Not vegan so correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought the whole point of veganism was an objection to the non-consensual use of animal products. Humans are aware of the use of their labor and consent to it, exploitation by circumstance notwithstanding.
I don't work voluntarly tho, i have to work because otherwise i am gonna be homeless and i can't get food
I do not consent, no. I only go to work because otherwise I am threatened by homelessness.
Don't forget starvation, disease and untimely death.
Consent is a bad metric because it ignores externalities—stuff like economic incentives, implicit threats of loss of basic needs, propaganda, trauma. Someone can be said to consent to exploitation, even if they only did so to continue surviving under oppressive economies/states. I "consent" to have the value of my labor extracted, pooled, and distributed to business owners in the same way I "consent" to the privacy policies (and the sale of my Personally Identifying Information) of the software the company I work for requires us to use (to remain employed)
That's why I prefer focusing on exploitation. Someone doesn't have to know they're being exploited, agree that they're being exploited, nor even want to not be exploited for it to still be unjust to exploit them and identify when it is happening. Veganism is a stance against animal exploitation.
i do think that "voluntary" is a pretty clear term. would you still do it if it didn't cost you anything, and it also didn't get you any physical reward?
The problem I have with "voluntary" is that someone can still fall into the category of being exploited, either willingly or without their knowledge, and still happily and voluntarily participate in an unjust relationship
and this is what i don't get. if somebody likes being exploited, then why not let them?
Good question. I have my own opinions, but I'd be more interested in hearing what reasons you can come up with (and any counterarguments you have to them), so I'm gonna challenge you to do that while slogging through all my disorganized brain droppings.
My biggest issue with "let people be exploited if they want" is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. If the world was two people, one who seeks to exploit and the other who seeks to be exploited, then I don't really care; in our world, it's a bad basis for society to allow for injustice simply because people can be convinced to want it.
In such a world, the exploiters (whether individuals or organizations) would seek to control whatever systems of education, media, and ideology they could to convince as many people as possible that being exploited is good for them. This would allow for them to centralize power, and that power would enforce a class divide; anyone who didn't exploit others would be relegated to being one of the exploited class, anyone who willingly exploited others but didn't work to convert more into "wanting to be exploited" would never amass as much power as those that do.
Besides the perverse incentives, that division would create a power imbalance that attracts (into the positions of authority) individuals and groups who are both indoctrinated into the system, and more efficient at subjugating others. That means there is a filter naturally built into any such system that selects for people who view others more as statistics and resources than people with inherent value, and are skilled at both convincing them to want exploitation and exploiting them.
Being the real world, people will not be perfect, so any lack of skill in one domain will require compensation in the other. If someone cannot be convinced to be exploited willingly, the authority will need to find other ways of enforcing exploitation.
Lifeforms being how they are, not all of them will be brainwashable; that means oppression will be necessary, as dissent is a threat to the amount of power an authority has amassed and imposes "soft" limits on how much power can be amassed—that is, limitations that can be overcome with enough effort (as opposed to physical limitations like the total amount of living beings). And any threat to the power imbalance is a threat to the system itself, a threat to the society.
We have thus specified a system that selects for abusers and oppressors in positions of power, without once having to speculate that unjust and cruel people would begin in such positions.
Now one might claim I'm just using a slippery-slope fallacy, that we might be able to specify such a society that accounts for the aforementioned flaws, and implements some sort of system of checks-and-balances to keep from the balance shifting so egregiously. And to that, I want to point out how any such system constitutes an aforementioned "soft" limit on power, but does not remove the incentives at the core of the system.
Meanwhile, in a just society, anyone who wants to be exploited and anyone who wants to exploit are given the knowledge and resources necessary to overcome such primal desires. Maybe they are educated, or maybe given safely contained environments—e.g. VR, or LARP, or BDSM—to exercise their desires without negatively impacting others/society.
I would also challenge the assumption that there is some naturally-arising desire to be exploited. Put another way: assuming a perfectly just society, whence comes the desire to be exploited?
Define "physical reward"?
I would argue that the good feeling from a well done job counts as a physical reward 🙂 and is a necessary motivational feedback. If you mean monetary or resource awards, I agree.
Did you only read the title
The OP was a little vague to me, but I'm also a little drunk.
exploitation by circumstance notwithstanding
yeah that was exactly what i was referring to. as long as we'd rather stay in bed in the morning, we're not doing it voluntarily. and be honest, do you go to work voluntarily? would you still do it if you didn't need the money? if so, then yes, it is vegan.
Wait... So unless food magically appears with no labor at all, because labor isn't fun, no food is vegan?
So no food is vegan other than literal windfall fruit from a tree? Or does picking it up could as labor?
Religions are less strict
Sorry babe, i can't vacuum the house cause I'm vegan.
Level 8 veganism iirc
Sure you can make that argument under capitalism, where people are deprived of the value their labor created in order to force them to work more so they may survive. Hence why people should strive for communism. If everyone lived vegan people would be compelled to work as they are able in order to not cause undue burden on others, which again would not be vegan.
"From each according to their ability to each according to their need."
If everyone lived vegan people would be compelled to work as they are able in order to not cause undue burden on others, which again would not be vegan.
i don't quite get your last sentence. what if the person themselves doesn't want to work?
If the person doesn't want to work how will they sustain themselves? They have to rely on other peoples labor without contributing their own. If people don't want to subsidize someone else then that person would either have to start working "against their will" or take other peoples labor without consent, which you have already pointed out, is not vegan. So if everyone were vegan that person would be compelled to work as they are able in order to be able to remain vegan.
Idk its kinda tortured logic when spelling it all out lol
Nature compells us to work for food anyway, that's not exploitation and coercion, that's just survival.
The construct of society is predicated on the idea of "from each... to each..." That saying often gets conflated with left-wing politics, but that's just the point of animals (humans included) grouping together; after all, what's the point of living in society if it doesn't convey any benefits to the individual that they could not provide for themselves? That would be exploitative of the individual. But if they are benefitting, then it is only fair and just to also give back to the society one extracts benefits from, otherwise it is exploitative of the others.
Put another way: no one should be obligated to participate in society, but then society should likewise have no obligations to the non-participants.
Nature compells us to work for food anyway, that’s not exploitation and coercion, that’s just survival.
Not all of us ahem bourgeoisie ahem
The construct of society is predicated on the idea of “from each… to each…”
of course, however what makes a societies differ is exactly what gets filled in to the "..."
"from each slave to each slavemaster" -> slavery
"from each serf to each lord" -> feudalism
"from each worker to each owner" -> capitalism
"from each person (according to their ability) to each person (according to their need)" -> socialism 😄
Not all of us ahem bourgeoisie ahem
I meant moreso that it compels us outside of the structure of a society, which also precludes any social classes. One cannot be bourgeois if one does not live amongst others whom they can subjugate.
of course, however what makes a societies differ is exactly what gets filled in to the “…”
Ha! I was trying to refer to the idiom without being verbose, not leaving those blanks as variables.
I guess my take is that what determines a society is more how "ability" and "need" are defines, that way the social structure is not oversimplified to a single one-sided relationship. E.g. a feudalist would claim the serfs need protection from thieves and bandits, and a lord has the ability to provide such protection; the lord, conversely, needs grain and the serfs have the ability to farm it
This comment got a bit away from me lol, I just love talking about marxism too much I guess 😁 Please do tell me if it's just too long for you to read or doesnt make sense or whatever.
A society is defined by how it produces and survives. When we talk about an "agrarian society" or "nomad society", "hunter gatherers" etc. we talk about how a group of people produced food. When we talk about slave or feudal or capitalist society we talk about the relationships that people enter into in order to produce. It is not possible to work, or be compelled to work outside of society. Until we have socialism nothing compels us to work outside of social classes. I wouldn't be working if my bourgeois didn't compel me to. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
The great leaps in society have all been defined by changes in how we produce which compelled us to reorganise ourselves. Once we learned to domesticate wheat we stopped wandering and settled. We learned to make stone, bronze, iron tools and every time society was restructured. The steam engine revolutionized (literally!) our whole society since suddenly the work had to be divided into smaller parts. No longer could one laborer own all the tools required for their work themselves, they had become too expensive. The spinstress on the farm could no longer compete with the machines and so people began migrating to the cities since that is where the work was. This gave rise to the merchant class who became more powerful the more they gained control over the means of production until they overthrew feudal society for a more liberal approach at organising production. But as the wealth and control is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, as the petite bourgeois "middle class" shrinks and is thrown into the proletariat we will soon have to reorganise our society again. Especially since the global south is starting to band together and awakens as to where their oppression comes from. What will we do without our cheap labor?
"One cannot be bourgeois if one does not live amongst others whom they can subjugate" indeed! Now you're thinking in dialectics 😁 We define social classes in terms of eachother and liberation of one is done by abolishing the other. There are no slaves if there are no slaveowners which is why people fought the slaveowners in order to free the slaves. No serfs where there is no nobility and no proletariat (employees) where there are no employers (bourgeoisie).
Ha! I was trying to refer to the idiom without being verbose, not leaving those blanks as variables.
My point was that you took out the most salient part of that quote. That communism is defined not by social classes but by "ability" and "need" is its defining characteristic. Because at the moment people are not getting what they "need" but rather what they "earn" which in the best of cases matches up, but does not always (or indeed not often, if we look at most capitalist societies currently in existence). And what they "earn" is defined by the contract they entered into with their employers. This means that the laborer wants to maximise what they sell their labor power for, whereas the employer wants to minimise what they buy the labor power with. This is what is called a contradiction in dialectics.
These contradictions are how we define social classes and the resolvement of these contradictions (their "synthesis") is what we are most interested in. The merchant class and the feudal class for instance were marked by the contradiction that the merchants wanted to be able to sell to whomever they pleased (they wanted a free market), whereas the feudal class wanted to amass without having to buy. Whoever was under their jurisdiction had to give them a share, was taxed simply for being within their jurisdiction. Which differs from taxes today which have to justified by how they are necessary for the survival of the government and the state. The lords didn't need such a justification, "my land my rules". This contradiction came to a head and got resolved by the abolishment of the feudal class (or at least by bringing it to heel and under the rule of the bourgeoisie). The synthesis of feudal society was a capitalist one.
I guess my take is that what determines a society is more how “ability” and “need” are defines, that way the social structure is not oversimplified to a single one-sided relationship.
Yes! Welcome to dialectics!! It is indeed not a one-sided relationship! The employer needs our work and we need access to the means of production! This mutual need is how capitalism operates.
A very compelling narrative, thank you for sharing! Based on my limited understanding of history and economics and sociology, it feels true. But I'm no expert :)
The one point that I don't really understand is:
It is not possible to work, or be compelled to work outside of society. Until we have socialism nothing compels us to work outside of social classes. I wouldn’t be working if my bourgeois didn’t compel me to.
This doesn't make sense to me. My functional definition is that work is just expending energy to transition something from one state into another. Moving a boulder up a hill is still work, regardless of motivations of the actor. How are you defining "work"?
You can read more about it in "socialism: utopian and scientific" by engels an eye-opening book to me. Really what made me fall in love with marxism. There's also a really cool section about the "mark" at the end which isn't that relevant to know really but I found it very interesting nonetheless. It's a short book but well worth the read.
As for "work" I guess you can go with the physical definition of it, however since we are talking about society i went with a more common understanding of work as in energy spent to produce value. Making that concrete however gets us of course into the weeds of what value is, differences between use-value and exchange-value. So I just tried to sneak it past you 😅
Would make more sense if post was talking about slavery, not labor. Labor is compensated.
Compare the GDP of your country to earned income, do a tiny bit of math, discover what portion of the workforce are slaves.
Mm, so if a worker creates added value, that makes the worker a slave? Interesting theory.
yeah but do you go to work voluntarily? would you still do it if you didn’t need the money? if so, then yes, it is vegan.
I'll post here that I saw this / credit for this should probably go to this subway takes
funny :) but i came up with it independently
We are also riddled with pesticides (perfumes, deodorants), bred in captivity (social/gender/sexual norms) and - if you're going to consume us either way - our caloric and nutritional values are abysmal (compared to our alternatives).
CW holocaust stuff
if you’re going to consume us either way - our caloric and nutritional values are abysmal (compared to our alternatives).
Well you can still make leather from human hide and other human-based products. That's what the nazi's did with their prisoners. The whole work camps where basically human agriculture where they were maximising the profit the could gain by minimizing the cost of sustaining the labor-power. They were calculating how much calories people need in order to do exactly the work required and nothing else so they could save penny's on food. That's why they started experimenting with human leather, in order to recoup some of the costs by creating commodities from the corpse a laborer left behind etc. It's really was the same mentality that goes into dairy farming or chicken or really any animal agricutlure ever.
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.