“there is no ethical consumption under capitalism”
You ever notice how up until very recently in human history (like, around the invention of capitalism) the act of feeding yourself was not a consumer activity? Of course I mean “consumer” in the capitalist sense that one exchanges goods and services for money, not in the punny sense… Okay, lets start over.
You ever notice how someone who wanted to eat, to nourish their body for the purpose of sustaining their life, never previously had to also be a “customer” to do so? Since the means of producing our food has been taken out of our hands and secreted off to far flung places, we have become alienated from every step of its production up to grabbing something off a shelf in a grocery store.
One of the things veganism tries to do is get us back in touch with where our food comes from, what impact it has on the world around us, and what we can do immediately and directly to influence that. Essentially, we want a relationship with our food that is outside of the exploitative capitalist paradigm, as it had been for millennia before.
While any action taken under capitalism will never be 100% free from exploitation, this is no excuse to sit on our hands and do nothing about it. Many anti-capitalist leftists will happily engage in various activities such as mutual aid, skill shares, etc. that align with their anti-capitalist political ideology but still require participation in the capitalist system to some degree as it is inescapable, but you will never hear the phrase “no ethical consumption under capitalism” come up at all. In fact, I have only ever heard it directed at vegans.
Is it not true, then, that even if there is no perfect action, we must still strive to do better, taking what little steps we can influence the world around us? Isn’t it worth it to always do something, even if it only helps a few? No one person is going to dismantle the whole system of capitalism by giving a few dollars to a struggling comrade, so does that mean you should keep your dollars? No one vegan will dismantle the entire animal agriculture industry, but does this mean we should stop demanding more animal welfare reforms, more vegan options in restaurants and grocery stores, stop our advocacy, turn a blind eye toward all the suffering altogether and just go eat a steak?
Of course not. You do what you can with the resources you have until such time as the circumstances available allow you to do more. I’m doing something now so that I can do more later. Until we can get back to that intimate connection with what sustains us that was taken away by those who know nothing but exploitation and greed.
