IS VEGAN ACTIVISM GETTING TOO CONFRONTATIONAL?

CHRIS: Whether exposing the public to graphic footage of animal slaughter or storming steakhouses chanting ‘there’s no excuse for animal abuse’, the point of confrontational vegan activism is to persuade people to become vegan. Or at least reduce meat consumption.

This strategy of building consumer demand for veganism is itself ineffective. Veganism is a new market for capital to exploit in its perpetually expanding scope of accumulation, but no substitute for the considerable profits of animal agriculture. Within capitalism, more vegan options will never mean no meat.

Eliminating the use of animals for food will require fundamentally transforming global economic and agricultural systems to work for human and non-human animals, not profit. Shifts of such historic magnitude require mass political movements. But the tactics of confrontational vegan activism restrict