Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful

~ E.F.Schumacher

By 20th century meat got to be considered one of the four main nutrient and began to be consumed in larger portions and more frequently in developed countries. Moreover, and more drastically, due the spread of factory farming animals are reduced to mere commodity. Animals in this practice are raised in confinement at high stocking density in barren and unnatural conditions. It was encouraged as a policy in the USA to ensure national food security and high quality diet.[1] Officers of Smithfield Foods argue that the conditions that they keep animals are more humane than open field because the healthier and happier the animal is, the better it grows, better is its flesh.[2] These statements reveal the way executives of farming factories commodify animals; however, conceals the mistreatmet that is prone to ethical questions.

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For instance, in the UK, de-beaking of chickens is thought to be a method of last resort, otherwise there would be vicious fighting and ultimately cannibalism among the chiken.[3] Similarly porks are observed to bite each others tails and attack the cages. In order to prevent this their tails and eight teeth were cut without anesthesia. Neither porks not chiken are cannibals. Vadana Shiva encourages the farming industry to ask why they behaved in such an abnormal way. She asserts that those animals were not born to live in cages.[4] Neither to be killed en masse. No type of slaughter can be justified, but this is the most brutal, most unacceptable way. And it has nothing to do with our so called natural tendency to eat meat, it is an outcome of very material production patterns.

Emergence and spread of factory farming brings about new jobs for the maginalized people of the capitalist world. In the contemporary meat industy the working conditions are poor and workers are mistreated, however, the present system always leaves someone to do the “dirty job”. Workers suffer from psychological damages. Many vegetarians argue that this industry violates their human rights with difficult and distressing tasks without adequate counselling, training and debriefing.[5] Forced killers of the capitalism is ignored by meat-eaters. They don’t want to be reminded of the inhumane process. They thrive to escape from ethical reponsibility towards people and animals.

In contemporary world, idea of eating animal flesh as a symbol of prosperity, modernism and industrialization also dominates global developmentalist logic. Timothy Mitcell critiques the hegemonic role of developmentalist expertise of IMF programs imposed on Egypt. He points a twofold relationship between the analysis and its actual object: The country is evaluated in terms of the limits of nature and this naturalness attributes the analytical object an externality to be examined by the experts. They claim that the country has deficient resources for nutrition based on the evidence that Eygpt is an importer of grains and foodstuff. However, Mitchell shows that engaging to the world capitalist system and the gist of developmentalist discourses increased meat production and consumption; And the imported grain was actually for feeding the animals. “(…) Meat eating is a Western norm that ‘develeopment’ has imposed upon non-Western nations reflecting again a characteristically Western cultural imperialism.”[6] On the one hand, Egypt has become dependent on world market for a product it could produce before opening lands to rear farm animals, on the other hand, taste and consumer preferences is reshaped in such a way that violates the right to life of many beings.

Although meat eating is a real strain on reasources and especially for the non Western world, it is often related to public health and diseases in developing countries are explained by consumption of low amount of animal protein. In nutritional terms vegetarian diets are rich in carbohydrates, omega 6, dietary fibre, carotenoids, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, potassium and magnesium. They are generally low in saturated fat and cholesterol. Supplementing this diet with B12 would have much less costs, needless to say. However, the dominant tone of scientific expertise goes hand in hand with the media to disseminate studies concluding otherwise, most of which was challenged and proved to be wrong later.

Many vegetarians, contrarily, practice this diet concerning public health and curbing world starvation. It is a conscious simple living strategy in a world meat industry is heavily suspensated. WorldWatch Institute reports that “Massive reductions in meat consumption in industrial nations will ease their health care burden(…); declining livestock herds will take pressure off rangelands and grainlands, allowing the agricultural resource base to rejuvenate. (…), lowering meat consumption worldwide will allow more efficient use of declining per capita land and water resources, while at the same time making grain more affordable to the world’s chronically hungry.”[7]

In his book “Small is Beautiful”, published in 1973, E.F.Schumacher argues that the current form of economy and production is not sustainable. He proposes a more modest technology and sustain livelihoods with the least we can, because relatively minor improvements like technology transfer to the developing countries will not solve the underlying problem of unsustainable economy. It was later called the “Buddhist Economics”. He accuses the contemporary economic paradigm for failing to consider the most appropriate scale of activity, disseminating the artificial need for luxury and mass production. The aim, according to him, should be the maximum amount of well being with the minimum amount of consumption.[8] He justly asserted that small and modest is good, but world capitalist economy needed big and numerous. That’s why animals were killed en masse as commodities, dishes were served in gigantic portions and many animals were denied their right to life to be wasted as left overs.

In fact, domination of men over animals, capitalists over workers, and West over East are the epiphenomena of the rational materialism paradigm of Enlightenment. The image of world revolving around the white male atomic individual as the master of women, children, animals and people of color dominated the way very subjects of this domination was constructed. As Donowan argues “domination of nature, rooted in post-Medieval Western males psychology is the underlying cause of the mistreatment of animals as well as the exploitation of women and the environment.”[9]