We’ve all heard the saying many, many times…. “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.” This signals that under a capitalist system, where people are getting exploited at some stage in every supply chain, the idea of a “cruelty-free” lifestyle is a myth. After all, migrant workers were exploited to grow your vegetables, poor kids in the Congo were exploited for the coltan in your electronics, and so on.

This means that if we focus our attention on what we buy in stores, we’re distracting ourselves from the movement-building and organizing necessary to challenge the system and alter the conditions of our lives. In this view, the focus on consumer change is a dead end. “Voting with your dollar” is a feel-good tactic that keeps people passive. It just mirrors capitalist ideology, in that it makes us focus on individuals and prevents us from grasping the real forces behind exploitation. In Marxist terms, consumerism-as-a-tool of-ending-exploitation is a form of false consciousness.

As a leftist, I agree with this 100%, when we talk about consumer goods. We won’t ever end exploitation through buying things at Walmart. I do think it’s myopic to believe we can buy our way to liberation. But here’s the main point to me… nonhuman animals are not consumer goods. If we create socialism tomorrow, killing and consuming other animals, for our enjoyment, still wouldn’t be OK. That’s why it is illogical to dismiss veganism by saying “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. ” If inflicting serious harm for trivial reasons is wrong, then there is no ethical consumption of animals, for taste or habit, in any system.

One of the big aspects of commodification is interchangeability. Instead of seeing a being as a unique individual, whose life is irreplaceable, whose existence is the only one they will ever have, you just see them as a commodity like any other. Get rid of one commodity, who cares? We can always replace it, can’t we? Maybe “it” suffered, but there are billions of others, right? That’s how speciesism makes us see animals designated as food. But that’s not the reality. Every pig, cow, and chicken is a subject with a personality, just as much as the dogs or cats we love.

Can we see ourselves gnawing a dog’s leg, and then casually brushing it off by saying “but migrant workers were exploited for corn, so it’s all the same?” I don’t think most of us would say that. Because we recognize this dog’s life has value, that this dog is not replaceable, that this dog is more than a forgettable snack. We wouldn’t lump a dog’s leg and corn in the same category. We don’t see a dog as an interchangeable food item. We recognize degrees of violence, and that eating a beagle who was chopped into little bits for snacks isn’t right, no matter what the system is.

The exact same reasoning applies to pigs, cows, and chickens. What we’re conditioned to refer to as “bacon” or “beef” are the muscles, fat, and veins of sentient beings, who had their own distinct lives. This isn’t just bio-mass, which comes out of nowhere. We can’t just act like a vast group of beings is no more than an abstract, faceless monolith of resources for us. It’s wrong to erase who they are (their diverse personality traits: cautious, shy, friendly, aloof) and render them into a speciesist straitjacket that fits our interests. How is this compatible with a socialist ethic? Nonhuman animals have lives outside the scope of human constructs or projections.

Of course, I don’t think veganism will solve every problem. I don’t think vegan advocacy alone will end animal exploitation under a capitalist system where the commodity form is so powerful, where the state-capital nexus pours billions in subsidies into the animal industries, and where Smithfield and Tyson use their economic power to churn out ads 24/7. I don’t think a million new vegan products in Subway or Burger King can counteract capitalism’s role in this mess. I don’t think an animal rights movement disconnected from other struggles can succeed in liberating other animals.

All of that being true, animals still shouldn’t be snacks. Whether under capitalism, socialism, communism, or any other system.

If I have a choice between a dead animal and vegan food, why would I choose the dead animal? I can recognize my individual decision to be vegan won’t end all of animal exploitation, while still recognizing I should be vegan as far as practicable. Because I can’t see a good reason to directly enslave a being, without need. Because as a socialist, someone who strives for a better world, I should always think about how I can cultivate more authentic, fair relations with others. We can build a socialist movement and also include the most oppressed among us, nonhuman animals.

Veganism also helps us imagine another world… where all animals are free. As Dan Kidby says in a fantastic piece… “By taking a vegan stance we resist the commodification and depersonification of animals and prefigure the world we want to create. By radically altering our perception, we refuse to let our perceptual reality be defined by a brutal industry that wants us to see a piece of meat instead of the body of a murdered individual who wanted nothing more but to live in peace and freedom.”

Your journey starts here.