONCLUSION Beginning in the early 1600s, the introduction of livestock, the enclosure of the commons, capitalist agricultural methods, and capitalism’s growth imperative resulted in the Euro-American campaign to make wolves extinct in the contiguous 48 states. These same processes created an urban proletariat as well as privileged and economically secure urban middle and upper classes. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, economic elites such as Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot successfully acted, through hunting organizations such as the Boone and Crockett Club, to preserve some of the last remnants of endangered “game” species such as bison (Gottlieb, 1993). Toward the end of the twentieth century, the process of urbanization and increasing economic security for some segments of the population caused the general public’s attitudes regarding wildlife to dramatically shift in favor of protecting endangered species and taking affirmative actions to expand populations of threatened and endangered species. In the twenty-first century, in the United States and some other nations, education, income, and urbanization are all strongly correlated with positive attitudes regarding wildlife and lack of support for killing wolves and other predators who prey on livestock (Manfredo et al., 2018; Skogen and Thrane, 2008). This shift in attitudes has resulted in wolves being intentionally reintroduced in the western United States in the 1990s and their populations have continued to expand. Thus, it might be argued that the same force, i.e., capitalism’s growth imperative, that decimated wolf populations for centuries, is now, through the process of urbanization and creation of economic security for some segments of

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the population, rejuvenating wolf populations. Unfortunately, some of the factors associated with greater support for viable wolf populations are also existential threats to the survival of wolves and other wildlife. In addition to agriculture and invasive species, urbanization is an existential threat to a variety of wildlife populations. Urbanization is also associated with increases in forms of outdoor recreation such as hiking and skiing. Much of the western United States, e.g., the Mojave Desert, the Great Basin, Utah, Nevada, and eastern California, are all heavily impacted by outdoor recreation and multiple species are endangered in this region by outdoor recreation (Czech et al., 2000). The threat humans pose to wildlife is a global phenomenon. Stuart and Gunderson (2019, p. 5) note, “Every year we go deeper into what is being called the sixth mass extinction event – driven by humans.” The sixth extinction is partially driven by the process of replacing wildlife with domestic livestock and humans. Currently, the global biomass of mammals consists of 60% livestock, 35% humans, and 4% wild mammals (Stuart and Gunderson, 2019). The current US population is approximately 330 million and is projected to exceed 400 million by 2060 (US Census Bureau, 2019b). The current global population is 7.7 billion and is expected to stabilize at approximately 10.9 billion in 2100 (Cillufo and Ruiz, 2019). Population growth, coupled with increased desertification due to climate change, will likely lead to greater levels of food insecurity at the global level (United Nations, 2019). Thus, the processes of increased per capita consumption in wealthy nations, dwindling wildlife populations, human population growth, and a growth in captive animals raised for human food – and the diseases that often are spread to humans via captive animals – will likely continue unless global capitalism is replaced by a socially just and sustainable economic system. Creating protected areas for wildlife, whether funded by entrepreneurs or the public, is no guarantee that they will not become extinct. According to Elizabeth Kolbert (2014, p. 170), …in a rapidly warming world, the whole idea of a well-placed reserve becomes, if not exactly moot, then certainly a lot more problematic. In contrast to, say, a logging crew, climate change cannot be forced to respect a border.

Unfortunately, mainstream politicians and mainstream environmental groups are hesitant to endorse alternatives to perpetual economic growth (Klein, 2014). Czech et al. (2003, p. 575) partially attribute this phenomenon to the global dominance of neoclassical economics, as “it [neo-classical economics] feeds the politicians the politically expedient theory of unlimited economic growth and the corollary that there is no conflict between economic growth and environmental protection.” There are some environmental organizations that have been willing to challenge capital’s growth imperative. In 2002, the Wildlife Society printed a technical review that stated, “Based upon sound theoretical and empirical evidence, there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and wildlife conservation” (quoted in Czech et al., 2003, p. 574). The Wildlife Society (2020) currently sees part of its mission to educate policy makers, the public, and wildlife professionals about “the conflict between economic growth and wildlife conservation.” Hopefully, as the current pandemic and increasing frequencies of

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wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters make the adverse consequences of decimating wildlife populations and economic growth more tangible, more labor unions, environmental groups, and politicians will be willing to propose alternatives to capitalism’s growth imperative. If wolves and a multitude of wildlife are to be saved from the sixth extinction event, it will not be from the processes of economic growth and urbanization, it will be the result of social movements that have successfully implemented a socially just economic system that does not have a growth imperative.

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THE LANDOWNERS’ ETHIC: ALDO LEOPOLD, GAME MANAGEMENT, AND PRIVATE PROPERTY Cade Jameson ABSTRACT Aldo Leopold’s idea of a land ethic was inspired by his work in game management. The land ethic merged ecology with an aesthetic and ethical sensibility. This chapter traces the origins of the idea to Leopold’s efforts to devise incentives for private landowners to share their land with wildlife. Scholars have failed to account for how Leopold’s affection for the institution of private property shaped his ethical philosophy. Although the land ethic is conventionally understood as a defense of the rights of animals, plants, and the environment they inhabit, it was also a defense of property rights. The limitations of the land ethic as philosophical basis of wildlife management and conservation stem from these contradictory purposes. Although Leopold’s ecological aesthetic may help people to visualize an alternative to the violent simplification and diminished biodiversity of the modern form of capitalist agricultural commodity production, his emphasis on voluntary mechanisms has detracted from the objective of liberating wildlife and the land they inhabit from human exploitation. Keywords: Wildlife conservation; private enterprise; public control; regulation; conservation history; rights of nature; ecological management; biodiversity; environmental consumerism

INTRODUCTION Wild animal species are everywhere casualties to agricultural commodity production. This is what Aldo Leopold (1966, pp. xviii–xix), a professor of wildlife management, had in mind when he wrote in the late 1940s that “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 161–179 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035008

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His environmental philosophy, namely his proposal for a land ethic, has subsequently become a touchstone for thinking about our ethical regards for wildlife and other species, their “right to continued existence in a natural state,” and possibly their decommodification (Leopold, 1966, p. 240). Born 1887, Leopold came to land management, at the conservation movement’s height, in the Progressive Era. He studied forestry at Yale, the preeminent forestry school, and began his career in the Forest Service, the government’s foremost land management agency. Early in his career, Leopold took interest in the recreational aspects of land use – sport hunting and other outdoor pursuits. In the early 1920s, he was the first to advocate that large roadless areas be set aside permanently as wilderness for those who appreciate the solitude of the undeveloped environment. In 1928, he left the Forest Service for an opportunity to undertake a survey of game species for the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute. He published an influential textbook on game management and advised the National Game Conference on policy. In 1931, the University of Wisconsin appointed Leopold the first professor of game management. Later his title was changed to professor of “wildlife” management, in recognition of the broadening of the field. (Meine, 1991). It was Leopold’s work in game management (the management of land for sport hunting) that provided the inspiration for the land ethic idea. As Leopold’s biographer Curt Meine (1991, p. 302) points out, in Leopold’s textbook on game management, he espoused the need for a “new social concept toward which conservation is groping.” He hit upon a formula for such a conception around 1933 and articulated it in his writing over the next 2 decades. The land ethic idea merged together ecology, aesthetics, and ethics. It came to popular attention in Leopold’s book, A Sand Country Almanac, published posthumously in 1949. As has often been noted, Leopold’s philosophical reconception of conservation provided a new foundation for conservation practice, helping to shift conservation discourse away from an emphasis on anthropocentric concerns like economic utility and human welfare, toward an emphasis on biodiversity. Roderick Nash (2014, p. 192) summarizes Leopold’s importance as follows: Ecology taught him the interdependence of all living things which shared an environment.… Acquaintance with ecology also suggested the need for a new approach, based on ethics, that would make men aware that their environment was a community to which they belonged, not a commodity that they possessed. An “ecological conscience,” as Leopold termed it, would produce a genuine respect for all forms of life. For conservation the result would be a broadening in rationale from the strictly economic to the ethical and aesthetic.

All the components of the land ethic idea are present in Nash’s description – we have, first, the view of land as a biotic community originating with the ecological outlook; second, the belief that conservation practice should be based in aesthetic and not just economic motivations; and finally, a new conscience of what is ecologically right and wrong, which has subsequently underlay calls to grant nature – including threatened animals species – rights. But Nash and others,

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who have become enamored with Leopold’s way of thinking, tell his story at a level of abstraction that obscures Leopold’s precise objectives and motivations, while smoothing over the contradictions in his thinking. Here I explore the origins of Leopold’s philosophy, summarizing the three key elements in his conception – the concept of land as a community of plant and animal species, an ecological aesthetic, and an ecological conscience – and tracing their origins to Leopold’s work in wildlife management. A better understanding of what the land ethic meant to accomplish can be attained when one recognizes that the idea developed from a specific vision of wildlife conservation on US farmland. Leopold’s work in this area brought him into contention with two problems: the need to bring conservation up to date with innovations in ecological science, of course, and also the need for a conservation ideology that could serve to motivate the landowning farmer. It is on this basis that one can interpret Leopold’s efforts and better assess whether his ideas provide a useful framework for approaching the decommodification of the land and the wildlife who inhabit it. Unfortunately, efforts to understand Leopold’s place in conservation history have been overwhelmingly one-sided, glorifying Leopold’s ecological vision and offering little in the way of criticism – for instance, on his rarely mentioned aversion to government regulation. Considering both the wildlife problem on farmland in Leopold’s time and as it subsequently evolved, and the political– economic dimensions of the private land use problem, provides a means of correction. Leopold certainly deserves the praise he has duly received for ecologizing conservation and management, helping to redefine the objective of management in terms of preserving biodiversity, and raising public awareness of the violent loss of biodiversity associated with agricultural commodity production. But as a social philosophy, Leopold’s efforts were hampered by his affection for private property, which prevented him from developing a more useful critique of the economic forces that shape capitalist agriculture.

BACKGROUND: AGRICULTURE, WILDLIFE, AND A NEW VISION OF CONSERVATION The modern history of agriculture presents a single predominant trend – as environmental historian Donald Worster (1990, p. 1101) describes it, the “radical simplification of the natural ecological order in the number of species found in an area and the intricacy of their interconnections.” Since the Neolithic Revolution, humans have simplified the environments they inhabit through the conversion of lands for agriculture and pastoral use. With traditional agriculture methods, however, as Worster observes, the world’s people still maintained relatively diversified agroecosystems. The shift toward agribusiness, the drive to economize labor inputs and space, to impose humanmade order and predictability on nature, through mechanization, the use of chemical inputs, and other violent means reduced the vestiges of ecological complexity of agricultural landscapes. The way the forces of accumulation shape the modern agricultural landscape mirror the

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larger transformation of production under capitalism. As a group of environmental sociologists assert, Capitalism seeks to reduce and simplify human labor to exploit it more effectively. Similarly, with the environment, capital seeks for example to replace an old-growth forest with all of its natural complexity with a simplified industrial tree plantation that is ecologically sterile, dominated by a single species, and “harvested” at accelerated rates. (Foster et al., 2010, p. 203)

Leopold formulated the land ethic idea following a shift in his career, which took him from forestry and governmental conservation to the new field of game management and the problem of wildlife conservation on privately owned farmland. In the late-1920s, Leopold’s work on the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute’s game survey brought him in contact with the farms of the Midwest, where he witnessed an early phase in the progression of agricultural management toward reduced ecological complexity. The more fully rationalized farm environment of the present, reliant on genetically modified plants and herbicides, was not yet a reality. However, the craze of “clean farming,” involving the removal of scrub and vegetation along fencerows, streambanks, and boundaries that wildlife inhabited, was sterilizing farms of an important remnant of biological diversity. Farmers believed such clearing would mitigate their vulnerability to the species they thought of as pests. Leopold observed that it was also eliminating the vegetative cover game birds, like quail, required for protection from predators (Meine, 1991). What was occurring on farms stimulated Leopold’s thinking about the deficiencies of game management. In Game Management, Leopold’s pioneering textbook, he described the historical progression of the field. Game management had been a reaction to the increased demand for hunting and declining populations of game species. Its early development amounted to a succession of stages – beginning with restrictions on hunting, such as bag limits and hunting seasons; then, predator control, an area of growing controversy at the time; reservations of game land; and finally, artificial production or cropping of game species. The next step in this progression, an idea “as yet still in its infancy,” proposed Leopold (2013a, p. 310), was to stimulate natural regeneration of game species through “environmental controls,” by which he meant encouraging landowners to accommodate their use of the land with the features of the natural environment game species required for habitat – i.e., leaving intact the brush and cover imperiled by clean farming. Leopold’s embrace of wild husbandry was based on a mix of judgments – ecological, aesthetic, and economic. His preference for natural regeneration, over restrictive measures and artificial cropping, reflected an ecological outlook, which he felt game management had thus far failed to draw from. “Early attempts to apply biology to the management of game as a wild crop,” he complained in Game Management (Leopold, 2013a, p. 314), “soon disclosed the fact that science had accumulated more knowledge of how to distinguish one species from another than of the habits, requirements, and interrelationships of living populations.” His proposal also reflected an aesthetic sense that a natural environment provides

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more pleasing hunting opportunities than one that is artificially cropped. Or as he put it, “the recreational value of game is inverse to the artificiality of its origin” (Leopold, 2013a, p. 299). Finally, the circumstances of the game problem pointed to working with private landowners and furnishing “some kind of incentive” for their cooperation and stewardship (Leopold, 2013a, p. 315). Through his work with National Game Conference, Leopold tried to bring together sport hunters, farmers, and wildlife enthusiasts, to work out such a system of incentives for landowners. At the time, the idea that hunting should be a free privilege was widespread in the United States. But Leopold and others were adamant that unless farmers were given a reason to change their management practices, wildlife that inhabited farmland would continue to decline. In 1931, on Leopold’s suggestion and after much disagreement, the National Game Conference endorsed the idea that farmers who manage their land suitably for game, leaving cover and forage for wildlife, should be entitled to charge sport hunters for the privilege of hunting. Neither Leopold nor the game conference favored the position that the farmer owned the game. The state would remain the nominal owner of wildlife. But decreasing hunting opportunities forced even hunters steeped in the free-access frontier tradition to consider private inducements (Meine, 1991). Leopold’s game program was conceived as a way of preserving elements of wild nature amid the working farm. It was a shift in conservation thinking from the normal protectionist position of the wildlife community based on sanctuaries and restrictions. When he received pushback from wildlifers, he clarified his reasoning (see, for instance, McCabe, 1931). “[W]ill Mr. Babbit vote necessary funds for the huge expansion in sanctuaries which we need?,” he asked doubtfully, “[I]f we want Mr. Babbit to rebuild outdoor America, we must let him use the same tools wherewith he destroyed it. He knows no other” (Leopold, 2013b, pp. 292, 293–294). This meant appealing to the profit motive, or as Leopold put it, …set[ting] up within the economic Juggernaut certain new cogs and wheels whereby the residual love of nature, inherent even in “Rotarians,” may be made to recreate at least a fraction of those values which their love of “progress” is destroying.

In a 1933 article published in the Journal of Forestry, Leopold (1933, p. 635) sought to generalize the framework he developed in wildlife policy to the broader field of conservation and management. The article “The Conservation Ethic” is notable because it was the first piece of published writing in which Leopold outlined his proposal for a land ethic in recognizable form. Portions of this original essay would reappear in edited form as the key chapter on the “The Land Ethic” in A Sand County Almanac. The essay opened with the same call to change “man’s relationship to land and to the non-human animals and plants which grow upon it” from one based on economic expediency to one based on ethics that appeared in Sand County. But missing from the Sand County version were passages that provide indication of what shaped Leopold’s thinking. Readers of the Journal of Forestry would have recognized Leopold’s article as a contribution to an ongoing decades-long debate in the land management community about how to spread conservation practices to privately owned land. Leopold’s perspective was novel. He sided with the critics of private enterprise,

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against the conservatives in the land management community, that the effort to instate conservation through the profit motive had failed. But he expressed equal skepticism for the idea, then gaining momentum in the forestry profession as a result of the depression, that the way forward lay in an expanded program of government regulation and public ownership. Leopold recognized two facts: first, that the prevailing economic logic of modern capitalism was not amenable to sound land use (“the economic cards are stacked against some of the most important reforms in land-use,” as he put it); and second, that the conservation that did exist was primarily a result of public effort. But he expressed doubt that public conservation could be scaled up much further without breaking the public treasury. At best, he argued, the public program amounted to an educational tool – an opportunity to demonstrate desirable practices on “patches” of public land, not an alternative to private effort. In a passage omitted from the version of the essay that appeared in Sand County, he denounced the idea that “new economic formulae” offered a means to “harmony with our environment.” Socialism and other “economic isms” offered “only familiar old palliatives,” he declared, “Public ownership and private compulsion” (Leopold, 1933, pp. 639–640). How then to expand conservation to lands in private possession? In the close of his essay, Leopold (1933, p. 641) asserted that “The recent trend in wild life management shows the direction in which ideas are evolving.” This was, of course, in reference to his own efforts. The field, he asserted, was moving away from a “negative and prohibitionary” structure based on restrictive laws, toward an “affirmative ideology” in which landowners were encouraged to maintain natural features of the environment conducive to wildlife. The “new idea,” he wrote, “is so far regarded as merely a new and promising means to better hunting and fishing, but its potential uses are much larger.” Leopold expressed hope that the new method could be applied “not only to quail and trout [i.e., game species] but to any living thing from bloodroots to Bell’s vireos [native flowers and songbirds].” But what specifically did Leopold have in mind? “The Conservation Ethic” revealed, perhaps more clearly, how Leopold believed a land ethic could operate in practice than Sand County. First, Leopold (1933, p. 642) suggested that the care with which landowners treated their land ought to determine their social status in the community: “Granted a community in which the combined beauty and utility of land determines the social status of its owner, and we will see a speedy dissolution of the economic obstacles which now beset conservation,” Leopold proposed. Second, Leopold suggested, it only took a little more imagination to see how these same social pressures could operate through commodity markets: [T]he lumberman who is now unable to practice forestry because the public is turning to synthetic boards may then be able to sell man-grown lumber “to keep the mountains green.”… [C]ertain wools are produced by gutting the public domain; couldn’t their competitors, who lead their sheep in greener pastures, so label their products?… Would not many people pay an extra penny for a “clean” newspaper?

This second proposal, Leopold noted, was inspired by the Audubon Society’s boycott of the millinery feather trade, which exemplified an ethical opposition to wildlife’s treatment as commodities. Although Leopold’s interest in ethical

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consumerism and product labeling has received little, if any, comment, the idea was no mere whim. It reflected both Leopold’s preference for voluntary actions by individuals over those imposed by government and his belief that personal values, such as aesthetic and ethical leanings and preferences, could function as a significant check against the forces of capitalism in the environment. These presuppositions had much to do with why he defined his philosophy in terms of a voluntary ethic. As with his work on game management, he saw an ethic as a means of setting up “cogs and wheels” within the economic “juggernaut” of modern capitalism that might alleviate its exploitative logic.

THE THREE COMPONENTS OF THE LAND ETHIC IDEA: ECOLOGY, AESTHETICS, AND ETHICS Leopold hit upon the basic formula for the land ethic – ecology, aesthetics, and ethics – in his writing in the early 1930s, but he would continue to articulate the idea, becoming more adept at joining together these three elements. Before an audience in 1947, he delivered perhaps the most eloquent summation of his perspective: “The practice of conservation must spring from a conviction of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient” (Leopold, 1947, p. 4). He further explained that “A thing is right only when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the community, and the community includes the soils, water, fauna, and flora, as well as people.” It is worth examining these distinct components – the view of land as biotic community; Leopold’s ecological aesthetic; and his ecological ethic – separately in order to assess the strengths and limitations of Leopold’s philosophy. Land, Plants, and Animals as a Biotic Community In his descriptions of land as a “biotic community” of soils, water, plants, and animals, or as interdependent component parts of a complex superorganism, Leopold used language characteristic of Frederic Clements, one of the pioneers of ecology in the United States (McIntosh, 1985). In the 1930s, an ecological awareness was developing within the land management professions, and this sort of language was not uncommon. In 1937, for instance, Gifford Pinchot, one of the founders of forestry in the United States, published a new edition of a book on forestry education, with a section on “forest ecology” which described a forest as “a complex community with a life of its own” that must be managed with care to prevent injury to its “animal citizens” (Miller, 2013, pp. 366–367). No doubt, Leopold found the community metaphor useful since the human ideal of a community connotes collective interests and neighborly regard. As he wrote in Sand County: All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.… The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. … In short, a

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land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from a conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such. (Leopold, 1966, pp. 239–240)

“Respect…as such” for the land community implied, for Leopold, a “right to exist” for the separate community members. Leopold extended the community metaphor further, decrying the “eviction” of community members. In “The Ecological Conscience,” for instance, Leopold (1947, p. 7) declared that It cannot be right, in the ecological sense, for a farmer to drain the last marsh, graze the last woods, or slash the last grove in his community, because in doing so he evicts a fauna, a flora, and a landscape whose membership in the community is older than his own, and is equally entitled to respect.

The challenge of the land manager and the individual farmer was to figure out how to coexist among nonhuman species in working agricultural landscapes, which entailed some sort of modification of the natural environment. “How shall we conserve wild life without evicting ourselves?,” he asked in Game Management (Leopold, 2013a, p. 314). Although some historians have described the land ethic as a continuation of Leopold’s interest in wilderness preservation (c.f., Nash, 2014), what he was after with the land ethic was something distinct. As Paul Sutter (2009) observes, Leopold wrote both about the need to preserve wilderness (large expanses of roadless areas) and the need to preserve elements of “wildness,” or what we now call biodiversity, in the modified and tamed agricultural landscape. The goal of preserving wild things within the working environment, as some others have observed, anticipated and likely influenced the development of ecosystem management, which defines preserving biodiversity as its overriding objective (Callicott, 2000; Knight, 1996). The land ethic might be seen as a foundational philosophy both for this approach to management and for the actions of the individual landowner. Leopold deserves a great deal of credit for integrating an ecological perspective into land management. Exactly when he embraced an ecological perspective and began to incorporate formal ecological concepts in his writing is a subject of speculation and debate. Susan Flader (1994) asserts that Leopold’s ecological transformation did not fully take place until the mid-1930s, and yet Leopold’s early work on game management, with its emphasis on maintaining native wildlife, and his method of study based on the interrelationships of animals and their environment, clearly demonstrated an ecological awareness. Many point to Leopold’s relationship with the British animal ecologist Charles Elton as a key influence on Leopold’s outlook. Leopold met and befriended Elton in 1931 at the Matamek (Labrador) Conference on Biological Cycles. Elton, an Oxford professor of zoology, was at Matamek to present his research in on fluctuations in fur-bearing animal populations based on the records of the Hudson’s Bay Company (Meine, 1991). The two came to wildlife from different fields that were in the process of converging: Leopold from management and conservation and Elton from academic ecology. Both certainly influenced each other. Elton became more interested in conservation issues. He followed Leopold in affirming a right

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of animal species to existence, and framing this right to exist as an objective of management (Simberloff, 2012a). There is debate over how exactly Elton influenced Leopold. Robert McIntosh (1985, p. 168) asserts that Leopold, unlike Elton, was a proponent of the Clementian organismic view of nature, which Elton opposed, and that Leopold was less interested in the intricacies of formal ecology than in its aesthetic and ethical dimensions. Daniel Simberloff (2012b), however, shows convincingly that Leopold drew upon Elton’s theories, in particular, the pyramid of numbers, which Leopold cited to make the case for a relationship between ecological diversity and land health. What is most important about Leopold’s interest in ecology is that he saw it as a means of reformulating conservation’s objectives, by focusing on the land as a whole, and not separate and often contradictory efforts to maximize utility of this or that resource. Ecology, Leopold (1939a, p. 727) wrote, was the “new fusion point of the natural sciences.” It provided a means of “for a reversal of specialization” and of “convert[ing] our collective knowledge of biotic materials into a collective wisdom” (Leopold, 1966, pp. 189–190). In a nutshell, it reaffirmed, for Leopold, the value of the land’s component parts – each member of the biotic community. “If the biota, in the course of aeons,” he wrote, “...has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” Removing the cog or wheel carried the risk of unleashing “unforeseen biotic consequences” (Leopold, 1939a, p. 730). The elimination of predator species like wolves and cougars from the land, to cleanse rangeland for livestock, provides an instance of the unforeseen consequences Leopold had in mind. “Because too many cougars or wolves were incompatible with livestock, it was assumed that no wolves or cougars would be ideal for livestock.” However, the “scourge of deer and elk,” which followed the elimination of cougars and wolves, “transferred the role of pest from carnivore to herbivore” (Leopold, 2013d, p. 490). The ecological perspective as such pointed to an important shift in thinking about wildlife. The wildlife manager could no longer “love game and hate predators” (Leopold, 1966, p. 190). The entomologist, mammologist, and ornithologist, accustomed to classifying animals as pests, vermin, or useful species, were challenged to consider the interrelation of their object of study to the land. As Leopold (1939a, p. 727) observed, The emergence of ecology has placed the economic biologist in a peculiar dilemma. With one hand he points out the accumulated findings of his search for utility, or lack of utility, in this or that species; with the other he lifts the veil from a biota so complex, so conditioned by interwoven cooperations and competitions that no man can say where utility begins or ends.

An Ecological Aesthetic Leopold’s conversion to ecology likely had as much to do with his aesthetic sensibility as it did with science. If he lacked a deep familiarity of formal ecology

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when he wrote Game Management, as some have speculated, his aesthetic leanings – a love for wild things and dissatisfaction with the cropped hunting experience – provided another rationale to affirm the importance of native flora and fauna in protest against the economic forces simplifying the agricultural landscape. Leopold’s naturalistic leanings were shared with others in the wildlife management community, among them Olaus Murie, a Bureau of Biological Survey wildlife researcher, and critic of that agency’s predator control program. “I do not find the coyote a bad fellow at all,” Murie wrote Leopold in 1931 just after Game Management was published, As far as elk are concerned he is not nearly as big a factor as several other things. …[A] considerable number of people enjoy the coyote in the hills, he is a part of the environment, and his entire removal would make elk hunting less attractive to some people. (as quoted in Meine, 1991, p. 286)

The enjoyment of the wild hunting experience, and of the coyote in the hills, was as important as the case against predator extermination that could be based on science. And just like the case for preservation that could be made on ecological grounds, the aesthetic appreciation for the wild environment also pointed in the direction of maintaining biodiversity. Leopold admitted to frustration with the science-based debate. His reasoning paralleled Murie’s. For instance, on the issue of wolf extermination, where there were good science-based arguments against wolf bounties, The mammologist assert that the wolf is a natural check on too many deer. The sportsmen reply that they will take care of excess deer. Another decade of argument and there will be no wolves to argue about.

Such debate reinforced in him the need to emphasize the aesthetic dimensions of conservation. “We need knowledge,” wrote Leopold (1966, pp. 194–195) “of the small cogs and wheels,” i.e., the language he used to denote subtle ecological mechanisms, “but sometimes I think there is something we need even more.” This “something” he described as “a refined taste in natural objects.” The aesthetic thread in Leopold’s writing is a consistent theme. As we have seen, Leopold described the incentives for farmers to share their land with game as a means of giving Rotarians a means to express their “residual love of nature.” In “The Conservation Ethic,” he again emphasized aesthetics as a method of integrating wild nature into the working environment: [B]read and beauty grow best together. Their harmonious integration can make farming not only a business but an art; the land not only a food-factory but an instrument of self-expression.

This idea that land use should be based on a “combined beauty and utility,” which clearly emerged from his game management experience and criticism of clean farming, was a key component of the land ethic idea (Leopold, 1933, p. 642). He would return again and again to the idea of combining utility and aesthetics in his writing (Leopold, 1933, 1939a, 1939b, 1947, 1966).

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Aesthetics served two purposes in Leopold thought. First, it served as a rationale for the preservation of flora and fauna with little or no economic utility as commodities. Second, it served, as he wrote in “The Conservation Ethic,” as an “affirmative” element in conservation thought – an antidote to more common doom-and-gloom prognostications. “Can a farmer afford to devote land to fencerows for the birds, to snag-trees for the coons and flying squirrels?,” he asked in “The Farmer as a Conservationist” (Leopold, 1939b, pp. 296–297). Here the utility shrinks to what the chemist calls ‘a trace.’ Can a farmer afford to devote land to fencerows for a patch of ladyslippers, as a remnant of prairie, or just scenery? Here the utility shrinks to zero.

In the same essay, he declared that he had “no hope for conservation born of fear,” describing the “4-H boy who becomes curious about why red pines need more acid than white” as nearer to his ideal of conservation than “he who writes a prize essay on the dangers of timber famine.” Leopold’s writing is rife with barbs against conservationists he classified as “uplifters” (Leopold, n.d.-b, p. 1), “crusaders” (Leopold, 2013a, p. 314), and “evangelists” (Leopold, n.d.-a, p. 9) – or those individuals, among whom he counted Gifford Pinchot, Stuart Chase, and William Hornady, who he felt were foolheartedly trying to enact “reform by fiat” (Leopold, n.d.-b, pp. 4, 8). The crusaders, Leopold felt, had made conservation into a public cause but had not attempted to inspire individuals about the wonders of nature. This was, in Leopold’s view, a duty for scientists, not politicians. He believed inspiration a better means of establishing conservation than through the writing of laws. “Our first crop of conservation prophets followed the evangelical pattern; their teachings generated much heat but little light,” wrote Leopold (n.d.-a, p. 9), ”An entirely new group of men who first made a reputation in science, and now seek to interpret the land mechanism in terms which any scientist can approve and any layman can understand.” Leopold (1940, p. 343) saw ecology as an opportunity for a new science, that differed from other science in that it dealt with the “creation and exercise of wonder, of respect for workmanship in nature” rather than “the creation and exercise of power.” He called for colleges to incorporate ecology into a liberal education, to focus less on training specialists and more on “teach[ing] the student to see nature, to understand what he sees, and enjoy what he understands” (Leopold, 2013c, p. 467). An Ecological Conscience Leopold’s interpretation of the function of science partly reflected his aversion to governmental authority. “No scientist aspires to [the uplifter’s] task of telling the public what to do” in the political sphere, he asserted in an unpublished manuscript (Leopold, n.d.-b, p. 8). He did not believe that ecology fit the ideal of a disinterested field of science. But whereas others believed environmental problems necessitated a role for science in governance, Leopold (1940) argued that its role should be more akin to an art.

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In general, Leopold’s perspective reflected a deep affection for private property and a worry that the irresponsibility of landowners was jeopardizing the American way. This concern was shared by other conservationists at the time. In Deserts on the March, published in 1935, Paul Sears, an academic ecologist whom Leopold admired, expressed worry that landowners were bringing the institution of property into disrepute with their lack of care for the land, which as he documented, had brought on the Dust Bowl. The United States was “on the eve of a determined movement to increase greatly the property held and administered by government,” he warned (Sears, 1988, p. 209). It was a subject that came up in Leopold’s correspondence. Two letters in particular demonstrate this political mood. Jay “Ding” Darling (1935, pp. 1–2), a wildlife official and cartoonist, expressed his anxiety to Leopold about public officials and land use professionals telling landowners how they should be using their land. The wildlife community has “been designing dresses for another man’s wife,” it felt to him, “The end of that road leads to the socialization of property.” Douglass Wade (1944, p. 2), also part of the wildlife community, wrote to Leopold praising him for “sensing the pull” of conservation toward “socialism and national planning” and “battling against it” in his writing. Wade’s letter cited Friedrich Hayek’s recently published Road to Serfdom on the dangers of regulation, planning, and public ownership. While Leopold was working out his program of game management, he expressed similar worries. In “Economics of the Wild,” a manuscript probably written in 1931, Leopold detailed the program of the National Game Conference and other measures designed to funnel private dollars toward conservation, for instance, usage fees for recreation on public land. The first sentence read, “Many conscientious citizens are losing sleep over what they take to be a socialistic or paternalistic trend in the general current of economic thought” (Leopold, n.d.-d, p. 1). His approach was depicted as an alternative. In “Conservation and Politics,” an unfinished manuscript (possibly written in the late 1930s or early 1940s), Leopold (n.d.-c, p. 59–61) called the conservation problem on private land “one of the critical tests of the American way.” “If decent land use can be brought about by education, then the future continuity of land is possible,” however, “If decent land-use must be bought by government intervention on an ever increasing scale, it means the end of private land ownership, the end of government solvency, and the end of the present economic system,” he warned. In “The Land Ethic” chapter from Sand County, Leopold’s (1966, p. 266) worries about government authority are somewhat muted in comparison but are still revealing of his thought process. Leopold stated that he does not “disapprove” of most of the growth of governmental conservation. But, “nevertheless,” he wrote, …the question arises: What is the ultimate magnitude of the enterprise? Will the tax base carry its eventual ramifications? At what point will governmental conservation, like the mastodon, become handicapped by its own dimensions?

In “Land Use and Democracy,” Leopold described governmental conservation as undemocratic because it was imposed from the “top down” rather than

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the “bottom up.” In an unpublished manuscript, he similarly wrote that governmental conservation “is undemocratic in the sense that it declines to credit the private citizen with brains, enthusiasm, or public spirit” (Leopold, n.d.-a, p. 2). More statements of Leopold’s disapproval and worries over public authority could be added, but these statements suffice to show the thought behind his reasoning. Leopold was a proponent of the American belief in property. He saw government regulation as a threat to the “American way.” A “socialistic” trend in conservationist thought worried him. This was likely in reference to the Pinchotist tradition in forestry, which at the time Leopold was formulating his land ethic idea was leading a push for regulation and public ownership of forests. By the early 1930s, Leopold would have been familiar with Bob Marshall – a socialist forester, close to Pinchot, whom Leopold would later collaborate with in the Wilderness Society (Sutter, 2009). By the time Leopold wrote “The Conservation Ethic,” Marshall, Pinchot, and other foresters had commenced a campaign to get Franklin Roosevelt to nationalize privately owned timberland. This campaign was called a “stampede for nationalization” in the very issue of the Journal of Forestry in which “The Conservation Ethic” was published (Shepard, 1933). Paul Sears (1988, p. 111) also was aware of Marshall, having noted in Deserts that Marshall “not only attacks the abuses of private property, but the institution itself.” Leopold, not only disapproved of this socialistic trend, but I believe he shared the view of conservative university-employed foresters that the campaign for government control was unprofessional (see, for instance, Chapman, 1934), hence Leopold’s view that the scientist does not aspire to the task of those he considered uplifters and crusaders, but instead seeks to inspire. The position accords with the optimism he expressed about employment opportunities for wildlife managers with corporations (Leopold, 1940). By the mid-1930s, it is fair to conclude that Leopold’s thinking was shaped by his worries over the New Deal. Leopold offered many incisive criticisms of New Deal land management programs, which conservationists of very different political persuasion likely agreed with. But his worries about “government solvency” and whether the tax base would continue to pay for governmental conservation demonstrate a fiscal skepticism of the New Deal that was common among economic conservatives. Finally, in response to the view that regulation is undemocratic, Leopold did not appear to consider the opposite view – that it is undemocratic to leave land use decisions to a property-owning minority and to leave representative government, the voice of a broader base of citizens, with no legal recourse to prevent the deterioration of the environment and extinction of species. In place of formal, legal methods to reform agricultural production and land use, Leopold favored voluntary mechanisms to influence individual behavior. Leopold (n.d.-a, p. 7) was under no illusions that the exploitative logic of capitalism would incentivize conservation. Indeed, although he sided with conservative conservationists against regulations, he admitted that the economic forces operating on land use were “malignant and pathogenic.” He believed however that the strength of economic forces in society were overstated. Capitalism in any given

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moment reflected the values and ethics of the individuals who made it up. “Economic laws may be permanent, but their impact reflects what people want, which in turn reflect what they know and what they are,” so he wrote in “The Conservation Ethic” (Leopold, 1933, p. 642). Returning to this theme later he wrote: I incline to believe we have overestimated the scope of the profit motive. Is it profitable to for the individual to build a beautiful home? To give his children a higher education? No, it is seldom profitable, yet we do both. These are in fact, ethical and aesthetic premises which underlie the economic system. Once accepted, economic forced tend to align the smaller details of social organization into harmony with them. (Leopold, 1966, p. 201)

To understand the full meaning of these passages, one needs to take into consideration how he envisioned a land ethic operating. In some instances, it was through an award of status to the property owner, as when in “The Conservation Ethic” he asserted that the “combined beauty and utility of land” ought to determine “the social status of its owner” (Leopold, 1933, p. 642). At other times, he suggested a negative check, as in “Wildlife in American Culture,” when he declared, “We shall have conservation when and only when the destructive use of land becomes unethical—punishable by social ostracism” (Leopold, 1943, p. 1). And finally, he asserted that an ethic could function through commodity exchange itself, as in his game management proposal, or in his 1933 proposal for product labeling, and when he expressed the same idea a decade later: If we don’t like the way landowner X is using the natural resources of which he is owner, why do we buy his products?… Why do we tell our government to reform Mr. X, instead of doing it ourselves? … I have no illusion that all of the products of land-abuse are as easy to identify…. I do assert that many products of land-abuse can be identified as such, and can be discriminated against, given the conviction that it is worth the trouble. Conversely, the products of good landuse can often be singled out and favored. (Leopold, 1942, p. 259)

The options for dealing with land abuse were thus to shun the abuser and to boycott the products of abuse. The framework itself suggests an ethical underpinning – that while it is wrong to abuse land, it is unacceptable to limit the economic freedom of the property owner through any binding legal or institutional mechanism.

THE LAND AS A COMMODITY AND THE RIGHT OF WILDLIFE TO EXIST The land ethic is conventionally understood as a defense of the rights of animals, plants, and the environment they inhabit, but it was equally a defense of property rights. It is fair to question whether the two are compatible. In most instances, the affirmation of something as a “right” serves to remove it from the sphere of private ownership and commodities and into the sphere of public control and government provision. This is the case in healthcare, housing, or education, and in the case of the idea of a right to a clean environment. It implies, at minimum, a regulatory role. But this is not what Leopold had in mind. Although Leopold affirmed the rights of all species to exist in a natural state and

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decried our “regard” of land as a mere commodity, he showed no interest in questioning either the legal or economic status of wildlife as property. In fact, he defined his philosophy in terms of an individual and voluntary ethic precisely because he was uncomfortable with the social repercussions of challenging the property institution. He went so far as to propose commodifying this ethic, making it something that customers could support with their dollars, in order to shift responsibility from government to private enterprise. The logic behind the 1973 Endangered Species Act provides an interesting point of comparison. The 1973 law barred the federal government from taking any action that could lead to the extinction of a threatened species and banned private parties from “harming” endangered species. Under the 1975 Department of Interior interpretation, “harm” was interpreted broadly to cover “significant environmental modification or degradation” that posed a threat to a species survival. Prior to its 1978 amendment, the law forbade economic criteria from consideration in a species’ listing – an aspect of the law which property owners complained violated their economic liberty. A citizen suit provision grants the public recourse to compel the state to enforce protections (Petersen, 1999, pp. 456–457). Even after the law’s subsequent weakening, it remains the most powerful legal tool in the United States to protect threatened wildlife. Nash (1989, pp. 85, 175) has called the Endangered Species Act “the strongest American legal expression to date of environmental ethics” and suggested that Leopold would have “applauded” it had he lived to see its enactment. Certainly, the Endangered Species Act reflects an ecological perspective Leopold shared. But Leopold meant something very different by “ethic” than how Nash uses it in this context. Leopold did not use the term to mean simply a regard for other nonhuman species. He quite literally meant a voluntary mechanism. He may well have softened his attitude on government authority had he lived through the enactment of environmental legislation in the 1970s, but if such a law had been considered in his day he might have considered it a foolhearted instance of “reform by fiat” or a questionable abridgment of economic liberty. A more contemporaneous point of comparison is perhaps more useful. In 1941, Charles Elton sent Leopold a memorandum he had written for Arthur Tansley and the British Ecological Society on “The Conservation of Wild Life in Britain,” which laid out a plan for postwar wildlife policy. The memorandum started with the premise that it is desirable to ensure the survival of all animal species, and drew attention to the various challenges such a program of conservation faced. These were factors Leopold often discussed: the contradictory self-interested desires of various interests in wildlife conservation (hunters, bird lovers, property users, etc.) and the limitations of a protectionist reservation policy (the mobility of animals, their occupation of economic spaces, and the need for active management). Unlike Leopold, Elton (1942a, p. 4) posited that these challenges made “central State control” a necessity: Animal populations cannot, any more than the sick, the unemployed, or the aged, be left to an unguided struggle for existence. Only the State can focus a sufficiently representative body of opinions and scientific facts onto these complex questions, and arrange a distribution of animal

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life that will provide the maximum chance of survival for animals and of amenity for people, with the provision for the economic and epidemiological interests of the community. The present situation is one of complete ecological anarchy, with thousands of people doing one thing, and thousands doing another, often on the basis of completely wrongly based views of the nature of the problem.

Elton’s proposal was undoubtably influenced by Leopold’s perspectives on management. In the letter accompanying the memorandum, Elton (1942b, p. 3) mentioned that he found Leopold’s “writings on conservation so very refreshing as they always cut out all the frightful blurb that seems to hang about conservation literature.” Simberloff (2012a, p. 196) finds this statement “mysterious,” but I believe it is a reference to the clarity and directness with which Leopold identified maintaining biodiversity, rather than utility, as a means of reducing the marked confusion in conservation. But Elton’s prescription was nearly the opposite of Leopold’s: Animals, like disadvantaged members of society (“the sick, the unemployed”), required the state to protect their rights. They could not be left to compete with humans in an “unguided struggle for existence.” The state was the only institution capable of applying the science needed to deal with complicated questions related to their distribution and over competing uses of land. And only the state could effectively plan. Leaving land use decisions to countless landowners, many ignorant of ecology and biased in their view of wildlife, would amount to “ecological anarchy.” Of course, the state may be uninterested or even hostile to ecology and wildlife, but this is a challenge of setting up an institutional structure that utilizes science and empowers citizens with standing to sue or other recourse to protect threatened species. Leopold’s laissez faire approach, in comparison with Elton’s, seems less workable and less democratic.

AGRIBUSINESS, WILDLIFE, AND THE LIMITATION OF LANDOWNER ETHICS One of the present crises of wildlife is the massive decline in populations of insect species around the world. The decline of insect populations stems largely from the behavior of land users: specifically, the clearing of habitat for agricultural uses and pollution from synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers released on the farm, in addition to other factors (Sanchez-Buyo and Wyckhuys, 2019). The issue points to elements at the heart of Leopold’s thinking. This was precisely the sort of land abuse that a land ethic might avert. Insect species are an important ecological “cog” of the land community – the sort of community member an uneducated human may not notice. But their ecological role is important; they can be said to have a right to exist and should not be allowed to be a casualty of agricultural commodity production. Leopold’s ecological aesthetic helps to visualize a more pleasing alternative to the violent simplification and diminished biodiversity of modern capitalist agriculture. A land ethic tells us that the land used for humans for agriculture should be shared with other species and that it is wrong to sterilize it of wild flora and fauna.

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The role of pesticides as a threat to wildlife was identified and brought to popular attention about a decade after Leopold’s death, by Rachel Carson, who like Leopold did much to educate the populace about the mechanisms of ecology. Today, we can see how the utilization of pesticides and other agricultural inputs represents a new more extreme stage in the progression away from a diverse agroecology capable of supporting animal life. The significance of agricultural chemical inputs raises a fundamental question with Leopold’s prescriptions. As Richard Lewontin (1998) has argued, the chemical inputs and adjuncts (like genetically modified organisms designed to withstand herbicide application) used on farms function to chain the farmer to a corporate agribusiness system. At present, many farmers work under contracts that specify the specific manner of chemical applicants, their schedule, and more generally how to produce a rationalized agricultural commodity. As Lewontin points out, the farmer is a subordinate with little agency in an economic system dominated by the large corporations that control the market for agricultural inputs, processing, and marketing. The economic subordination of farmers prevents them from exercising their judgment and skill – factors Leopold believed were indispensable for private conservation. Consumers are not entirely satisfied with this system of agricultural production, as evidence by the market for organic produce. The USDA’s label is in fact the precise mechanism that Leopold’s land ethic suggested. Leopold believed consumers could discern the products of good land use from bad. Even leaving aside the possibility raised that in a globally sourced market it is increasingly difficult to tell whether farmers who use the label adhere to its standards, researchers have noted an increased reliance on organic chemical inputs in organic farming related to or associated with increased water pollution (Liu, 2011; McGee and Alzarez, 2016). The basic assumption in Leopold’s ethical framework revolves on the agency of individuals within the consumer–producer relationship. Leopold argued that capitalism had aesthetic and ethical underpinnings which could be leveraged by consumers and producers to protect wildlife. The progressive transformation of agriculture in line with capitalist accumulation and its steady degradation of the land community suggests that this belief is misplaced. John Bellamy Foster (2002, pp. 44, 46) has pointed out that one of the failings of modern environmental consciousness is its individualist moral outlook: “[B]ehind most appeals to ecological morality there lies the presumption that we live in a society where the morality of the individual is the key to the morality of society.” The “higher immorality” of institutions is often unquestioned. Leopold’s call for an ecological conscience reflects the ethical core of modern environmentalism in good and bad ways. Leopold’s ecology shows that the land is a community. His aesthetic says that this community is something greater than a mere input of commodity production. His ethic says that to treat it as such is wrong. The growth of the modern movement to protect wildlife and biodiversity, which Leopold inspired, embodies such an ethic. But the inadequacies of

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the land ethic – at least along the lines Leopold envisioned it as a consumer ethic and landowners’ ethic – are also apparent in contemporary environmentalism, quite clearly, for instance, in the growth of product labeling. Leopold was mistaken to presume that the ethical conscience of the individual is the most appropriate lever of change. The Endangered Species Act suggests that defining the land ethic as a public right has more value. The use of land involves complicated problems which Leopold’s ecological thinking helps clarify. Very likely, the preservation of biodiversity in a complex modern society requires, as Elton suggested, an entity like the state, able to incorporate scientific opinion and coordinate different antagonistic interests within the public, in place of an economic free-for-all. Leopold was unprepared to consider this because of his loyalty to the concept of private land ownership.

REFERENCES Callicott, J.B. 2000. Harmony between men and land: Aldo Leopold and the foundations of ecosystem management, Journal of Forestry, 98(5), 4–13. Chapman, H. 1934. Professional idealism, Journal of Forestry, 32(7), 677–679. Darling, J. 1935. Darling to Leopold, 20 November, Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Correspondence, Box 1. Folder 9. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed on 5 March 2014]. Elton, C. 1942a. Conservation of Wild Life in Britain, Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Biographical Material, Box 1, Folder 2. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed on 18 March 2020]. Elton, C. 1942b. Elton to Leopold, 18 November. Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Biographical Material, Box 1, Folder 2. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed on 18 March 2020]. Flader, S. 1994. Thinking like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold an the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests, Seattle, WA, University of Washington Press. Foster, J.B. 2002. Global ecology and the common good. In Ecology against Capitalism, Ed. J.B. Foster, pp. 44–51, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Foster, J.B., Clark, B. and York, R. 2010. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Planet, New York, NY, Monthly Review Press. Knight, R.L. 1996. Aldo Leopold, the land ethic, and ecosystem management, Journal of Wildlife Management, 60(3), 471–474. Leopold, A. 1933. The conservation ethic, Journal of Forestry, 31(6), 634–643. Leopold, A. 1939a. A biotic view of land, Journal of Forestry, 37(9), 727–730. Leopold, A. 1939b. The farmer as a conservationist, American Forests, 45(6), 294–299, 316, 323. Leopold, A. 1940. The state of the profession, Journal of Wildlife Management, 4, 343–346. Leopold, A. 1942. Land-use and democracy, Audubon, 44, 259–265. Leopold, A. 1943. Wildlife in American culture, Journal of Wildlife Management, 7(1), 1–6. Leopold, A. 1947. The ecological conscience, Wisconsin Conservation Bulletin, 12(12), 4–7. Leopold, A. 1966. A Sand Country Almanac: With Essays from Round River, New York, NY, Ballantine Books. Leopold, A. 2013a. A history of ideas in game management. In A Sand County Almanac & Other Writing, Ed. C. Meine, pp. 298–316, New York, NY, Library of America. Leopold, A. 2013b. Game and wildlife conservation. In A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings, Ed. C. Meine, pp. 292–297, New York, NY, Library of America. Leopold, A. 2013c. The role of wildlife in a liberal education. In A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings, Ed. C. Meine, pp. 466–470, New York, NY, Library of America.

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Leopold, A. 2013d. What is a weed? In A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings, Ed. C. Meine, pp. 487–491, New York, NY, Library of America. Leopold, A. n.d.-a. Survey of Conservation, Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Writings, Box 16, Folder 5. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed 5 March 2014]. Leopold, A. n.d.-b. Conservation Has Greater Momentum among Less Critical Thinkers, Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Writings, Box 16, Folder 6. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed 5 March 2014]. Leopold, A. n.d.-c. Conservation and Politics, Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Writings, Box 16, Folder 6. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed 5 March 2014]. Leopold, A. n.d.-d. Economics of the Wild, Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Writings, Box 16, Folder 5. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed 5 March 2014]. Lewontin, R. 1998. The maturing of capitalist agriculture: farmer as proletarian, Monthly Review, 50(3), 72–85. Liu, C. 2011. Is “USDA organic” a seal of deceit? Pitfalls of USDA certified organics produced in the United States, China, and beyond, Stanford Journal of International Law, 47, 333–378. McCabe, T. 1931. More game birds in America, Inc., The Condor, 33(6), 259–261. McGee, J.A. and Alzarez, C. 2016. Sustaining without changing: the metabolic rift of certified organic farming, Sustainability, 8(2), 1–12. McIntosh, R.P. 1985. The Background on Ecology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Meine, C. 1991. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin. Miller, C. 2013. Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, Washington, DC, Island Press. Nash, R. 1989. The Rights of Nature, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press. Nash, R. 2014. Wilderness and the American Mind, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press. Petersen, S. 1999. Congress and charismatic megafauna: a legislative history of the Endangered Species Act, Environmental Law, 29, 463–492. Sanchez-Buyo, F. and Wyckhuys, K.A. 2019. Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: a review of its drivers, Biological Conservation, 232, 8–27. Sears, P. 1988. Deserts on the March, Washington, DC, Island Press. Shepard, W. 1933. Forestry leadership, Journal of Forestry, 36(6), 631–633. Simberloff, D. 2012a. Charles Elton: pioneer conservation biologist, Environment and History, 18(2), 183–202. Simberloff, D. 2012b. Integrity, stability, and beauty: Aldo Leopold’s evolving view of nonnative space, Environmental History, 17(3), 487–512. Sutter, P. 2009. Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement, Seattle, WA, University of Washington Press. Wade, D. 1944. Wade to Leopold, 30 September, Available via, Aldo Leopold Online Archive, Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Archives, Biographical Material, Box 1, Folder 3. Available at: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/AldoLeopold [Accessed 5 March, 2014]. Worster, D. 1990. Transformations of the Earth: toward an agroecological perspective, Journal of American History, 76(4), 1087–1106.

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PART III ARGENTINA’S WORKING CLASS

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THE DYNAMICS OF VIOLENCE AND LABOR CONFLICT IN VILLA ´ CONSTITUCION, ARGENTINA, 1973–1975 Agust´ın Santella

ABSTRACT This chapter aims to contribute to the study of social protests around the world and particularly in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s, with a focus on an Argentinean case. Throughout these years, Argentina like many other Latin American societies witnessed the growth and development of intense social and political struggles in concert with the armed insurgency. Did workers or other popular social sectors support guerrilla organizations in Argentina? What was the interconnection between working-class and armed insurgent struggle? This chapter examines these liaisons by studying the case of an industrial city that has been identified to be a paradigm of labor radicalization and political violence in Argentina—Villa Constituci´on. Through the reanalysis of documents and sources as well as interviews, we discuss established interpretations on armed and labor struggles that reveal a broader heterogeneity in the forms of social support to revolutionary violence. Solidarity among workers and armed militants appears in (1) the actions of militant workers at their workplaces, and (2) the armed actions organized by militants in support of worker’s fights.” These two groups reinforced each other's activism. But, by no means can we directly deduct from this that rank and file workers immediately identified their strikes with ideologically revolutionary objectives.

The Capitalist Commodification of Animals Research in Political Economy, Volume 35, 183–204 Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0161-7230/doi:10.1108/S0161-723020200000035009

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Keywords: Labor; strikes; armed struggle; Argentina; political violence; radicalization

INTRODUCTION Wickham-Crowley (1992, pp. 312–313) wrote in the most comprehensive sociological–historical work on revolutionary guerrilla movements in Latin America that: Argentina has had at least three failed guerrilla movements: an unsupported foco in 1963 in the interior, under the elected regime of Arturo Illia; the Montoneros of the 1970s, who apparently ´ had substantial support among the urban working class of Cordoba; and the ERP (Revolutionary Army of the People), who put down at least modest roots among Tucum´an peasantry.

These conclusions the author takes for a fact are, actually, the main subject matter currently under debate within the field of studies on popular movements and their relationship with insurgent guerrilla organizations of the 1970s. Did workers or other popular social sectors support guerrilla organizations in Argentina? What was the link between the working-class and armed insurgent struggles? This chapter contributes to the study of social protests around the world and particularly in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s. Immanuel Wallerstein defines this wave of protests and mobilizations as “the world’s revolution of 1968” (Wallerstein et al., 1989). Using less perilous labels, other studies documented waves of labor protest in different countries (Silver, 2003; Van der Velden et al., 2007). However, only a couple of national cases (such as Cuba and Nicaragua in Latin America) pursued a revolutionary course where social revolutionary forces emerged in contention with the State and dominant classes. There are even less cases where this confrontation developed into social revolutions. Argentina seems to follow this post-1968 cycle’s pattern. Great outbursts of mass movements in 1969 opened a cycle of mobilizations, radicalization, and political violence amid the confronting forces, which determined the domestic political situation until the mid-1970s.1 The social and political radicalization of the 1960–1970s in Argentina is part of a process that begins with the 1955 military coup against Peronism, a political movement mainly rooted in the working class. From 1955 to 1973, the new regime excluded the working class from the political system thus creating the conditions for popular violence to break out. However, the return of Peronism in the government in 1973 changed the lines associated with armed confrontation. The Peronism State ended up fighting the persistent armed struggle of revolutionary organizations that had begun in the previous period against the military forces. To study the connections between worker’s radicalization and the development of revolutionary insurgency from the end of the 1960s to mid-1970s, we conducted an in-depth study of a relevant case.2 The conflicts that occurred in the ´ allow us to observe the interaction of social industrial city of Villa Constitucion

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and revolutionary radicalization, both in confluence and divergence. Its labor disputes and revolts paced this advanced industrial city’s workers in the center of Argentina’s political scenario throughout the mid-1970s. This research illustrates the dynamics of rank and file union movements. The experience of Villa Con´ together with the notorious cases of Cordoba’s labor movement between stitucion 1969 and 1976, as well as the Coordinadoras Gremiales de Buenos Aires – Union Coordinating Committee of Buenos Aires – toward 1975, as a whole represented an opposing and real alternative to mainstream trade-union movement’s strategies. The validity of this case, hence, does not apply to all union movements in Argentina, but only to those led by combative and independent sectors, which placed themselves outside the predominant strategy expressed by the Confederaci´on General del Trabajo (CGT) and Union Obrera Metal´urgica (UOM), which was one of the most important trade unions at this time. Villa Con´ stitucion’s tradition of political independence in trade unionism facilitated a spreading out of the movement under a context of violent contention and state repression. During this period, this movement involved the convergence of militant revolutionary organizations with armed socialist and nonarmed left-wing organizations, along with left-wing Peronism. As a result, this particular case is stronger to consider compared to that of Cordoba and Buenos Aires. The armed insurgency path, despite its influence, entailed several contradictions for the combative union movement.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS ON REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE According to Wickham-Crowley (1992, p. 4), …in most cases of modern guerrilla warfare (…) the insurgency is, or intends to become, a civil war in which the populace will eventually side either with the guerrilla forces or with government in power.

This definition of insurgency differs from the concept of “terrorism.” In Argentina, this theory has had preponderance among those who in the 1980s publicly condemned the “irrational violence” in the 1970s. As the historian Luis Alberto Romero (2008) points out, …according to this interpretation, both demons, militaries and subversives, coming from their margins, assaulted and oppressed a helpless society where everyone was a victim and where all of them rejected, always, the excesses brought about by these alien forces.

The very labeling of insurgent actors as terrorists is symptomatic of a discourse on political violence that generally has teamed up with political regimes’ repressive undertaking. Rod Aya (1979, p. 49) argues that this framework is consistent with the …the outside-agitator model, which imagines revolutions and lesser public disturbances to be work of subversives who, with a sinister genius for cajolery and coercion, provoke otherwise disinterested masses to violence.

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Consistent with the political model of collective action, waves of political violence (e.g., Argentina 1969–1976) are analyzed as a form of political action not essentially different from normal political action. The political model is nothing new. Indeed, it extends and adapts to revolutions and collective violence the idea that “war is just a continuation of politics by other means” (Clausewitz). (Aya, 1999, p. 52)

As Charles Tilly (1978, p. 177) explains, …most collective violence—in the sense of interactions which produce direct damage to persons and objects—grows out of actions which are not intrinsically violent, and which are basically similar to a much larger number of collective actions occurring without violence in the same periods and settings.

In other works, Tilly (2003) addresses violence not as an attribute, intrinsic to specific subjects, but as the outcome of political and social processes – themselves nonviolent – that under some circumstances are conducive to trajectories of violence. From this analytical position, political violence increased during the cycle of protests from 1969 to 1976. This violence moved from the massive violent actions to the actions organized by small groups employing rural or urban guerrilla tactics (Tarrow, 1989). The repertories of revolutionary violence evolve, in each specific political culture and historical context, during the course of the struggle over the monopoly of legitimate physical force. Maria Ollier (2009, p. 21) argues that …if the Argentine tradition legitimized authoritarianism and the use of violence in political actions, the preponderant atmosphere of ideas during the sixties and seventies fostered legitimacy to the opting of militant activism in favor of the social change. In this sense, the political tradition, the context of the emergence of the revolutionary left and the prevailing atmosphere of ideas advocated for the armed road.

In Argentina, the majority of studies on violence focused on the interconnection between military–political organizations or armed parties and society. That is, they focus on those who allege use of violence, leaving aside the fact that violence is not exclusive of those who explicitly avow the use of it, but also for those who, in a contradictory or even ambiguous relation, use it, depending on the context, as part of an arrangement of possibilities available at a given moment in society. Some contexts might legitimate the use of violent forms by actors who are, essentially, “nonviolent” (e.g., workers). It is within this specific framework that we raise these questions regarding the Argentine political process that began with 1969s social revolts: To what extent did labor or other social popular sectors support guerrilla organizations that matured in Argentina during the context of the 1969–1976 cycle? What was the link between working-class and armed struggles?

LABOR AND VIOLENCE IN ARGENTINA In Argentina, violence has played a central role in political struggles ever since the national State emerged back in the nineteenth century, especially during the

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period that followed the structuring of modern social classes. Since 1880, Argentina’s economy was shaped by the exportation of raw materials, which enabled the development of a capitalist type of agriculture, the investment of metropolitan capitals, and massive transatlantic immigration. Those immigrants became the stepping stone to the, thus comparatively early, proletarianization and urbanization of the Argentine society in the 1900s. Before Peron’s ascent to the government (1946), the Argentine working class had already been formed in its struggles against dominant classes and had founded strong class-struggle ideologies (revolutionary syndicalism, socialist, anarchist, and communist) (Del Campo, 1984; Murmis and Portantiero, 1972; Germani, 1962). During the Peronist government (1946–1955), preexisting tradeunion organizations took the center of the political mobilization in support of the government. Trade unions were thereafter tied to the State’s dynamics, resulting in growth of membership and resources. Despite the strong tie with the State, however, trade unions retained a considerable degree of autonomy. Entitlement for collective bargaining was linked to State acknowledgment of the trade unions. Workplaces saw the growth of shop-floor organizations directly representing workers (Comisiones Internas de Delegados) who beheld a great deal of power in front of their employers, both at wage bargaining tables as well as concerning management prerogatives within the production process. This progress of labor vis-`a-vis capital in the sphere of production was part of a broader process of wage-earners’ engagement throughout the Peronist period. During those 9 years, income, social benefits, living standards, as well as the political and cultural recognition of worker’s rights shaped a Peronist political identity among workers. Power relationships between classes, at the same time, became an obstacle regarding management demands of productive rationalization required to uphold profitability, hence a limitation to capitalist accumulation pattern.3 In 1955, a social, political, and religious coalition (comprised of middle classes, entrepreneurial associations, the Catholic Church, and influences from the United States) led to the overthrow of Peronism through a military coup d’etat, a self-proclaimed Revoluci´on Libertadora. This was the beginning of a period of repression against Peronism and labor organizations which lasted, with certain differences depending on the moment, until 1983, the year of democratic transition. Following 1955, governments harassed every sign of Peronism by employing political prohibition, public identification, imprisonment, and even executions. Until the early 1960s, Peronist leaders were forced out from union functions, and only through means of a prolonged conflict, from the government in the State, were they once again legalized. Labor mounted a strong resistance to these repressive policies, which consisted of a wave of direct violent actions as well as political and cultural forms of defiance. Workers and trade-unionism’s resistance allowed them to keep and develop their shop-floor organizations that kept on expanding within the sectors of advanced industrialization throughout the 1960s and 1970s (James, 1988; Salas, 2006; Schneider, 2006). A specific feature of the Argentine labor movement, compared to other Latin American countries, was the level of mobilization of rank and file workers endowed with unity and strength due to the Comisiones Internas position in large factories.

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To those in power, the “Peronist issue” was a complicated challenge that would determine politics from 1955 to 1973 (O’Donnell, 1982; Portantiero, 1996). Contrary to their expectations after the Revoluci´on Libertadora, popular sectors clearly stood by and combatively defended their Peronists’ political identity.4 A debate regarding what to do about the Peronist working-class identity rose among the new political regime’s anti-Peronist political groups. Two fundamental strategies arose. The most drastic aimed to eradicate Peronism and its liaison with popular sectors; the diagnosis by those in power blamed Peronism as the main obstacle to a democratic and modern society. The international context of the time, determined by the partitioned world of the Cold War, was this antiPeronist diagnosis’ bedrock. Hence, Peronism (deeply authoritarian, demagogical, and antidemocratic) served, not as a barrier (as Peron himself argued in several speeches) but as a route to the advance of communism in Argentina (Potash, 1994; Rouqui´e, 1982). The other fraction of dominant groups proposed to integrate trade unions but carefully excluded Peron. This policy involved a gradual acceptance of union structures within the State’s orbit, while maintaining the prohibition against the Peronist party and Peronist political activity. Both strategies the regime initiated with the Revoluci´on Libertadora involved exclusion and repression mechanisms followed by periods of negotiation and aperture of governments, Peronism, and trade unions, in a context tainted by successive waves of protest and strikes. Post-Peronist governments attempted political repression combined with the acceptance of unionism legality. From this process, a new, barely combative, line of action emerged from the union movement (Carri, 1967). The foremost faithful exponent of the strategy was vandorism, associated with Augusto Timoteo Vandor, the most influential leader of the UOM. UOM was the key trade union among the 62 Organizations – a Peronist trade union grouping – which at the same time was the core of the CGT. Vandorism consisted of a deep process of bureaucratization, vertical centralization of its structure, and hence a limitation, or even repression, of the direct involvement of the rank and file in the decision-making process. Since 1955, negotiation–confrontation strategies had been put into practice by several key trade unions when dealing with the successive governments. However, after the 1966 military coup (self-proclaimed Revoluci´on Argentina), these strategies confronted great changes and new dilemmas. Ongan´ıa’s government economic policy espoused an economic modernization, which was rooted in creating the incentive for industrial capitals’ investment furthered by State support that was financed by agro-export resources and a wage freeze. This controversial economic policy directly targeted labor and was combined with a face-to-face confrontation accentuating repression against unionism. By 1967, the government, which had taken under its wing the control of all union dues funds, had simultaneously broke into autonomous Public State Universities, leading in the end, to the fomentation of a repressive environment that affected not only labor and universities but all people. This was the general background of Cordoba city’s popular outburst in May 1969, christened Cordobazo (Balv´e et al., 1973; Brennan and Gordillo, 2008). ´ With Cordoba’s rebellion adding to a broader wave of protests simultaneously

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taking place in several province-cities (Tucum´an, Rosario), the confrontations against the government became nation-wide. The CGT had called a general strike for May 30. The most fundamental aspect of the 1969 Cordobazo was the opening of a cycle of protest that would last until 1976, deeply affecting labor movements and organizations and provoking a change in power relationships between classes and political groups. Utilizing a broad range of autonomously mobilized shop-floor organizations the rank and file had moved beyond the control of collaborator union leadership in their mobilization. This gave birth to a line of combative leaders of unions especially in Cordoba and in several industrial firms. The government took action addressing the vandorist CGT hoping to reopen dialogue in the interests of isolating these autonomous movements. The return of negotiations resulted, on the one hand, in a piece of legislation resituating health services’ management within unions to the tradeunionism leadership. On the other hand, the CGT went on controlled national general strikes to secure the labor movement’s support. By 1972, the CGT and the Confederaci´on General Econ´omica (CGE), which represented national industrials mainly, signed an agreement that would lay the grounds for labor and capital’s key accord: the Social Pact of Peron’s 1973 government. Despite this government and CGT negotiated compromise, the wave of popular protests (a second Cordobazo in 1971, rebellions in Cipolleti, Neuqu´en, General Roca, and Mendoza) and sit-down strikes continued. Utterly militant radicalization would be expressed in new repertories of armed struggle. Influenced by the Cuban Revolution and Latin American guerrilla movements, growing sectors of left-wing militancy saw in the Cordobazo a legitimizing event to espouse and to set up armed revolutionary organizations.5 After 1969, a wave of working-class protests had challenged Peronist union leadership. Despite their labor-oriented objectives, these movements converged with new left-wing insurgent organizations. The confrontation between insurgency and the regime became even more radical since they were accompanied by repression and “revolutionary war.” Radicalized social movements and insurgent organizations engaged in violent confrontations in common spheres of action. Social movements’ activists (students, workers, neighbors) were State-driven repression’s main target. A fraction of radical militancy decided, in terms of the development of a revolutionary war, that responding to State-driven repression at that moment called for armed struggle. The 1969–1976 cycle of protest experienced substantial changes once the military government that had seized power in 1966 and decided to retreat in 1973. The subsequent election brought a Peronist democratic government to the office after 18 years of proscription. This decision was a reaction to social rebellions that had taken place since 1969 and to combat the possibility of this political process giving birth to a revolutionary situation. Once the dominant classes were confronted with a revolutionary threat, they accepted the modification of their policy of excluding Peronism. This change in policy deeply altered the rationale for violent confrontations. Between 1969 and 1973, the increase of social mobilizations ending up in violent confrontations with the police or other State forces followed a parallel course to that of new insurgent organizations’ armed actions.

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Both forms of action expressed a common struggle against a repressive military government, ever more inefficient to build consensus among the different social classes. In this context, political violence appeared legitimate before public opinion. Various surveys that were carried out during 1971 and 1972 showed that nearly half of the population expressed sympathy regarding guerrilla actions (O’Donnell, 1982, pp. 463–465). Peron’s speeches in exile (from Madrid) explicitly or implicitly approved of this type of struggle against proscription. But 1973s political aperture undermined the social consensus that armed struggle, as an agent for political change, had had just 1 year before. The new government had been elected with a popular and working-class vote which still framed hopes for Peronism. Once in office, Peron launched a dual, legal and illegal, repressive campaign. Democratic middle-class sectors that had expressed their sympathy for armed struggle in opposition to the now-defeated dictatorship now began to label guerrilla movements as representing “terrorism” (Vezzetti, 2009, pp. 74–80). Notwithstanding, the process of armed encounters intensification distinguished the new term. The daily average of violent actions is of 2.28 during the Onganiato (1969–1973), 4.34 during the Peronist interregnum (1973–1976), and 10 during the National Reorganization Process (1976–1983). (Moyano, 1999, p. 238)

Thus, 1973 enables us to draw distinctions among the different courses collective action took place during the cycle that concluded in 1976: contentious, pacific, and violent.

´ THE CASE OF VILLA CONSTITUCION ´ illustrates in-depth processes of working-class Labor unrest in Villa Constitucion protest against labor exploitation vis-`a-vis industry, state repression, and tradeunionism structure. Almost all scholarship focused on this period addresses the ´ as one of the most meaningful and significant labor “case of Villa Constitucion” protests that subverted trade unionism and the Peronist government in 1973–1976.6 Mariano Grondona (1978, p. 15) wrote, “during 1974 and 1975 terrorists created an impressive political-military machinery.” He alleged this could be summed up in seven meaningful facts. The second of which stated: “2. Guerrilla activities mounted on top of trade unions, as it happened in Santa Fe ´ Province’s industrial center of Villa Constitucion” (Grondona, 1978, p. 15). Throughout this contentious process, ideas associated with the defense of labor interests, revolutionary questioning of society, and the thesis of political struggle developing into armed struggle came together. Notwithstanding, as it will be explained as follows, the reception of these ideas among workers was uneven, and the center of popular collective actions of protest kept on being focused on labor rights and demands of democratic and representative trade unionism. ´ Villa Constitucion’s population grew significantly between 1960 and 1970 as a result of the rapid industrialization process centered on basic metallurgic production.7 That specific feature was what led sociologist-historian Juan Carlos

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Torre (1974) to label this city as an “industrial workers community” where the clarity with which capital-labor antagonism was expressed had enabled classstruggle protests during this period, at a variance to what had happened in more complex urban conglomerates (e.g., Buenos Aires city and its surroundings). Thus, a strong community identity arose, intimately tied to factory floor experiences. Akin to the rest of the country, all metalworkers’ union representation fell under UOM’s orbit of action. Nevertheless, between 1960 and 1970, local trade union activity showed evidence of participation being at its lowest level ever, with a nearly permanent state of intervention carried out by the union’s national leadership. Simultaneously, the local union gave no satisfactory responses to grievances by Acindar’s workers. Acindar was the most important factory in town, which employed 5,000 workers, largely blue-collar but also many whitecollar workers. Following in importance were Metcon industries (employing 2,000), Marathon (700), and Villber (200). Acindar’s revenues ranked it within the top 10 national industries leading off the market of metal supplies for auto and construction industries. Local leadership’s incapacity to guarantee the rights already granted by signed contracts was independent shop-floor representatives’ critic of the national vandorist leadership. Throughout the 1960s, workers struck on several occasions scarce repercussions. The early 1970s opened with a period of strikes that would peak during the grand confrontations of 1974–1975. Following the pattern of small and insignificant strikes of the 1960s, the strikes in the 1970s ended up in a collective defeat and the termination of independent activists (Cangiano, 1996, p. 83). Nevertheless, it hatched the birth of a new generation of combative militancy. During factory occupations in 1974, new activists refer to 1970 as the beginning of a new era. “All of Villa’s metalworkers remember this 1970 defeated strike’s experience.”8 On January 7, 1970, Acindar’s workers, during a general assembly, called for an indefinite strike without the union’s national leadership consent. In doing so, the labor dispute gave birth to two confronting groups: rank and file workers represented by shop-floor delegates on one side, and management and national UOM leadership on the other. The decision of striking the plant was triggered by the laying off of all shop-floor representatives and 14 other delegates after they had approached Acindar’s management with a list of demands in late 1969. Ernesto Rodriguez explains (2000, p. 5), …this company, protected by President Juan Carlos Ongan´ıa’s anti-labor policies, froze premium payments and raised production upper limits to unattainable standards. And, while Acindar’s plants lacked any labor security measures, management persecuted workers and charged against labor rights.

Adding to these demands were the petitions for wage raise and shop-floor organizations’ participation in the control of management’s contracts with external cleaning services. The strike began with the occupation of the plant. Notwithstanding the initial strength as well as its long-lasting duration and a great deal of neighbor support, management seemed to have no intention of a

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negotiated solution that would bring the dispute to a close. Yet another element played a key role in this conflict’s outcome. A group of union leaders accepted the monetary compensation the firm had offered them, thus concluding their partaking in the strike with which they were directly affected. This resulted in patient trade-union work carried out by a group of younger workers in order to rebuild an independent line of union activity. This task had the support of one of the strike leaders in the 1970s, who had been terminated and did not take part in the batch that had returned to work. Most accounts of later events show a considerable degree of organization given the previous failed experience.9 By 1972, Acindar’s recently restructured shop-floor organization began to carry out labor complaints once again opening a front of dispute with UOM’s national leadership who were refusing to call for elections in Villa ´ Constitucion’s trade union section who were formally under intervention since 1970. In March 1973, presidential elections were held and the Peronist candidates (C´ampora was the presidential candidate) won the election with 49.59% of the votes followed by the Union Civica Radical (UCR) featuring a mere 21.3%.10 The intense politicization process of society only intensified with the return of Peronism to power. That same March a column of workers put pressure on UOM ´ when, during an assembly national leadership’s unionists in Villa Constitucion meeting, they compelled them to hold the corresponding union section elections. Yet, these workers led by Acindar’s shop-floor representatives were convinced by a Peronist UOM activist that “Peron was going to fix everything by pulling one or two presidential decrees,” and that they should put their trust upon him. Objectively this effectively ended up working against any mobilization. Left-wing activists were now facing a complex situation. Much academic research – e.g., Juan Carlos Torre’s (1974) – identified the returned Peronist government with what they categorized as a “context of political opportunities,” that is, a conjuncture of encouragement for labor demands. This situation is a revelation on how specific interpretations of the Peronist identity act as restrains to protest movements, at least during 1973 and 1974. Yet, simultaneously this incident is suggestive of Peronism’s power over ´ workers’ conscience. Though it should be pointed out that Villa Constitucion between 1974 and 1975 this political appeal was itself insufficient to appease the rank and file, given the cases of union’s leadership favoring Acindar’s termination of shop-floor representatives or infringed already endorsed arrangements.

VILLAZO, REPRESSION AND ARMED STRUGGLES, 1974–1975 Under the 1973–1976 Peronist government, the recurrent use of direct forms of action decreased, yet numerous prior social movements still made use of a certain degree of violence to get their social demands across. Implicitly or explicitly, these violent actions entailed a rather direct defiance of the Peronist government, its economic policies, or the trade unionism which it had found its bedrock. The

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government in 1973 had signed a social peace pact with the CGT (labor) and the CGE (industrial management), consisting of, among other points, a year-long wage freeze meant to control inflation. In day-to-day activity, however, the CGT found it increasingly hard to hold down labor protest, especially after capitalists, violating the agreement, raised product prices. Concurrently, conflicts regarding the democratic leadership of trade unions continued. ´ had not yet held union elections. A By March 1974, UOM Villa Constitucion political incident was the trigger for a massive protest that was latterly known as the Villazo. UOM militants and security guards erupted into Acindar, casting accusations that all shop-floor representatives were “communists,” and thus “they were not Peronists.” Perceiving those actions as a discredit to their genuine representatives, several groups formed by Acindar’s workforce insisted upon them, immediately, leaving the plant. These UOM militants left the premises under a loud and disapproving booing. In retaliation, UOM began to carry out all necessary arrangements to disaffiliate all of Acindar’s shop-floor representatives with the union (Porcu, 2005). ´ As a direct consequence of these actions, all main firms in Villa Constitucion immediately went on an indefinite strike until all sanctioned local leaders were enabled to return to their posts. The strike was carried out by a radicalized factory floor occupation. Managers were taken hostage, the plant’s perimeter was bordered with industrial fuel tanks under the threat that if police attempted to clear the premises, they would be blown up. The factory floor occupations engendered the solidarity of the entire town’s population. Over 12,000 people demonstrated their support at the town’s main square. The government interceded in their favor, and UOM committed to holding free elections at the Villa ´ union section, which then resulted in a clear election victory of the Constitucion shop-floor representatives grouped in the Brown List.11 The Villazo was a success, yet also the prologue of a new phase of violent contentions. The report written by the Struggle Committee, which had led the 1974 occupations, states: To silence and stop us from protesting under the current circumstances, we’re subject to repression at the time they generate bands of assassins and terrorists. All of Villa has outrageously witnessed bomb attacks against small shop-owners and town councilors who supported our struggle; our fellow shop floor delegates had suffered threats through means of pamphlets and radio announcements and many of those threats are now targeting those who collaborated with our movement; Metcon workers for months now have been under gendarmerie surveillance placed there to protect yanki executives; Federal Police and management, once the situation went back to normality and spite all the endorsed agreements, refused to grant workers access to the plants and to work.12

From March 1974 to March 1975, we can observe an escalation of violent actions. Briefly, here is a list of the most significant actions. March 13, 1974, a group of right-wing Peronism (linked to the Anticommunist Argentine Association AAA) detonated a bomb in a small shop, hostile to the strike movement; April 26, a civilian right-wing Peronist group, run by the police officer Ranure, illegally detained Juventud Peronista militants threatening to kill them; “1 August, the same right-wing group detonates a bomb and destroys the premises

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´ Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA), a militant worker’s of the Federacion venue, an attack then condemned by workers by going on strike”; August 10, the organization Poder Obrero kidnapped a member of right-wing Peronist groups to obtain information that was published afterward; September 9, Montoneros militants die as a result of a car explosion that occurred during a police persecution; January 31, 1975, worker Alberto Foressi was arrest and accused of ´ demonstrated demanding his “subversive activity.”13 UOM Villa Constitucion freedom. Since March 1974s factory floor occupation, violent mass actions engaged in confrontations in concert with the State’s illegal repression forces – right-wing Peronist groups associated to police forces – and the actions of left-wing revolutionary groups. At the same time, illegal and legal repressive actions such as militant workers’ assassinations were massively condemned by means of strikes and demonstrations. This escalation in the use of violence was amplified between March and May 1975 during the long-lasting strike against the “Paran´a red serpent operation.” Under the accusation that elected union leaders were taking part in “subversion,” on March 20, 1975, the government in office ordered a massive detention of militants, in what turned out to be the virtual occupation of ´ by police forces. Villa Constitucion Proceedings, akin to those they had carried out it back in March 1974, were employed by metalworkers. In demand for the liberation of all their leaders, among which was Alberto Piccinini who had become the best renown and charismatic of all, they went on an indefinite strike and occupied all factories. A long-lasting strike, which lasted from March 20 to May 19, featured intense and massive peaceful and violent popular contentions. This contentious process followed those same lines of action: a specific combination of mass actions, some violent, then State repression (legal and illegal), then armed actions carried out by revolutionary groups against State forces and ruling-class representatives (businessmen and management representatives). Notwithstanding, it is necessary to consider differences between the types of violent protests and collective actions. Different analytical perspectives have distinct takes on this subject matter. Juan Carlos Mar´ın (1996) defines it as Argentina’s “civil war” where violent political contentions confronted two social forces, the forces of the regime battling against the forces of the people. But this analysis disregards the existing differences within violent actions of the masses (e.g., Factory floor occupations or contentious disputes with police during demonstrations) and armed actions carried out by organized revolutionary groups. Thus, some assume that the ranks of social movements, e.g., workers mobilized during a strike, take part in the civil war process against the forces of the State to a comparable degree to that of insurgent forces. This assumption bypasses the plausible differentiation between subjects and courses of protest, which were highlighted in social protests analysis such as those of Della Porta regarding Italy. Another hypothesis that mass demonstrations, because of their contentious confrontation against the police, are equivalent to organized armed revolutionary actions fails to account for the differences within participant’s ideological perspectives in both forms of action. It, thus, misses these actors’ perspectives on their actions’ goals. Particularly, on-strike workers or

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demonstrators did not necessarily share the overall goals nor the tactical means that “revolutionary combatants” uttered. The process of contentious confrontations often aligned combatants and strikers together against repressive forces, but this did not imply in itself an overall communion of objectives. Differences could have had expression in the differential evaluations by participants of the protest movement on the actions of armed insurgents. This latter interpretation by Marin reproduces that of the revolutionary actors. In a public statement to the strikers, Mario Roberto Santucho, PRT-ERP leader wrote: The battle we’re fighting today does not finish with its upcoming ending. We must continue it, organizing ourselves until the coming of the final victory. The flame of popular resistance ablazes. It set fire with the sparkles of the Cordobazo igniting during the combats against Levingston and Lanusse’s dictatorship. Constant popular mobilization is what’s keeping it alive, in the permanent effort to organize ourselves, to arm ourselves and to carry out guerrilla combats.14

These distinctions are relevant to the analysis of the forms of collective actions ´ that emerged during Villa Constitucion’s strike from March to May 1975. Consistently, insurgent organizations increased their armed actions. Gallitelli (2013) suggests the division of the strike in three consecutive periods: (1) from the factory floor occupation to the retreat to the neighborhoods, March 20 to 26, (2) from the reorganization that took place in the neighborhoods to the first masses demonstration on April 22, and (3) then until depleted, strikers returned to work on May 19. During the first stage, on-strike workers occupied all metallurgic plants. Thousands of police officers secured the plants’ perimeter – unlike what had occurred during the 1974 occupation – now, power relationships within the government were unfavorable on the strikers. Since Peron’s death, right-wing Peronism, organized from within the machinery of government, increased the escalation of illegal repression significantly. Confronted with this situation, strikers decided to retreat to the city’s neighborhoods, chose two delegates per firm, and created a Struggle Committee responsible for establishing communications among neighborhood delegates. This Struggle Committee, that was set up after March 20 with its two delegates per factory, had many political and militant nonfactory–based tendencies. There were difficulties, however, when aiming to rebuild the individual membership. Trade-union representatives who were not independent belonged either to the PRT, the Juventud Trabajadora Peronista (JTP, linked to Montoneros), the OCPO or the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST). The following are membership lists reconstructed by crossing ´ Horton (Acindar-JTP), several sources: Luis Segovia (CD-UOM-PRT), Raul ´ (Villber-JTP), Galarza (VillberZenon S´anchez (Acindar-PRT), Victorio Paulon OCPO), Heredia, Gañan, Pepe Kalauz (Metcon-PST), Pacho Ju´arez (Metcon´ Quique Cordoba ´ PST), Ramon (Acindar), Carlos Ruescas y Pablo Villanueva.15 Labor resistance generated broad solidarity expressions from the rest of Villa ´ Constitucion’s trade unions, popular sectors, provincial political parties, and small-scale agricultural producers’ and students’ organizations. Examples of these connections are the numerous support and denouncement declarations and paid announcements in Rosario’s newspaper La Capital.16

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Armed actions registered in the press show a juncture/action relationship. During the early days, we find operation-constrained actions such as detentions and controls. Another moment in the insurgency occurred during the great town’s square demonstration on April 22. In response to the entire town mobilizing, the government responded with massive repression. Along with the repression that security forces had carried out during the conflict’s two main episodes (March 20 and April 22, 1975), repressive forces had also undertaken “terrorist” forms of action since day one. Newspaper records underestimated the magnitude of these sorts of small-scale, generally night-time, systematic armed actions that come forth in interviews and documents. The press reported 13 armed actions carried out by revolutionary groups, against 45 counter-revolutionary forces (11 perpetrated by illegal or parapolice groups that, as showed above, were organized in cooperation with mainstream trade-union leaderships, management, and the government). Also, newspapers recorded one other spontaneous violent response, when a group of workers on the afternoon of April 22 had been dispersed during neighborhood brawls reacted to the aggression.17 Villa’s popular movement opposed two responses (besides, of course, the most important political response) to open repression. Insurgent organizations almost immediately responded with a broad range of actions against repressive squads and management executives, an answer lingered during and after the conflict. At the same time, we find evidence of popular self-defense actions, mainly in working-class neighborhoods, to resist fachos (fascists) squads’ systematic intimidation. ´ On March 23, Montoneros organization murders Villa Constitucion’s sub police officer Tel´emaco Ojeda in Rosario. The attacks perpetrated against the representatives of repression and management provoked debates in workers’ assemblies. Both of political trends in the Struggle Committee replicated these debates in their weekly journals. Two Committee members were PST militants.18 PST militants’ deliberations regarding the Ojeda case were published in their journal: The Struggle Committee, then, convenes assembly meetings to take place in every factory and recommends the voting of a condemn motion regarding this murder and the methods applied by guerrilla groups who act in the periphery of worker’s willpower and decisions. Metcon and Acindar workers unanimously voted so.19

They repeated this message in the organization’s internal balance as …the rank and file found themselves nose-dive into the fact that police inspector Tel´emaco Ojeda’s murder far from ‘helpful’ had been detrimental to their struggle, thus the action’s condemn[ation] in Marathon and Metcon comrades’ assemblies.20

(The names of the firms involved are mistaken in the source.) In the same vein as the authors of the execution of the chief police, ERP militants were also in favor of the armed retaliation, and refuted what PST militants had said about the assembly’s voting. Days ago, during an assembly meeting at Marathon, a PST militant condemned the rightful execution of Tel´emaco Ojeda, the ferocious police officer, and demanded the present comrades to condemn the action; their deceiving words, portraying tormentor Ojeda as if he was an

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innocent police officer, managed to mislead many comrades who applauded him. Straight away an Acindar comrade crossed his words, explaining the assembly who Ojeda was, his history of tortures and murders of popular militants; concluding his intervention, he requested the comrades to applaud in support of the rightful execution of the police officer, and the assembly joyfully and enthusiastically did so. Notwithstanding, the PST has recently published a pamphlet in which they shamelessly sustain that this and some other guerrilla actions had been condemned in workers’ assemblies.21

Table 1 shows that revolutionary groups carried out several armed actions throughout the strike, with the opposition of one sector and the sympathy and active participation of another. When workers returned to labor, even under worse repressive conditions, armed actions continued. A while after the strike had come to an end, the Red Brigades (one of Poder Obrero’s organizations) kidnapped an executive manager of Villber demanding the return of those who had been terminated, the destitution of a supervisor, payment of fallen wages, and a raise that had been previously arranged with the workers. This organization stated that It was because of the Red Brigades’ action that arrogant management cockiness had to give in. An excellent example of a type of military action deeply tied to the situation of the masses and their struggles. This line of action—whether pacifists like it or not—does not replace, nor does it pretend to replace, the movement of the masses, on the contrary, it strengthens it and aids in its development, at the time it accumulates forces towards a military revolutionary direction. The rank and file endorsed the action during an assembly meeting despite the pacifist attempts to prevent it from happening.22

´ Armed Contentions March 20 to May 20, 1975. Table 1. Villa Constitucion Armed Actions in Support of Strikers Security guard Circulation control Headquarters shut down Detentions Bomb explosion Location of dead individuals Attack followed by deaths Shootout Raids Blasting Precincts takeover Small plane hijack for propaganda purposes Anti demonstration operations Street battles Street repression Assault

Source: La Capital, Rosario.

3 2 4 1 1 1

Armed Actions Against Strikers

Total

2 8 1 8 7 1 1 2 9 3

2 8 1 8 10 1 2 6 9 4 1 1

2

2 1 2 1 60

1 2 1 14

46

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A second response to repression – self-defense – posed a great deal of popular involvement according to direct observers to the events. Akin to what had happened with the actions of fachos, this dynamic went, also, practically unregistered in the daily press. Those of whom they had marked, they followed up. Besides, they shed terror over the family, because that was what they were looking for. Making your family fear, so that your very own family would tell you, no, don’t go out anymore, you’re staying in here. Another method they threatened you, was by telling you they were going to kill your family, they were going to kill your children. Once they figured out that threatening to destroy you was not enough for you to stop, they touched the most important thing there is to you; they went after your family. Back then we all felt that. More than one of us, myself included. I pulled my entire family from the house; more than one of our comrades did the same thing; I had no security. In April, if you arrived a bit later than now, once it was a bit darker, they automatically yanked the power off, and then cars began to arrive (…) Yes, they yanked the power off. Absolutely. Sure thing, minutes after…“bum!” Machine-gun firing, discharging against residential houses. The day you heard no explosions, that day, was like if you didn’t live here anymore.23 The term fachos became so popular that kids used it in their games and screamed terrified at the sound of a caño explosion or the mere spotting of a Ford Falcon. People in the neighborhoods resisted putting into practice some of the most original schemes. It was then when all our organizing effort in the neighborhoods showed useful. The Comisiones Vecinales were not only an important organizing element of solidarity and an equitable mechanism to distribute whatever we received but transpired valuable once we had to organize people’s self-defense in opposition to the State’s terror. Most of the time all shantytown neighbors had to repel the attacks of the groups hazarding Villa with their bombs and unpunished hauteur, with a bunch of old hunting firearms. Unfortunately, the degree of organization and combat preparation most militants had was barely the minimum, spontaneously acquired in old fishing and hunting traditions. But, not much more than that.24

Whilst strikers displayed some violent resistance forms defying repression, these were, for the most part, defensive and eluded armed contention. Labor militants linked to insurgent organizations, whose participation within the Struggle Committee and outstanding participation during ongoing strike assemblies, was remarkable. They issued reports that stated workers’ sympathy and approval of these organizations’ armed actions. Maria Cecilia Cangiano subscribes to a contrasting theory rendering empirical difficulties to contrast worker’s differential attitudes vis-`a-vis violence. She argues that the rank and file did not pursue political radicalization and did not feel represented by armed struggle. The ones who did were simply militants of the ´ political party. She bases her first assertion on interviews Andrea Andujar conducted.25 The second assertion is based specifically on her registers showing worker’s reluctance to accept Montoneros’ food and supplies handouts, as well as payment of fallen wages. However, Andrea Andujar concludes from her interviews that “none of those who testified expressed rejection to parties’ precise aid in key moments, whether it was money or groceries for the strike fund” (Andujar, 1996, p. 120). This is an ambiguous assertion for it shows no distinction between political parties and insurgency armed organizations, such as Montoneros, who offered money and groceries taken during armed actions (management leaders’ kidnaps ransoms and assaults to grocery supplies chains). How to financially endorse the strike created a division between armed and nonarmed militancy –

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e.g., PST – who carried out a fundraising campaign in solidarity in many factories around the country. When describing a Montoneros action in support of the 1975 strike, one of those interviewed stated that: They brought groceries, the truck came and the people went to get them, and behind them was the police confiscating the groceries and on top of that you ended up behind bars. This was intrinsic to the organization that people was framing at that moment, and then they faced counter producing effects, it was not always like that, but in more than one occasion they offered to pay fallen wages and workers reply they don’t want them to do that, they want to go back to work. I know that for a fact because we discussed those issues in open plenary meetings.26

We believe it is important to highlight that “no always” armed groups actions in support of strikes had “counter producing” effects. Roberto Kalauz was a PST militant as well as a metal worker for Metcon industries, hence he had a formed opinion against guerrilla actions, notwithstanding in during this interview, he was able to account for contradictory points of view found among Villa Con´ stitucion’s working class. Luis Segovia, during 1975s strike addressed an open letter to workers that reads: Today, comrades, I do realize why violence exists. If there’s violence [it] is because rich people ´ breed it with exploitation, with methods akin to those currently used in Villa Constitucion. They’ve planted violence, so I think they will harvest the kernel they’ve sowed. (quoted in Balech and Winter, 1985, p. 57)

´ UOM’s board able to Luis Segovia was the only member of Villa Constitucion elude the massive detentions on March 20, 1975, and because of his board position he was able to continue organizing the strike. He was also a PRT-ERP militant. Cangiano offers no further proofs based on workers’ attitudes to back up her thesis on workers’ rejection of political or armed radicalization. Part of Cangiano’s line of reasoning can be preserved before empirical facts if we transform it. The dispute we recounted above between the PST and armed organizations in several assembly meetings showed that different groups of workers had contradictory attitudes regarding violence. Hence, there is not just one “single” attitude among workers as she establishes. In our case study, the group of workers we were able to observe expressed both sympathy and rejection attitudes.27 The available sources, in contrast, show that the level of number of people taking part in armed actions is lower when these rise above the movement’s given level of social demands (consisting of economic, labor, and union based exigencies), while armed radicalization carried out by organized insurgent groups actually intended a strategic program consisting of pushing social demands beyond their actual limits heading toward an insurrectional or civil war strategy. Armed insurgency actions could also be perceived as contrary to mobilization. Manuel Suarez said during an interview that the seize of the Batall´on de Arsenales 121,“Fray Luis Beltr´an,” on April 13 carried out by PRT-ERP was used to justify the harshest ´ breaking up most of the repression in the surroundings of Villa Constitucion organization of solidarity with metalworkers.28

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´ Several firms in that area had decided to strike on the 14th in support of Villa Constitucion strike, at the time we had called for the area’s Combative Unions Coordinating committee ´ and the meeting to discuss a struggle plan featuring the list of demands for Villa Constitucion surrounding area. But on the 14th the army, under the pretext of seeking guerrilla combatants invaded the town of San Lorenzo in a vast operation of intimidation and control over the factories preventing by force any sort of struggle or Coordinating Committee meeting. (Gallitelli, 2013, p. 94)

´ we find important components of workers In the case of Villa Constitucion, and insurgent militants’ solidarity. It can be found in the dual identity of the latter, for they were both workers and elected union leaders as well as insurgency militants. The fact that many armed actions were carried out as a way of endorsing strikes movements could be indicative of the other. But, by no means can we directly deduct from this that rank and file workers immediately identified their strikes and downed their tools with ideologically revolutionary objectives. Strikes could be acknowledged as an increasingly egalitarian form of distribution, hence not impugning of the capitalist system, even if, at that time this was an actual challenge to the system no matter what the mobilization’s spoken intentions were. Despite this level of radicalization expressed by some actors during this cycle of protest, these trends should consider the dominant historical culture of the working class (as a whole, not just that of radicalized fractions) at the time: labor interests and demands’ satisfaction had to be accomplished within the boundaries of reformist nationalism.

CONCLUSION Insurgent violence, social violence, and the genocide perpetrated by the military government in Argentina are, together with Peronism, fundamental issues to the political history of Argentina still. The prevalence of opposing understandings within this field of study is evocative of the actors and the context. Studies of the process of political armed struggle and the subsequent genocide have not yet been systematized and evaluated using rules of validation within the social science. This chapter helps contribute to this line of work. A central question in this field of studies is to elucidate the type of relationship established between the growth of armed struggles and violence as an emergence of social unrest. A way to study this problem is to analyze social movements’ behavior when armed contentions intensify, considering labor to be a relevant social force in this political process. Did workers or other popular social sectors support guerrilla organizations in Argentina? What was the interconnection between working-class and armed ´ insurgent struggle? Villa Constitucion’s strikes and labor mobilizations were harshly confronted with a trade-unionism structure defended by the Peronist government. In 1974, factory floor occupations were violent actions with mass participation. We found less violent and more defensive actions during 1975s down tools. Simultaneously, armed insurgent action grew and the scale of repression rose above previous levels. If indeed the struggle’s broader picture teamed workers and insurgent organizations together against management and

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government, workers and insurgent militants’ analytical paths differed. Hence, we should conclude that armed struggle radicalization is not to be taken as a sole and direct criterion to evaluate a process of social contention. Wickham-Crowley suggests that both success and failure of Latin American insurgencies are determined by structural, political, and cultural factors. The question of labor support to insurgent armed struggle should be assessed concerning the subjective options. We have given proof of a considerable degree of heterogeneity regarding labor’s interconnection to violence without falling in the confusion of combative labor mobilization and insurgent vanguards.

NOTES 1. Mar´ın (1996) and Moyano (1999) analyze this process as a “civil war.” 2. The case study is focused on the new Peronist government years (1973–1976). 3. On shop-floor organizations and their role in Argentina’s labor movement see Doyon (2005), James (1981), and Basualdo (2009). 4. Despite the government’s prohibition to elect renewed Peronist leaders for trade union posts, most unions were unable to successfully carry it out. 5. The most relevant insurgent guerrilla organizations in the 1969–1976 cycle were Montoneros, revolutionary Peronists, Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas (FAP), Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores-Ej´ercito Revolucionario del Pueblo, Marxist guevarists, (PRT-ERP), Organizaci´on Comunista Poder Obrero (OCPO), a unification of laborist Marxists groups, and Fuerzas Argentinas de Liberaci´on (FAL), Marxists Leninists. A first guerrilla movement was initiated in 1959 by a small group named Uturuncos, which was defeated shortly after some focos will appear in the rural north of Argentina. There was a similar experience in 1963, by the Ej´ercito Guerrillero del Pueblo (EGP). For references on the abovementioned groups, see Pozzi (2001), PRT-ERP; Grenat (2011), FAL; Salas (2003), Uturuncos; Rot (2000), EGP; Mohaded (2009), OCPO; Gillespie (1998), Montoneros; Raimundo (2004), FAP. ´ 6. The literature about Villa Constitucion’s case is quite variated. The main systematic investigations in this topic were made by Balech and Winter (1985), Cangiano (1996), Andujar (1996), Santella (2008), and Basualdo (2010). These contributions were the starting point for some political essays, such as Crivaro (2018) and Barraza (2018). There are also rich narratives from militants and workers involved in the events, e.g., Paulon (2012), Porcu (2005), Kalauz (2008), and Schulman (n.d.). In the same vein, Rodriguez and Videla (2013) edited a remarkable anthology. 7. On the city’s productive and demographic changes see Videla (1985). 8. “Informe del comit´e de lucha,” published by Nuevo Hombre, IV, 60, April 3, 1974, in a spreadsheet. Political publications collection, Folder F1-C-110, CEDINCI Archive. 9. Angel Porcu (2005) provides a detailed recall of labor militancy. The author was a metal worker union activist as well as a PRT-ERP militant. 10. Facts drown from Andrew Graham-Yool (1989, p. 249). 11. The report “Informe del comit´e de lucha” features a detailed account and chronology of the events. On Villazo, see Santella (2008). Here we focus on the relationship between labor and violence during these events of labor protest. In the same way, we will address the second case of labor contention against the repression of March 1975. Toward the end of this chapter, we will discuss our analytical differences with Andrea Andujar and Mar´ıa Cecilia Cangiano, reference authors in this field. 12. See note 8. 13. On June 4 that same year workers went on strike to protest against the assassination of three workers in Pacheco (Province of Buenos Aires), Avanzada Socialista, 107, (1974), p. 10. Political publications collection folder F1-C-110, CEDINCI.

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14. “Militant regards,” in Balech and Winter (1985, p. 70). 15. Schulman (n.d.); Mario Hern´andez’s interview with Pepe Kalauz, 1998; Interview with Negro, 2001. 16. Our registry shows for the entire conflict 64 verbal collective actions (pay up ads, communications, and declarations) published in La Capital by metallurgic workers and their support alliance, against 34 verbal actions from the government and supportive of the operation. 17. Despite what La Capital informed, for a broader picture we should put this information in perspective crossing it with oral sources. For a broader analysis in this line of argumentation see Santella (2008). ´ 18. For more information on this organization in Villa Constitucion’s labor movement see its Struggle Committee militant’s testimony, Kalauz (2008). 19. Avanzada Socialista, 140, March 29, 1975, p. 9, quoted folder, CEDINCI. 20. Avanzada Socialista, 147, May 24, 1975, p. 8, quoted folder, CEDINCI. 21. El Combatiente, 163, April 14, 1975, in De Santis (2000, p. 146). 22. El Obrero, 13, July 1975, p. 10, CEDINCI. ´ 23. Interview with Quique Cordoba, August 2001. 24. Schulman (n.d., p. 31). We reproduce almost literally an interview with Mart´ın, a ´ leader of the Uni´on Ferroviaria and Villa Constitucion’s CGT. Authors’ private archives. 25. Andujar (1996, pp. 117–120). “Their premises were to always defend workers. Every tendency (political organization) wanted to defend workers.… But the people, the majority of workers, did not want that. Because if it was a syndicalism struggle, entirely workingclass, nobody wanted the tendencies involved. They did not allow it and they told that to ´ Cabezon’s [Alberto Piccinini] face” (p. 119). “Given the fact that most of the people belonged to one or other party, when from time to time someone from the justicialismo raised his voice to say something they all shushed him down. Because they did not want to mix the conflict they had with politics. They wanted to solve their conflict in another way, without mixing it with politics” (p. 120). Alberto Piccinini makes reference to these tensions regarding political organizations in an interview published by Balech and Winter (1985, pp. 34–35). 26. Interview with Roberto Kalauz, March 1998. 27. This hypothesis drew support from an interview with Ricardo Gomez, August 2001. ´ Ricardo Gomez was a Peronist leader in Villa Constitucion’s UOM before 1970, hence confronted to the Brown list group led by Alberto Piccinini, who in November 1974 won UOM’s elections. 28. Author’s interview, August 2001.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author thanks Florencia Rodriguez for the English translation and the two anonymous referees for the valuable comments. An important mention should be made to Brett Clark, Tamar Diana Wilson, and Paul Zarembka for advice and patience with editing this chapter.

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INDEX Abstract labor, 63, 67–71, 82–83 life, 62, 85–88 mind, 60–61, 67–71 system, 61–62 Abstraction of mind, 60 process, 62 Abstractness of social “second nature”, 69 Academic knowledge production, 17–18 Acindar, 191–192 Adorno, Theodor, 71 Advertisement using animal symbols, 25 Aesthetics, 167–174 Affirmative ideology, 166 Agribusiness of landowner ethics, 176–178 Agriculture, 163–167 Alienated speciesism, 3 Amazon warehouses, 85 Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times (Shukin), 16 Animal Machines (Harrison), 127 Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation (Nibert), 12, 134 Animal welfare, 108–109, 108 implementation in learning and embedded markets, 115–117 as social cost, 117 Animal-based commodities in capitalism, 17–18 Animal(s), 22, 25, 86 as biotic community, 167–169

capital, 11, 16–26 ethics, 108–109 exploitation and oppression, 15 as “functional biomachines”, 85–88 harm, 108 harming, 42 “Anthropocene, the”, 14 Anthropocentrism, 148–154 Apocalypse, 64–65 Arendt, Hannah, 35 Argentina, 184 labor and violence in, 186–190 studies on violence in, 186 ´ 190–192 Villa Constitucion, Villazo, repression and armed struggles, 192–200 Aristotle, 48 Armed struggles in Argentina, 192–200 Artificial insemination, 42 Artificial life, 66–67 on dead planet, 74–76 Artificial nature, 34 Artificial trees, 88–94 Astor, John Jacob, 128–129 Aya, Rod, 185 Balcombe, Jonathan, 39 Battery chickens, 86 Bekoff, Marc, 39 BHP, 93 Biodiversity, 177–178 Bioethics, 108–109 Biopolitical sovereignty, 12 Biotic community, 167–169 Blake, William, 38 ¨ Bluhdorn, Ingolfur, 94 “Boundless Bull”, 45 Bourgeault, Ron, 130 205

206

Bourgeois class, 84–85 Bowring, Finn, 62, 77, 85–86, 94–95 Boyd, William, 63 Braverman, Harry, 63 Brazil, 41–42 Brazilian State of Mato Grosso, 43–44 ¨ Brugger, Paul, 3–4 Burket, Paul, 22–24 Cangiano, Maria Cecilia, 198–199 Capital, 22, 62–63, 79, 84, 96 abstracts, 80 of animal capital, 26 indifference of, 76–85 productive labor for, 78 subsumption of science by, 71–74 Capital (Marx), 1–2, 11, 19–20, 70, 84 Capital–animal relation, 23 Capitalism, 1–2, 12–13, 16–17, 26, 60–61, 69, 138, 164, 173–174 Capitalist agricultural methods, 138, 145–146, 149 agriculture, 62–63 commodification of animals, 3 process of circulation, 19–20 production, 62–63 system, 1–2 Capitalocene, 95 Carbon capture, 91–92 Carbon Engineering, 91–92 Carson, Rachel, 88 Cartesian concept of “animal machine”, 38 Cats, 39–40 Caudwell, Christopher, 69 Cecil (lion), 45 Charlton, A., 45–46 Cheap labor, 129–133 power, 126–127 Cheap Nature, 126, 134–135 Cheap raw materials, 127–129

INDEX

Chevron Technology Ventures, 93 Circular hunts, 143 Clark, Brett, 126, 127 Class exploitation, 19 C—M—C formula, 20 Co-modification of nonhuman animals, 40–45 Colony collapse disorder, 89 Commercialization of universities, 74 Commodification, 97, 108, 113 of animals, 43–44, 125–126 changing scenario through education, 45–50 contemporary commodification of fur-bearing animals, 133–134 of labor power, 21 of nature, 34–36 Commodity, 1–2 exchange, 69 fetishism, 69 Common sense morality, 109–110 Commoner, Barry, 62–63, 92–93 Comte, Auguste, 67 Conclusive evidence, 89–90 Confederaci´on General del Trabajo (CGT), 184–185, 188–189, 192–193 Confederaci´on General Econ´omica (CGE), 188–189 Consciousness in nonhuman animals, 38–40 Consented Instrumentalization, 111 Consented objectification. See Selfobjectification Conservation history, 163 new vision of, 163–167 problem on private land, 172 Conservation Ethic, The, 173–174 Contemporary acceleration, 35 Contemporary planetary crisis, 37–38 Coordinadoras Gremiales de Buenos Aires, 184–185

INDEX

Cordobazo, 188–189 Corporeal continuity and distinction, 1 “Counter producing” effects, 199 COVID-19 pandemic, 82–83 Crick, Francis, 74 “Critique of the Gotha Program”, 149 “Cultural-materialist analysis” of animal capital, 16 Culture of abstraction, 3–4, 59–61 Daly, Herman, 45, 48 Darling, Jay “Ding”, 172 Darling, Jay Norwood, 151 Darwin, Charles, 39 Davis, Karen, 85–86 De Angelis, Massimo, 82 Dead planet, 66–67 artificial life on, 74–76 Debord, Guy, 61–62 “Degradation” of work, 63 Descartes, Ren´e, 2 and objectification of nature and nonhuman animals, 36–38 Deskilling, 80–81 Dewey, John, 116–117 Dick, Philip. K., 65, 66 Direct Air Capture technology, 91–92 Direct wage, 129–130 Disaster capitalism, 74–76 Discourse on the Method (Descartes), 36–37 DNA sequence, 86 Dogs, 39–40 Dolin, Eric Jay, 127, 129 Donaldson, Sue, 13, 114 Double Movement, 116–117 Dystopia, 64–65 Ecological/ecology, 167–174 aesthetic, 169–171 conscience, 171–174 of nonliving, 88–94 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, The, 62

207

Economic/economy consequences, 89–90 modernization, 188 objectification, 108 production, 17–18 three-level model for animal instrumentalization in, 110–113 Ecosystems, 40–45 Education, changing scenario through, 45–50 Edwards, Murray, 93 Elton, Charles, 175–176 Embedded markets, animal welfare implementation in, 115–117 Endangered Species Act, 175, 177–178 Engels, Frederick, 67, 83 Entrepreneurial innovation, 71 Environment(al), 37 crisis, 38 degradation of Earth, 76 education, 47 Epistemology, 69 Ethics, 167–174 Euro-Americans, 142–143 relationship, 138 European Union, 51, 89–90 Experiential learning, 116 Exploitation, 108, 113 Exploitative objectification, 114 Externalities, 93–94 Extinction, 138, 139, 140–141, 143, 156 Fachos, 198 Factory society, 83 ´ Obrera Regional Federacion Argentina (FORA), 193–194 Fordism, 74 Fossil capital, 14–15 Foster, John Bellamy, 64, 126–127, 177 Francione, Gary, 13, 45–46

208

Franklin, Rosalind, 74 “Functional biomachines”, animals as, 85–88 Fur farming, 133 Fur trapping, 126 Fur-bearing animals, contemporary commodification of, 133–134 Galileo, 69 Game Management, 170 Gates, Bill, 93 Gene editing, 87–88 Genetically modified (transgenic) livestock, 86–87 Geoengineering, 75 Gilpin, William, 143 Glyphosate, 43–44 Gore, Al, 150 Government provision, 174–175 regulation, 163, 165–166 Greek, R., 43 Greer, Allan, 130–131 Habitat destruction, 44 Hardt, Michael, 16–17, 83 Harman, Chris, 74 Harrison, Ruth, 127 Heterodox economic analysis, 116 Homestead Act, 143–144 Horkheimer, Max, 10, 71 Hudson Bay Company, 126–127 Human(s), 13–14, 16 capitalist class, 11 consciousness, 64 exploitation and oppression, 15 resource, 50 Human–animal abstraction, 11–16 relations, 111 Human–nonhuman animal relationships, 1 Hunters, 145

INDEX

sport hunters creation in United States, 145–148 Hunting industry, 145 Imperialism, 12–13 Indifference, 96 of capital, 76–85 Industrial Revolution, 14 Industrial workers community, 190–191 Inertial motion, 69 Instrumentalities, 40 Instrumentalization, 108 of nature, 51 Instrumentalization of animals, 107–108 theoretical background, 113–115 three-level model for, 110–113 Intraspecific selective speciesism, 40 Intratribal violence, 127–128 Jacobson, Brynna, 3–4 JBS, 17, 25–26 Juan Carlos Mar´ın, 194–195 Jungle, The (Sinclair), 9–11, 26, 86 Kallis, Giorgos, 23 Kantian philosophy, 107–108, 114–115 Kantian roots of objectification, 108 Kardulias, P. Nick, 131 Kevlar, 87–88 Keynesianism, 74 Klein, Naomi, 74–75 Knowledge economy, 71 Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, 87–88 Kymlicka, Will, 13, 114 Labor in Argentina, 186–190 power, 70 resistance, 195 Laborers, 21 Labour, 68

INDEX

Land as biotic community, 167–169 as commodity and right of wildlife, 174–176 Land/landowner ethic, 162 agribusiness, wildlife, and limitation of, 176–178 ecology, aesthetics, and ethics, 167–174 Latham, Rob, 84 Learning, animal welfare implementation in, 115–117 Lenin, V. I., 70–71 Leopold, Aldo, 3–4, 140–141, 147–148, 150–151, 161–164 components of land ethic idea, 167–174 game program, 165 interest in ethical consumerism and product labeling, 166–167 land as commodity and right of wildlife, 174–176 wild husbandry, 164–165 Levidow, Les, 62–63 Lewontin, Richard, 177 Leyk, Wolfgang, 3–4 Live export, 42 Livestock, 44, 139 creation, 141–145 wolves and people before, 139–141 Living dead, 64 LLC, 93 Locke, John, 142, 148–149 Logos-Eros disruption, 38 Lynch, Merrill, 45 ‘M-C-M’ formula, 1–2, 80 Macbeth (Shakespeare), 50–51 Macdonald, Bradley J., 3 Maintenance, 129–130 Malm, Andreas, 13–14 Manfredo, 151–152 Manual labor, 69

209

Marcuse, Herbert, 3–4, 34–36, 38, 42, 48–49, 51–52, 71 Market relation, 19–20 Marshall, Robert, 150 Marx, Karl, 1–2, 19–20, 62, 66–67, 76, 78–79, 84, 95–96, 127, 131–132, 141–142, 148–149 formal and real subsumption of labor, 63 Marx and Nature (Burket), 23–24 Marxism, 59–60 Mass commodification, 113 “Master”, 70 M—C (L 1 MP) …P (L 1 MP) …C’ (C 1 c)—M’ (M 1 m) formula, 21–22, 24 McIntosh, Robert, 168–169 ‘M—C—M’ (M 1 m) formula, 20 Meat industry, 86 Meillassoux, Claude, 129–130 Meine, Curt, 162 Mental conception, 69 Metcon industries, 191 Mexican Gray wolves, 154 Microresistances, 52 Militaristic “barrack-like discipline”, 70 Mills, C. Wright, 96 Mink farming, 133 Money, 81, 83, 95–96 Montoneros, 198–199 Moore, Jason W., 95–96, 126 Muir, Bill, 66–67 Mule Deer Foundation, 147–148 ¨ Mutherich, Birgit, 13 Mutual benefit, 111–112 Mycoplasma genitalium, 76–77 Nanotechnology, 34–35 Nash, Roderick, 162–163, 175 National Game Conference, 165 Natural production, 17–18 Nature, 84–85 commodication of, 34–36

210

objectification of, 36–38 of things, 36 Necroculture, 95 Neglected preferences, 108 Negri, Antonio, 16–17, 83 Neonicotinoids, 90 Nibert, David, 12–13, 134 Nonhuman animals co-modification, 40–45 objectification of, 36–38 speciesism, sentience, and consciousness in, 38–40 Nonliving, ecology of, 88–94 Nonreflexivity of simple modernization, 61 “NooSkins”, 64–65 Northwest Company, 126–127 Nylon, 87–88 Objectification, 113 in economic theory, 111 of nature, 51 Objectification of animals, 107–110 three-level model, 110–113 Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, 93 Paradigm shift, 113–115 Paradoxically intensive livestock farming, 114 Parody of amorousness, 84 People before private land and livestock, 139–141 Peronism, 184, 188, 190 “Peronist issue”, 188 “Pigoons”, 64–65 Pigs, 39–40 Pinchot, Gifford, 150 “Plague of sameness”, 94 Plants as biotic community, 167–169 Polanyi, K., 116–117 Political violence, 184–186, 189–190 Politics (Aristotle), 48 Pollinators, 91 “Porcopolis”, 26

INDEX

Post-Fordist bioeconomy as disaster capitalism, 74–76 “Pragmatic” natural resource conservation education, 47 Precariousness, 83 Private enterprise, 165–166, 174–175 land, 139–141 landowners, 141–145 property, 146 property rights, 148–154 Productive labor for capital, 78 Prudham, W. S., 63 Public control, 174–175 Pure science, 73–74 Quantification of nature, 36 Radical chains, 83 Ranchers, 145, 147–148 Real abstraction, 59–60, 64, 68–69 Real subsumption of life, 76–85 Reasonable value, 116–117 “Reciprocal” process, 66 Reconstitution, 129–130 Red Brigades, 197 Regulation, 173 Relational Trialogue during Exchange, 116 Replacement, 129–130 Repression, 189 in Argentina, 192–200 Research on animals, 108 Reverse speciesist approach, 13–14 Revolutionary violence, conceptual frameworks on, 185–186 Revolutionary war, 189 Robotic bees, 88–94 Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, 146–147, 154–155 Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, 154–155 Romero, Luis Alberto, 185 Roosevelt, Theodore, 145–146, 150

INDEX

Roy, S. Paul, 132 Rude, Matthias, 11–12 Rupture process, 1, 34 Rush, Benjamin, 145 Ryder, Richard, 38–39 Safari Club International, 146–147 Sanbonmatsu, John, 12–13, 76 Sand County, 166–168, 172 Santella, Agust´ın, 3–4 Santos, Milton, 34–35 Santucho, Mario Roberto, 194–195 Schmitt, Alfred, 96 Science, 67, 70–72 Science-based technology, 60–61 Scientific neutrality, 73–74 Scientific socialism, 67 Scott, S., 131–133 Segovia, Luis, 199 Selective speciesism, 39–40 Self-instrumentalization, 111 Self-objectification, 109–110 Self-operating production process, 60–61 “Self-valorizing value” capital, 76 Sellfare, 112–113 Semi-proletarianization of peasantry, 130 Sensuous external world, 84–85 Sentience in nonhuman animals, 38–40 Separation of mind. See Abstraction of mind Shakespeare, William, 50–51 Shanks, N., 43 Shukin, Nicole, 11, 16–17, 25 approach to animal capital, 17–18 Silent Spring (Carson), 88 Simon, Alexander, 3–4 Simple modernization, 61, 71–72 Sinclair, Upton, 9–11, 26, 86 Sine qua non condition, 50 Singer, Peter, 13, 40 Slaughter, 112

211

Slavery and abolition, 108 Smith, Hamilton, 77 Smulewicz-Zucker, Gregory R., 96–97 Social division of labor, 60 life, 111–112 production and distribution, 15 relations, 27 synthesis, 60–61 Social cost, animal welfare as, 117 Socialism, 26–28 Society of appropriation, 60–61 Sociological theory of oppressed groups, 12 Sohn-Rethel, Alfred, 59–60, 69–71 Southern Right Whale species (Eubalaena australis), 49–50 Speciesism in nonhuman animals, 38–40 Sport hunters creation in United States, 145–148 Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, 146–147 Spraakman, Gary, 132 Stache, Christian, 3–4 Steel, Bethlehem, 81 Stem cells, 86–87 Stock, Gregory, 77 “Strains of livestock”, 87 Strikes,, 188–189, 191–195, 197 Structural violence, 83 Subsistence hunting cultures, 139–140 Subsumption of science by capital, 71–74 Sulfoxaflor, 90 Surplus value, 20 Sustainable development, 47–48 Systemic thinking, 50 Szeliga, 11–12 Taylorist–Fordist methods, 74–75 Technologization of production, 70–71

212

Thorpe, Charles, 3–4 Three-level model for animal instrumentalization, 110–113 commodification, 113 consented instrumentalization, 111 exploitation, 113 mass commodification, 113 objectification, 113 permitted instrumentalization with Economic Purpose, 111–113 self-instrumentalization, 111 Tilly, Charles, 186 ¨ Tonnies, 17, 25–26 Torre, Juan Carlos, 192 Torres, Bob, 13 Toscano, Alberto, 59–60, 95 Tout court, 37–38 Transgenic organisms, 34–35 Trautlein, Donald, 81 Trees, 94 Tyson Foods Inc., 17, 25–26 Union Civica Radical (UCR), 192 Union Coordinating Committee of Buenos Aires. See Coordinadoras Gremiales de Buenos Aires Union Obrera Metal´urgica (UOM), 184–185, 188, 191, 193 United States, 139–140 sport hunters creation in, 145–148 United States Environmental Protection Agency, 89–90 Urban-based environmentally conscious class creation, 148–154 Urbanization, 149, 151 Value, 20, 68 Veganism, 26–27 Vegetation, 88–89 ´ 184–185, 190–192, Villa Constitucion, 200

INDEX

Armed Contentions, 197 Villazo in Argentina, 192–200 Violence in Argentina, 186–190 “Virtual extinction of some species”, 129 Voltaire, 38 von Clausewitz, Carl, 12 Wadiwel, Dinesh, 12–13, 23 Wage Labour and Capital (Marx), 24 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 132, 184 War against Animals, The (Dinesh), 12 Warburton, R., 131–133 Warner, Jeremy, 82–83 Watson, James, 74 Welsh, Ian, 94 WH Group, 17, 25–26 Wheeler, Matthew B., 86–87 Whitehead, Alfred North, 59–60 Wickham-Crowley, T. P., 184–185 Wild animal species, 161–162 Wildlife, 163–167 land as commodity and right of, 174–176 of landowner ethics, 176–178 management, 161–163, 170 viewing, 153 Wilkins, Maurice, 74 Wilson, Tamar Diana, 3–4 Wise, Steven, 49 Wolves, 138, 144–145 increasing populations of, 154–155 before private land and livestock, 139–141 Work, 80 degradation of, 63 World Health Organization (WHO), 43–44 Worster, Donald, 163–164 Zootechnics, 46, 47