Animal Rightists –Allies for Liberty?by
Dmitry Chernikov
Poor chickens. According to many animal-rights advocates, they live unhappy lives. Maybe they do. (Though perhaps they should still thank their human caretakers for the gift of life.) I’ll say right away that the evaluation of the ethics of animal rights is not my concern here. Let us ask: why are the chickens so, to use that horribly abused term for the fun of it, exploited? Well, this is because the farmers have come up with this objectionable to some people technology to satisfy consumer demand for eggs and chicken meat to the best of their ability. It is, as of today, the most technologically efficient method of production. Since it lowers the costs of doing business and ultimately prices, too, these foods are available even to the poorest of consumers. But still, what about the poor chickens? Isn't there a way to liberate them from the tyranny of indifferent and unenlightened consumers? I believe there is. First, I would like us to notice a paradox that, as I will demonstrate, will have a profound impact on this issue: that people are on the one hand indifferent to public affairs in the sense that they have given the federal government tremendous powers to determine economic policy and so docilely take whatever it gives them, and on the other hand they are remarkably impatient, demanding constant improvement. In a free society there is both economic and technological progress. The latter is always ahead, and at any time there are many technologies that are not used in any mass production process. But let's focus on the former. There are right now those consumers, though they are in the minority, who prefer meat and eggs from healthier chickens (free-range, etc.), which, the propaganda goes, are better in quality, and so opt for the more expensive organic stuff. How could we increase both the absolute number of such consumers, and their ratio to the rest of the chicken and egg lovers? How else than by speeding up the economic progress? As real wages rise, prices fall, as these things tend to happen under unhampered free markets, and the average person becomes richer, needs that could not be previously satisfied suddenly come within the reach of the masses. If it is true that chickens that are cared for by the farmers as if they were their own children produce vastly more delicious and healthy meat and eggs, even though such care is at least initially more expensive, the now wealthier consumers may choose precisely these goods. As Mises writes, "Modern wealth expresses itself above all in the cult of the body: hygiene, cleanliness, sport." The wealthier we are, the more attention, as a rule, we will devote to the fine art of maintaining health. But that is not all. Much of the animal rights agitation concerns technological imperfections, as well. Consider medicine. Primitive medical equipment tends to fight the disease with a great deal of collateral damage. Sophisticated equipment, drugs, etc, on the other hand, fight the evil in the body without harming what is good. We should expect future technologies to keep maximizing the benefits to human beings while minimizing the harms, such as, say, negative environmental externalities. Civilization, Richard Weaver wrote, is about making distinctions. Here's how Genrich Altshuller, the creator of the TRIZ system for inventors describes technological progress:
(This last bit does not describe any sort of divine ex nihilo technology; Altshuller gives real-world examples in which this actually occurs.) So it seems to me that it is extremely probable that the current practice of chicken and egg production may be technologically inefficient and still admit much improvement. In 20 or 30 years things may change so much that the ethical concerns of animal rights advocates will no longer be relevant. For all we know, the farmers will discover a more efficient process that is at the same time more humane to the animals. Higher-quality products will become available at the same or lower prices in the future that poorer quality products cost now. This is not a cynical attempt to diffuse the concerns of the animal rights activists, but an observation that all living creatures serve man better when they are happy. Hence the increased demand for higher quality animal products will translate into more happiness for the animals. Unfortunately, the level of both technology and economic well-being simply do not allow right now for better treatment of chickens. There are more pressing concerns to be taken care of first. The quality/price combinations available to the consumers at this moment are what they are, and we have to accept that. It follows that instead of despising and sabotaging the market as animal-rights activists tend to do, they must join forces with the proponents of human liberty in order to achieve maximum possible economic and technological progress and thereby lighten the load on animals. If this progress continues, then that the conditions of domesticated animals will improve with time is next to certain. Furthermore, if the ethical arguments of the animal rights activists are correct, then their influence will only increase if the practical concerns of the average man of putting food on the table can be met with greater ease. People listen to moralists, especially those who seem to demand unfamiliar new sacrifices, more sympathetically when they don’t have to worry overmuch about the costs of the necessities of life. Unfortunately, the animal-rights crowd does not recognize that this progress takes time. They want animal "liberation," whatever that means, right now. They will fail. The only means to the happiness of animals is through the happiness of humans. Consider another paradox to drive the point home, this time with respect to wild animals. Suppose I find a beetle in my apartment. It’s quite possible that I would want to save it by catching it and throwing it outside. Now suppose in a quite different situation that there are 1,000 beetles in my apartment. I couldn’t live there. I’d have to kill them all and, what’s more, I would feel no remorse. Wild nature is full of organisms that want us dead or sick so that they can eat us or use us to procreate. They attack our crops and livestock with equal mercilessness So in the wilderness, it’s either us or them. It is only when nature is tamed and controlled, that some kind of extension of charity to animals is possible. (Properly speaking, charity should be felt only for God and neighbor. Still, people love their pets and enjoy watching animal shows, and so on, and this is perhaps some qualitatively lesser charity. Some level of communion between man and nature is expected, since nature or, simply, external environment, sustains us in everything we do.) Those animal rights advocates who celebrate primitivism destroy their own cause. Without civilization, there will be much less fellow-feeling for animals, because the war between man and nature will return to the state in which man will care only for his own survival and, in fact, loathe and fear nature.
June 2, 2006 Dmitry Chernikov [send him mail] is a graduate student in philosophy at Kent State University. Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com |
What
is to be done? I suggest that we envision a society in which money
is sound, that is, gold and/or silver, in which no human association
larger than a city is allowed to impose taxes, and in which there
is no such thing as government borrowing. A society in which repression
is limited to thieves and murderers, not to businessmen or dwellers
of far-away lands or drug users. A society in which there are no
state-run enterprises, such as public schools, and in which private
enterprise is free, not controlled in the name of clamping down
on competition. (Many more reforms could be proposed, but that is
not important right now.) If we had a society like that, the rate
of economic progress would increase many-fold. And the chickens
would be the beneficiaries.