Marxist Animalism
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John Oswald wrote:Why would the Party refuse to stock it, when they stock non-Party publications (or at least one such)?
Just my view from what I read of the review at: https://libcom.org/library/beasts-of-burden-undercurrent-8However, the Publications Committee might arrive at a different conclusion to myself. I'll contact them to see what they come up with.
I was just looking something else up, when I ran across this:http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/034015/article
Quote:From the 41 crops analyzed in this study, 9.46 × 1015 calories available in plant form are produced by crops globally, of which 55% directly feed humans. However, 36% of these produced calories go to animal feed, of which 89% is lost, such that only 4% of crop-produced calories are available to humans in the form of animal products.Of course, animals produce more than calories, however, protein is a factor here too:
Quote:These changes in calorie availability are mirrored by changes in the availability of protein in the food system through changes in global crop allocation. Of the total plant protein produced, only 49% is delivered as plant and animal protein to the food system. Therefore, shifting all crop production to direct human consumption could double protein availability. In the United States, only 14% of produced protein is used as food and 80% of protein is used as animal feed. Because of the high proportion of plant protein being used as animal feed, only 27% of plant protein produced in the US is available for consumption (as either plant or animal product).The paper acknowledges that plant and animal proteins are not identical, and a real shift would have to include more vegetables. Further:
Quote:Shifting all crops currently allocated to animal feed back to human food implies that either the global population would stop consuming animal products, or else the only sources of animal products would be grass fed or wild caught. However, we also investigated different scenarios of diet shifts that could increase global calorie availability. Shifting grain-fed beef production equally to pork and chicken production could increase feed conversion efficiencies from 12% to 23%, which would increase global calorie delivery by 6% (or 3.52 × 1014 calories), representing 357 million additional people fed on a 2700 calorie per day diet. Alternatively, shifting all feed directed to meat production to the production of milk and eggs (or a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet) could increase feed conversion efficiencies to 35%, which would increase calorie delivery by 14% (or 8.04 × 1014 calories), representing 815 million additional people fed. In both cases the feed allocated to livestock production stays the same as it was during this study period, but more meat, egg, and dairy calories could be produced from this feed as a result of efficiency gains. Of course, reducing the consumption of meat and dairy can also have large impacts on calorie delivery. For example reducing the consumption of grain-fed animal products by 50% would increase calorie availability enough to feed an additional 2 billion people.This needs to be part of a global democratic debate, and we need common ownership in order to even begin to deal with the implications of this work…
Another interesting way of looking at this is:
Quote:The cost of animal feed is the largest item of expenditure recorded in the production and income account reaching a total value of £4.6 billion in 2012.https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208436/auk-2012-25jun13.pdfThe same source tells us that in the UK there are around 17.2 million ha of agricultural land, of which 36% is cropped. So, livestock is occupying around 9 million ha. The dairy herd is 1.8 million animals, with a furtehr 1.7 million in the beef herd. there are 32 million sheep and about 4.5 million pigs.
In 1905 the Brown Dog Riots erupted in Battersea, pitting the ruling class`s bourgeois "science" with medical students on one side, and the workers of Battersea on the other. These latter recognised fellow oppressed in the persons of vivisected animals, and the conflict became a symbolic one of oppressed vs. oppressors, workers vs. bourgeoisie, poor vs. rich and weak vs. strong.The thought processes here have changed considerably since then, and the "socialistic" are seldom in sympathy with the plight of exploited fellow animals. One the Edwardian authorities also hit on the idea of secretiveness in vivisectionist practices and the de-vocalisation of the victims (whose cries from the labs formerly intruded on passers-by in the streets), the class conflict inspired originally by workers` identification with the misery and pain of the fellow exploited of other species was largely obliterated – and especially by the intrusion of the world war in 1914.The Brown Dog Affair, however, symbolic as it was, extended further. I believe the Union flag was prohibited in Battersea as the emblem (which it is) of the master class. The radical Battersea council of the day, chaired by a black man, may not have been socialist, but it had to be the most radical Britain has ever seen.I am astonished that The Socialist Standard, with SPGB members prominent in Battersea at the time, completely ignored what was going on – even as the riots spread to Trafalgar Square, with pitched street battles raging (see "The Brown Dog Affair").Is this because the symbol sparking this explosion of class conflict was a statue of a vivisected dog? Had Lafargue`s statement that the anti-vivisectionists are the worst of all the reformers (!) already taken firm hold in SPGB psychology – him being Marx`s son-in-law?
Your description of the affair doesn't correspond with that on wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affairThe dates are wrong. The rioters were medical students protesting in favour of vivisection not workers protesting against it. Battersea council was not then chaired by a "black man", etc.If the wikipedia account is accurate then it might explain why the Socialist Standard doesn't seem to have mentioned it as might have been expected if workers regarded it as a major issue, especially since, as you point out, the party was particularly strong in Battersea at the time: it was a dispute between two sections of the bourgeoisie, medical students and feminists (Votes for Rich Women) who were also anti-vivisectionists.This is not to defend vivisection but to defend historical accuracy.On the other hand, the April 1905 Socialist Standard in an article "Socialists & Capitalist Hospitals" did complain about the treatment of working class girls and young women who went to hospitals being forced to strip to the waist in the presence of medical students for them to examine as part of their training.Lafargue's article (he was of course himself a medical doctor), dating from 1881, can be found here.https://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1881/12/25.htmIt is unlikely to have been known to early party members — but no wonder the anti-vivisectionists don't like him !
Also famous was the popular, among the workers of Battersea, was the Battersea Anti-Vivisection Hospital, affectionately known as the Antivivi, where the poor could receive treatment with a good success rate and where vivisectionist medicos were prohibited! This too was closed when a new conservatively-inclined council took over.
The man whose name you can't remember was John Archer and at the time he was not the mayor but a councillor even if he was a supporter of the statue. He didn't become mayor till 1913 by which time the affair was over. More on him here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archer_%28British_politician%29One interesting thing here is that he was elected as a "Progressive" (as the Liberals called themselves for local elections in London) for Latchmere ward. He would have been known to the party as that was one of the two wards the Party contested for Battersea Council that year. (For the record, in the three-member ward, the Party candidates got 117, 117 and 113 votes respectively).Just found this in the Socialist Standard for December 1906:
Quote:The "Progressive and Labour" candidates in Battersea ran under the auspices of the Battersea Trades and Labour Council, which consists of various trade union branches, Liberal associations, Radical clubs, etc. Many of the T.U. branches are affiliated to the L. R. C., and therefore while working with the Liberals, subscribe with the ostensible object of fighting them.The LRC was the "Labour Representation Committee" which later became the Labour Party. Archer in fact later became a Labour councillor.For those who can't be bothered to read up on the affair there's this three-minute video. I don't know how accurate it is but the affair seems to be more to do with the history of the anti-vivisection rather than of the socialist or even the working class movement.http://wn.com/brown_dog_affair
Recently published on line on one of our blogs
Quote:The second item, published in the Auckland Star (13.6.77) under the heading "Monkey's perish to Produce Death Ray", reads almost like a horror story, the author of which, if in fiction, would have to have the imagination of a sadistic monster. But this is not fiction, but cold hard fact. Even if the reader was not an animal lover he would still feel disgusted and ashamed that he is a member of the human race. Highly trained monkeys are killed by high energy radiation and burns in experiments carried out by the United States Navy. These deaths were quoted as "appallingly painful". And what are these dreadful experiments in aid of. Just to find out how long you can continue to be of use to the war machine after exposure. How long can you continue to drive a tank, fire a gun, or push buttons. Their desire to get the last ounce of use from your body, even though it might be in the throes of an agonizing death, really shows what lengths these monsters will go to in order to perpetuate their system. Monkeys today—you tomorrow.More news from New Zealand:http://pictures-of-cats.org/new-zealands-conservation-minister-suggests-two-cats-per-household.htmlNote the nutter who wants to slaughter them all.
In fact, I know it was the students who were rioting, attacking the statue, which was defended by the workers of the Latchmere Estate as symbol representing their oppression. The statue was especially beloved by the workers, who defended the statue. For a time, the police`s role was also to defend the statue, since it was there with the approval of the council, which was chaired by a black man, whose name excapes me. I remarked it because that in itself was provocative and revolutionary.To show they had equal contempt for both working people and their sensibilities and for the animals, the students ran riot clasping toy dogs impaled on sticks, which they proceeded to push and rub in the faces of passers-by. Workers were joined by antivivisectionists and also by feminists, who also recognised kinship in their own oppression with the tortured animals."Not often you`re right, but you`re wrong again", as the saying goes! (Only joking.)
Exactly, Alan. Vivisection affects us all. We all have seen, perhaps, the stock image of the vivisector holding up a terrified monkey in a crucifix position for the camera. Place it side by side with Mengele caressing the shoulders of a little boy prisoner. I deleted two messages I placed here about the issue of "sick fun" because I have to be careful. But I suggest you all obtain a copy of H. Ruesch: VIVISECTION IS SCIENTIFIC FRAUD (pictorial) and his two books, plus take a look on Youtube at UNNECESSARY FUSS.Ruesch`s books have been donated to the SPGB library.It`s not an animal rights issue, but a human issue. We need revolution.
Capitalism has tried to prove that aggression is natural by electrocuting apes until they attack one another. (Details later).Head transplants now have to be the ultimate perversion of science – unless you think they`re a good idea? (See links above on head transplants).
The Latchmere Estate and Battersea workers who defended the statue can hardly be considered bourgeois. The locals loved their statue and their hospital and rushed to defend both from the rampaging students. They formed defence groups to do so. They were resolved not to allow exploitation as represented by vivisection to enter their hospital. One cannot neutralise the statue by isolating it from everything else going on, just because it was set up by "bourgeois" antivivisectionists. Once there, it was a potent symbol which expressed for the workers their common oppression with vivisected animals. The women saw in it an expression common cause with the abuse of their sex. Workingmen definitely sympathised more with the dog than with working women! If anyone were bourgeois, it was the students! I recommend these books:THE BROWN DOG AFFAIR by Peter Mason.THE OLD BROWN DOG: WOMEN, WORKERS AND VIVISECTION IN EDWARDIAN ENGLAND by Coral Lansbury.I am awaiting an email from my authority about the member of the Battersea Council whose name I have forgotten….It became an anti-establishment emblem supported by a radical coalition of suffragettes, trade unionists and members of the fledgling labour movement. (Mason)….it came to be a symbol of feminist outrage and working-class resentment. Those in authority in society sought to destroy it…(Lansbury).Yes, I got the date wrong. It was 1907. I haven`t just read about it. I did so a long time ago.
Thanks Adam, for clearing up on John Archer. As I said, I believe one cannot treat it in isolation (the statue), since it was seen by the workers (see Lansbury) as an emblem of their oppression in common with the prisoners in the labs. It is reformist antivivisectionists who would see their movement in isolation, and anti-animalist socialists too. The case brought workers and AVs together. If not for socialism, at least it shed light on a common cause of oppression, since vivisection is part and parcel of capitalism. If not intellectually, the workers of Battersea sensed it in their being! The SPGB`s failing is that it could not elucidate this in the pages of the Standard at the time. Even now, you want to divest the case of any importance and of any interest to the workers – and the people of Battersea, who shouldn`t by your thinking have cared less, give you the lie.
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