Abolitionism versus New Welfarism: A Contrast in Theory and Practice

[Carolyn Bailey]

Abolitionism versus New Welfarism: A Contrast in Theory and Practice

A Contrast in Theory

Dan Cudahy

The abolitionist approach is a rights-based approach that identifies the core issue of violence
inflicted on innocent sentient beings as rooted in the fact that these
beings are considered property, commodities, and “things” under the
law. This property, commodity, and thing status is at the root of our
“moral schizophrenia” regarding nonhuman beings. As long as nonhuman
beings are considered “things” or commodities that we own instead of
beings like us who have important interests in their lives, we will
continue to torture and kill them by the tens of billions while we
acknowledge that it would be horrific if someone did such things to
young, orphaned children (despite the striking similarities in
mentality, sentience, and innocence among nonhuman beings and young
children). Therefore, the abolitionist approach as currently conceived
advocates a single right for innocent sentient nonhumans: the right not
to be property. But as long as we continue to consume the flesh and
bodily fluids of these beings, this one right can never be achieved.
Therefore, the only way we can break the socially-sanctioned perpetual
holocaust and moral schizophrenia and work toward achieving the one
right for nonhumans is to go vegan and encourage others to do the same.
Therefore, as both a moral and practical matter, vegan education is the
only activity that makes sense if our goal is to achieve a minimum standard of decency and civilization regarding nonhuman beings.

The new welfarist approach, in contrast to the abolitionist approach, is a
utilitarian-based approach and a bizarre and confusing hodgepodge of
traditional welfarism and “animal liberation” philosophy. On one hand,
new welfarists want to “liberate” animals from the tyranny of “factory
farms”. On the other hand, new welfarists (amazingly) see regulating
the perpetual holocaust as one way to achieve such “liberation”
(despite 200 years of welfarism resulting in ever increasing cruelty,
both in the severity and the mind-boggling numbers of victims). New
welfarists engage in ‘vegan’ education, but because treatment rather
than use is the primary issue for them, new welfarists generally see
veganism as a (temporary?) “boycott of cruelty” and as merely a(n)
(optional?) “tool to reduce suffering” rather than as a minimum
standard of decency.

The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions and a Permanent Non-profit Business Cycle: Welfarists
“Versus” Industry’s Strength

Industry’s strength is its financial wealth and power, which translates into media,
advertising, and information power, as well as political and
legislative power. Industry’s weakness is that it is
morally deplorable and environmentally disastrous (the eco-disaster
will become ever more obvious as huge Asian markets increase demand for
animal products). We cannot defeat an opponent of industry’s size and
power by mostly avoiding their weakness and attempting to take on their
strength, yet this is exactly what the new welfarist movement tries to
do.

With welfare reform campaigns, the new welfarist movement seeks to at least weaken industry through legislation, and more
ambitiously, legislate and regulate industry away. Most new welfarists
call their approach the “two track” approach, and they believe that
regulations are an integral part of ‘dismantling’ the giant. One track
for them is ‘vegan’ education (albeit ‘vegan’ being merely a ‘boycott’
or ‘tool’); the other is welfare regulation.

But this approach of making welfare regulation a substantial part of eliminating animal
agriculture plays to industry’s strength by 1) taking them on where
they’re strong (in politics, legislation, and deal-making; see above), 2) diverting resources from the attack on where they are weak (diverting from vegan education), and 3) reinforcing the legal structure and regulated property rights paradigm that animal exploitation is founded upon.

As long as animals are considered property and commodities, it is
impossible to balance their interests fairly against human interests.
This is not “merely legal theory”, as some new welfarists claim it is (although even in legal theory alone
the property status problem is overwhelmingly supported as
insurmountable due to the legal trumping power of property rights over
regulations, as a matter of the inherent hierarchy of legal concepts
[which have very real consequences]).

Rather, we also have overwhelming empirical evidence that this is the case by observing the endless efforts over centuries
to regulate chattel slavery, which remained viciously cruel to its very
end. As additional evidence, animal welfare laws have been attempting
to regulate use for 200 years now, and animals are treated more cruelly
and in greater numbers now than ever.

Although we don’t need a slave history scholar to vouch for the utter failure of slave welfare
laws and reforms, there is a preeminent non-vegan slave history legal
scholar, Alan Watson, who entirely agrees with Gary Francione 1) on
this historical empirical fact and 2) that the property status problem
will prevent meaningful change in the use and treatment of animals
until it is abolished. To quote Professor Francione in Animals As Persons
(p. 162), “The interests of slaves will never be viewed as similar to
the interests of slave owners. The interests of animals [who] are
property will never be viewed as similar to those of human property
owners.”

More and more regulations add a regulating structure to animal exploitation supported eventually by more bureaucracy, more
inspector jobs, and more ‘legitimacy’ to the entire enterprise, entrenching animals ever deeper into property and commodity status.
It’s true that more regulations put short-term profit margin pressure
on industry, but industry is very resilient and has a number of options
to restore the profit margins, including moving to less restrictive
legal jurisdictions (including other international jurisdictions).

On top of regulations reinforcing the property/commodities paradigm, we
should ask, what message do these welfare regulation campaigns send to
the public? The message, when the regulations are promoted by so-called
animal ‘rights’ organizations, is that animals are here for us to
exploit and kill, we just have to do it more ‘humanely’ by regulating
it more. Also, once the welfare law, regulation, or agreement is made
(but usually not enforced), the false public perception is that we are
exploiting and killing more ‘humanely’ (so you can feel a little
better; after all, there are ‘inspectors’ looking after every animal as
if she were his own daughter). Does it shift the paradigm at all? No,
it obviously doesn’t. In fact, people feel better than ever about
animals as commodities.

What motivation does a new welfarist organization have to do these campaigns? Victories! And the ‘victories’
lead to more donations, permanently supporting the organization’s basic
business cycle. If the campaign is directly ‘against’ a particular
exploiter, such as in the case of KFC Canada and PETA, PETA will
actually do a public relations campaign on behalf of the exploiter as part of the deal.
PETA wins with a ‘victory’ to brag about to their donors, leading to
the endless cycle of more donations and campaigns. KFC Canada wins PETA
approval. The customers win being happily duped into believing that
KFC’s chickens are treated ‘humanely’. The animals? Well, PETA, KFC
Canada, and KFC’s customers just struck a great deal; what more do you
want?

Consider the case of HSUS (a traditional welfarist organization) and Farm Sanctuary and California’s Proposition 2 in
November of 2008. HSUS and Farm Sanctuary bragged about getting Prop 2
passed, which doesn’t come into effect until 2015, and when and if it
does, will not result in a significant decrease in suffering
(especially compared to the public perception of the decrease).
Further, if some exploiters don’t like Prop 2, they will merely
relocate to another state or to Mexico and ship the product into
California. For more on welfare and single-issue campaigns that are so
popular with new welfarist organizations, see Picking the Low Hanging Fruit: What Is Wrong with Single-Issue Camp...

It is interesting to note that HSUS and PETA sell their welfare reforms to
industry based on how profitable they will be for industry to
implement, essentially acting as strategic advisers. Some of the
welfare reforms, like “controlled atmosphere killing” and crate
elimination, are things industry was planning on doing anyway for
profitability. For solid evidence of the industry-welfarist partnership
in action, see the various links in Four Problems with Welfare in a Nutshell.

Ultimately, as Gary Francione has said countless times, it is a zero-sum game.
Every effort made and every dollar spent by a vegan or a pro-vegan
organization on welfarism is effort and a dollar directed away from
vegan education. Vegan education efforts are causally connected to
welfare concerns, but the reverse is not true. Welfare concerns are not causally
connected to vegan education. Only vegan education itself creates new
vegans. Currently, far too much money and effort of the animal movement
goes toward welfarism (for abolitionists, no resources should go to welfarism).

For more reading on this, the following are some links:

Gary Francione’s analysis of Prop 2

Gary Francione’s reply to new welfarist Martin Balluch

The Great ‘Victory’ of New Welfarism

The Industry-Welfarist Partnership

The Road to Justice Is Paved with Creative, Non-violent Vegan Education: Abolitionists Versus Industry’s Weakness

I stated in the previous section that the animal agriculture industry’s
strength is its wealth and size, which results in political,
legislative, media, and deal-making power. Its weakness is that it is
morally deplorable and environmentally disastrous, and that vegan
living is deeply satisfying, delightful, and healthy. Most people,
however, are unaware of exactly what industry does; how cruel it is
both in intensity and magnitude; what speciesism is and how identical
it is to racism, sexism, heterosexism and other prejudices; and how,
why, and in what specific ways industry is so disastrous to the
environment. Most people are also unaware of how delicious and
satisfying vegan food is, especially in 2009, with more options
available than ever. The possibilities for education are immense, if
only we would direct more resources toward them.

There are three (or four, depending on how you count them) prime areas of vegan
education, which combined, would provide overwhelmingly strong,
positive reasons for insisting on the permanent elimination of animal
agriculture, and to which industry and the general public has no
adequate rebuttal (“but they taste good” sounds absurd in light of
these three areas of vegan education).

The Moral Issue

Two people of approximately similar intelligence, but of different race or
sex should be granted equal consideration regarding their important
interest in a university education based solely on their similar
intelligence. The irrational cultural prejudice of racism and sexism
ignores the morally relevant similarity of intelligence in favor of
recognizing the irrelevant difference of race or sex.

In the same way, two beings of approximately equal sentience, but of different
species should be granted equal consideration regarding their important
interest in not being enslaved, exploited, or slaughtered based solely
on their similar sentience. The irrational cultural prejudice of
speciesism ignores the morally relevant similarity of similar sentience
in favor of recognizing the irrelevant difference of species.

We are not very deep into moral philosophy here. Indeed, a dim-witted 10
year-old should not have any problem comprehending the moral argument
above. Why doesn’t the animal rights and vegan movement broadcast this
basic and irrefutable argument constantly over years, like a well-known
advertisement, until it becomes part of the general public’s collective
psyche, as a major component of vegan education? Industry’s only reply
would be to restate their irrational prejudice. Granted, in our era,
the public generally shares industry’s bigotry on the matter, but over
time, it should be increasingly difficult to embrace the prejudice in
any serious discussion. Eventually, the truth of the matter will weigh
heavily on the conscience of decent people, and change will result,
perhaps more rapidly than most of us might think likely today.

The Environmental Issue

As set forth in my blog essay entitled On the Environmental Disaster of Animal Agriculture and the important links therein, it is obvious that animal agriculture is the single worst enemy of the environment and a sustainable future.

As animal agribusiness grows into Asian and other markets, adding three billion or more people as customers and quadrupling the number of animals bred, raised,
and slaughtered from the current number of approximately 50 billion
annually, it is clear that the long-term effects (perhaps even the
short-term effects) will bring the Earth’s biosphere into collapse. We
simply cannot afford the gluttonous excesses that the combination of
animal agriculture and modern technology has enabled. Our survival as a
species depends on waking up to animal agriculture’s impact on the
future.

Vegan Food and Nutrition

In addition to most people being completely ignorant of the shocking and horrific
details of the lives of ‘food’ animals, speciesism, and the
environmental disaster created by animal agriculture, most people have
no idea what vegans eat or how nutritious and satisfying vegan diets
are or can be. Fortunately, there are a lot of great vegan food blogs
on the Net these days, and well-planned vegan diets are endorsed by the
American Dietetic Association and similar mainstream, science-based
organizations. But there is still tremendous untapped opportunity for
vegan culinary and nutrition education, including education on
deleterious effects of the standard American diet on public health,
which is high in damaging animal fats, including cholesterol. Anybody
who makes it easier for non-vegans to go vegan is doing effective vegan
education in that respect.

Vegan Education and New Welfarists

As I stated in the previous section, new welfarists engage in what they
call “two-track activism”, one track being vegan education and the
other being welfare reform. So, as a secondary activity to welfare
reform advocacy, new welfarists are already engaged in many activities
that fall into the above categories. But to the extent that they spend
time and money on welfare reform or single-issue campaigns when the
opportunity for vegan education in society is so unimaginably vast,
they inflict a severe opportunity cost on genuine societal progress.
That’s not even to mention the confused and contradictory message they
send that I mentioned above, which acts not merely to forgo
opportunity, but is counterproductive and regressive.

For a deeper exploration of the topic of abolitionism versus new welfarism, consider reading the following links:

Gary Francione on vegan education

Gary Francione and Anna Charlton’s abolitionist pamphlet (it’s also available in several other languages)

Boston Vegan Association’s (excellent) pamphlet

In praise of vegan food blogs

Vegan Education - Part 1

Vegan Education - Part 2