alanjjohnstone
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Faced with such popularity, perhaps it is an opportune moment to have a issue of the Socialist Standard devoted to the topic.
We shouldn’t forget that America have had another form for decades in the shape of the Alaska Fund, that pays out an annual dividend where each qualified resident receives the same annual amount, regardless of age or years of residency. In 2019 it was $1,606.
A 2018 paper found that the Alaska Permanent Fund “dividend had no effect on employment, and increased part-time work by 1.8 percentage points (17 percent)… our results suggest that a universal and permanent cash transfer does not significantly decrease aggregate employment.”
A 2019 study found “a 14% increase in substance-abuse incidents the day after the [Alaska Permanent Fund] payment and a 10% increase over the following four weeks. This is partially offset by a 8% decrease in property crime”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-politics-flores/
With the help of a jailed former bodyguard, Yazenky Lamas, U.S. prosecutors are preparing to charge the person widely considered the power behind President Nicolás Maduro’s throne, first lady Cilia Flores, with drug trafficking and corruption. Flores was aware of the coke-trafficking racket for which her two nephews were convicted by a U.S. court. Flores also used her privileged position, he said, to reward family members with prominent and well-paid positions in government, a claim of nepotism.
More than likely to be true but a convenient blind eye is turned to other Latin American politicians who are friendly to the USA with similar shady dealings.
The last time I attended, I was elected chair, Bijou, if that tells you something.
But you and I have the Border Riever blood in us
Bijou,
We are discussing the late 20s and early 30s when farm labourers were treated not much better than beasts themselves by the farmers.
I myself had doubts and mentioned so in the post but I did some online research and it seems it was not such a rare practice.
How to Castrate: The time-honored method of castration in sheep where the testicles are removed by the teeth of the producer will probably never be replaced.
http://www.infovets.com/books/smrm/C/C104.HTM
Us kids were allowed to watch the men do this bloody work. They would hold the testicles tight underneath, slit the skin holding the testicle in, put
their mouth down and get hold of the testicle with their teeth, lift
it up a bit, slice it off with the knife in their other hand and then
spit the testicle on the ground. The man doing this had blood all over
his mouth and face.http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=375251
But truth or legend, doesn’t really matter, to this debate.
Part 2
Left Gatekeepers Through the New Left: Monitored Rebellion (Part 2)
“the ruling classes have learned quite well the importance of controlling alternative visions to capitalism through think tanks, media and selected personalities. Their goal is to exclude any serious organizing of a socialist movement independent of the Democratic Party…Despite whatever good intentions they may have, DSA, Jacobin, Socialist Alternative on the right, and anarchists Noam Chomsky and Michael Albert on the left, all are colluding in keeping a working-class party from forming when they invite us every four years to vote for the ”lesser of two evils”. “
Although it raises some interesting points, it is still in the end, an essay in mourning for the anti-imperialist mass Leninist Party
TCM practitioners Vs TCM practitioners
“Democrats in Washington are not just passively failing to mount a strong opposition to Donald Trump – they are actively helping Republicans try to fortify the obstacles to long-term progressive change…”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/26/democrats-trump-corporate-counter-revolution
If I can summarise my many posts on this thread I have highlighted:
firstly, the ecological unsustainability of the current high levels of the meat industry;
secondly, the carcinogenic and ill-health effects of red and processed meat;
and thirdly, the psychological damage of those who are required to undertake the job of killing and butchering animals.
Each taken alone suggests why a reasoned and rational future society such as socialism would wish to change their eating habits and adapt their diets.
I have conceded, very much like many other human behaviours, meat-eating cannot be imposed, legislated or outlawed. Nor can it be proselytised like a religion.
However we do see a switch patterns when there is an increased use of substitutes and alternatives made available and readily accessible. The increased awareness within the food producers itself no longer driven by cost or profit concerns and from consumer education will shift opinions, just as we presently see with sugar and salt intakes.
That it is likely, agroecology and flexitarianism, will best describe how we produce and consume food – a mostly grain plant-based diet supplemented with limited intake of animal protein, perhaps farmed fish and locally reared chickens with perhaps more insect protein added in some shape or form.
Local conditions and cultures will result in a diversity of customs. There will not be one-size fits all.
Global food chains Vs. locavore-orientated will be debated and best practice adopted as the Communist Manifesto aspiration of the dissolution of the town and country divide expresses itself more and more within socialism and we all begin to understand the mechanics of field to fork food production.
Edit – P.S. I have also suggested that the very environmentally unfriendly and often exploitative pet-ownership will drop as the emotional need for companionship is lessened by instead a growing personal relationships between humans themselves.
Robbo, in an earlier post I suggested that goats were one breed of livestock that may well be returned to the wild. Message #202915
Mutual Aid, I have to come to the defence of ALB concerning the Hindu cow cult.
I believe a several years ago, he referred to his brother’s story when I was living in south India and remarked about how the sacred cow meant needless suffering of urban cows eating refuse and plastic. The event ALB referred to was a very sick cow which the local Hindu community refused to put out of its misery and permitted its suffering to be prolonged.
Related is the inhumane treatment of temple elephants in India.
It goes back to alienation, ALB. The nature of work itself and what drives people to perform work and take satisfaction from it.
There is a disconnect between survival of the individual and the community and today’s level of killing at a scale at which according to yourself can be projected into socialism, itself.
I offered you a quote from one of the religious halal slaughterers who compensated for the type of work by saying he felt rewarded by performing a service and duty to his Islamic community.
By extension, your argument is that abattoir workers will share a similar social worth and continue with the job for the good of society, that there will be volunteer replacements to take up the task of killing animals on a factory-line operation, (not as Bijou’s artisanal almost William Morris-like handicraft.)
I juxtapose another interpretation. It is alienated labour and it is harmful, to the person involved and to wider society at large. It is not socially useful labour and that is what determines what is produced inside socialism, even if there exists a demand for the product. I have confidence in the reason and rationality of those living in socialism to decide on such issues. (and as always i add a caveat that certain special situations will involve exceptions)
Once again it seems you are ignoring research into the effects of such work in todays capitalist world and you believe that such capitalist conditions and its influences on the personality disappears and ends with the establishment of socialism. It won’t.
It is not a form of dirty or demeaning or dangerous work (the 3-Ds) which can be compensated for by changes to it – but it is the 4th-D – damaging (to the health of the worker)
I gave you a link that even those who act in the interest of animals welfare suffer psychological consequences. How much worse it is then when you remove those well-intentioned motives and the purpose is to fill the belly of another person with one particular protein source.
To return to your earlier analogy, abortion clinic staff act with empathy and compassion for another person and deal with foetuses, not babies. If they were performing infanticide i am sure they would suffer trauma.
Anyway, some extracts from my cherry-picking trawling of the Socialist Standard’s views.
“Cruelty to animals will go the way of all forms of cruelty, when a real civilised existence becomes a possibility to everyone.”
“we want the best possible world for humans—but there is no reason why this should be at the expense of the suffering of other animals or why in practice it should lead to cruelty to animals being regarded as justified. It will, however, not rule out the conclusion that animals can be raised and killed for humans to eat, as long as this doesn’t involve cruelty…To tolerate the deliberate infliction of pain on them is to devalue opposition to human suffering too and so make it easier for some humans to get away with deliberately inflicting pain on other humans. In short, it is to help make for a less humane world….So, animals will be raised as food, but there will be no pressures to use methods of raising and slaughtering that impose suffering on them…”
“Socialists are not unduly sentimental about animals, and consider that a human’s first loyalty should be their own species. Nevertheless, the degree to which human society is ‘civilised’ can reasonably be gauged by its treatment of animals and the natural world as well as by its treatment of humans, and socialism, in its abolition of all aspects of the appalling savagery of capitalism, will undoubtedly do its part to abolish all unnecessary suffering by non-human sentient creatures.”
“There can be no dispute that many animals are treated abominably under capitalism. One question is to what extent their treatment is due to capitalism’s demands for profit and for constantly cheapening the costs of production. For it does not follow that mistreatment is a hallmark of all use of animals for food. It is perfectly possible that a Socialist society would involve less eating of meat and eggs, and any animals kept for food purposes would certainly be treated as humanely as possible.”
“However, people cannot be separated from their environment and in socialism a regard for human interests will obviously entail a cherishing of animals and what is called wildlife. That is not to say that socialism will be a world of sentimentals; as human interests require it animals will be used for food and, if such were necessary, in experiments with the object of saving human lives.”
“If socialists expect a large-scale meat industry they will have to face the fact that there is no ‘ethical’ way to do this. The New Scientist article points out that free-range farming is the most inefficient method both in terms of land use and greenhouse gas emissions, and argues that intensive factory farming is the only logical choice. No reasonable person today really questions the fact that animals, or at least farmed animals, are capable of fear and pain. Most people do not visit abattoirs nor do they really want to know what goes on in them, yet there is an unspoken knowledge behind the sterile and sanitized supermarket packaging. As the Nobel Prize winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer put it in The Letter Writer (1968), speaking of factory farming: ‘In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.’ The rise in demand for ‘cruelty-free’ products in Western countries shows that, given the luxury of choice, people prefer not to be responsible for inflicting such suffering…Unless and until the welfare and humane treatment of humans is first attended to the question of the ethical treatment of animals must remain an issue waiting for its moment. ”
So how do we determine the degree of cruelty in the slaughter of animals to justify satisfying society’s choice of diet as something that is unavoidably necessary and required for the functioning of society?
I’m sure many will say present custom of stunning animals with a bolt-gun is painless and cruelty-free. Or using electricity. Or gassing the animals. But is it painless for the operator, no matter how remote he or she may be from the actual hands-on experience. How different is it really for the follow-up chores of gutting and cleaning out the still-warm carcasses so to eventually present them in cellophane-wrapped bloodless, odourless packaging. People want distanced from the reality of meat-eating.
But it should be noted, I have tried to place the emphasis of my arguments upon the expectations of humane treatment from society of those workers directly involved in the carrying out such cruelty. The only counter to it has been reference to almost individualised experiences, nothing comparable to the reality of the enormous social scale of the situation. Skinning and gutting the occasional rabbit cannot be compared to the estimated 70 BILLION land-animals that are killed annually. Even reduce that figure ten-fold and it is still an enormous responsibility placed upon abattoir workers. The social effects of slaughterhouses are harmful and far-reaching and I believe those workers when no longer obliged to submit to the wage-slavery of working in such places will halt their own suffering. Those living in socialism will have to change their diet because I simply cannot accept that their will be willing replacements or individuals will carry out the killing of animals for their personal palate.
But should the practice continue perhaps Percy Shelley’s advice should be followed:
“Let the advocate of animal food, force himself to a decisive experiment on its fitness, and as Plutarch recommends, tear a living lamb with his teeth, and plunging his head into its vitals, slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of horror let him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent.”
Or as a more recent poet said,
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” – Paul McCartney
Rod, I have added caveats in many of my various posts, hoping to address your concern such as when i said, “Some meat-eating will persist, varying according to local geography and cultures…” Message #202915
But hopefully it is acceptable to speculate and make some generalisations about the nature of socialist society, and again hopefully with some informed educated guess-work.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that health workers would soon get hefty pay increases as part of an overhaul of France’s hospital system in response to the coronavirus crisis.
“I can say without any ambiguity, the increase will be significant,” Philippe said. Philippe promised “massive investments” as well as “radical changes” that could include new rules on working hours and scheduling to ensure that healthcare workers remain motivated despite the strains of their jobs.
The government said that all staff working in public hospitals and nursing homes in the regions hardest hit by the virus will get a 1,500-euro ($1,632) bonus from the state.
Meantime, employees of a major group of French nursing homes took part in protests across France to call for better pay amid the coronavirus crisis.
While similar “generosity” may happen here in the UK for NHS workers, i’m fairly confident it will not extend to the low-paid staff of privately run for profit care-homes who have suffered the brunt of fatalities from COVID-19.
In fact when the new immigration rules kick in, many care-home workers will be kicked out.
I don’t find your analogy of a slaughter-house to a medical clinic particularly comparable, just as I don’t try to link dissection of bodies to butchery.
There is a big difference between warder in a prison and a psychiatric nurse in a secure hospital.
My argument is not who will do the dirty work in socialism but will socialism permit harmful work.
It is a health and safety question. The damage to mental health for such workers is an occupational disease. Surely, the health and welfare of workers take precedence. Surely, socialism won’t be a society where an job that is proven injurious will be allowed to go on just to benefit others. It will be in nobody’s interests to maintain pitiless working practices.
“nothing would be produced and no processes would be used that might in any way be a threat to human health and well-being.” – Adam Buick
“we can be sure that the safety and well-being of those who produce the goods and services will be paramount. ” – Paul Bennett
The point of contention appears to be that you claim that such work can be carried out pain-free and humanely without affecting the mental well-being of those engaged in the industry. I challenge that view and say that even temporary short-time rotation of such tasks will result in psychological harm.
The briefest of googling produces an abundance of evidence to support my case. But once again, I refer to those who have first-hand experience – those who work in the abattoirs and food processing factories.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4841092/
“Maximum six months then you make a change, because if he shoots continuously it will start affecting him. He gets a murderous attitude in him. He will do it to other people. He will stab you with a knife, turn around and walk away.”
“As time passes, you get used to it. You feel nothing. You can imagine, if you kill a thing a 1000 times over and over, you wouldn’t have feelings after a while. It kills you on the inside, an abattoir, it kills you. You can be full of blood, it will not bother you.”
But to be fair here is a quote which might think support part of your argument
“Ensuring that the Muslim community are consuming whatever is wholesome and lawful that makes me very happy, because I’m doing something for the community on one side.”
Another article worth a read
“Australian research suggests repeated exposure to violence in an abattoir causes psychological damage. It found aggression levels among meatworkers were so high they were “similar to some reported for incarcerated populations.”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-animals-meat-production-meatworkers.htmlHow can such studies be ignored? It’s hard to see how those types of jobs could have anything but a deleterious impact on people’s mental health.
And as I have also emphasised – there are practical substitutes to real meat.
The job is not one that is unskilled these days.
https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/abattoir-worker/
As an aside, concerning unions and slaughterers, I worked with a EC member of USDAW who represented the work-force with Halls the Butchers. It was one place he was always hesitant to break bad news to. As he said, they all carried razor sharp knives.
