In contrast, non-domesticated animals are generally – with some exceptions such as zoos and circuses – seen as not belonging to humans.
Whether they are seen as human property or not, however, they are not seen as having a right not to be murdered by humans. Francione argues that, without this right, animals will never receive the respect and compassion they deserve as fellow sentient beings.
Under capitalism workers are exploited but typically enjoy a range of rights. In particular they have a right not to be killed, although under jurisdictions with a death penalty this right can be forfeited.
In most countries, but not all, they have rights to safeguard their health and welfare. In many countries they have additional rights as citizens – to form unions and other associations, free to own property, vote, speak, write, travel, and practise religion.
In some countries (not so many) they have particular employment rights such as not to be dismissed unfairly, and to be paid a minimum wage.
Brink
What they don’t have, of course, is a right not to be exploited. As with animal exploitation, without this right, workers do not generally receive the respect due to them as the creators of wealth: in fact, they are systematically excluded from owning the wealth they create through their labour.
As citizens, they may be able to enjoy relatively high living standards and levels of freedom but as workers they are likely to lack control of their work or ownership of the products of their labour.
So Francione’s argument quoted above can be reinterpreted as follows: the property status of workers under capitalism cannot help but result in devaluing or ignoring workers’ interests, and make equal consideration [of their intrinsic value as human beings] impossible as a practical matter. The analogy between human and animal exploitation can be clearly seen here.
This argument can be extended to the exploitation of nature. Marx’s concern was primarily for humans, and Francione’s for animals, but all sentient beings are embedded in specific ecosystems, which involve complex webs of relationships among humans, non-human animals, plants, fungi, algae, bacteria, viruses, and so on, not to mention inorganic matter of all kinds.
Many and varied scholars have detailed how the untrammelled exploitation of the natural world has brought us to the brink of catastrophic climate change and ecosystem collapse – for example, Moore (2015), Foster and Clark (2020), McGuire (2022).
Extinction
It is not just animals that are endangered but the fabric of life itself. As human activity increasingly encroaches on ecosystems of all kinds, it becomes increasingly difficult for the actors in those systems to follow their natural life paths.
The term ‘ecocide’ has been invented to draw attention to this problem, highlighting the need to establish rights for ecosystems not to be destroyed – not only for them to be protected but for those responsible for their destruction to be held to account (Whyte, 2020).
As Merlin Sheldrake (2020) has shown in the case of mycorrhizal fungi networks, however, ecosystems are still not well understood.
The identity of an ecosystem as an entity or moral subject is difficult to determine with any precision. Attention has tended to focus on avoiding species extinction because obviously this cannot be reversed.
Ecosystems
However, the loss of fertile soil (for example), for a variety of reasons including over-tilling and the application of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, is also a form of nature-killing.
Crucially, humans have a responsibility to manage ecosystems in the interests of all. This argument for responsible ecosystem management applies to all human activity that impacts on ecosystems, especially fossil-fuel burning and mining (Veltmeyer and Petras, 2014; Howe, 2021).
Veganism is clearly a step in the right direction here, in that it requires an end to ecologically damaging industrial livestock farming.
However, it does not go far enough because arable farming and horticulture can also be harmful to ecosystems unless solely agroecological methods are employed – that is, practices that work with and not against existing ecosystems. With this proviso, it is really possible for all exploitation – human, animal and nature more widely – to be abolished.
References
Foster, J. B. (2020) The robbery of nature: Capitalism and the ecological rift. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Francione, G. (2020) Why veganism matters: The moral value of animals. New York/ Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press.
Howe, D. (2021) Extraction to extinction: Rethinking our relationship with Earth’s natural resources. Salford: Saraband.
McGuire, B. (2022) Hothouse Earth: An inhabitant’s guide. London: Icon Books Ltd.
Moore, J. (2015) Capitalism in the web of life: Ecology and the accumulation of capital. London: Verso.
Veltmeyer, H. and Petras, J. (2014) The new extractivism: A post-neoliberal development model or imperialism of the twenty-first century? London/ New York: Zed Books.
Whyte, D. (2020) Ecocide: Kill the corporation before it kills us. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
This Author
Peter Somerville is emeritus professor of social policy at the College of Social Science, University of Lincoln.
