... unless the person works voluntarily, that is.

We are also riddled with pesticides (perfumes, deodorants), bred in captivity (social/gender/sexual norms) and - if you're going to consume us either way - our caloric and nutritional values are abysmal (compared to our alternatives).

Not vegan so correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought the whole point of veganism was an objection to the non-consensual use of animal products. Humans are aware of the use of their labor and consent to it, exploitation by circumstance notwithstanding.

Would make more sense if post was talking about slavery, not labor. Labor is compensated.

Did you only read the title

The OP was a little vague to me, but I'm also a little drunk.

Sure you can make that argument under capitalism, where people are deprived of the value their labor created in order to force them to work more so they may survive. Hence why people should strive for communism. If everyone lived vegan people would be compelled to work as they are able in order to not cause undue burden on others, which again would not be vegan.

"From each according to their ability to each according to their need."

Compare the GDP of your country to earned income, do a tiny bit of math, discover what portion of the workforce are slaves.

Yeah, soap too 😢

Veganism is extremely capitalistic, because it relies on supply and demand to change the amount of animal suffering that is/was produced.

In germany we have the saying: „to wash you hands in innocence.“ I guess thats what that was about.

This socialist ideal of providing luxury goods to the poor masses for cheap is exactly the problem. If the world would be more capitalist, we wouldn’t subsidise the meat industries and the poor would be forced to buy beans.

Veganism is simply not taking part in animal suffering, you're thinking of "animal liberation" which is the active part.

And yes one way to reduce animal suffering is to leverage basic market laws about supply and demand. But buying and selling isn't capitalism. People in every socialist nation ever have bought and sold stuff, and when stuff wasn't in demand the supply reacted accordingly. If you want an introductory book I can recommend some (earnest, not trying to be mean, it just seems like you don't know the definition of the terms you're using).

But there is also direct action, adoption of rescued animals and maybe some other stuff I can't remember right now that people that take part in animal liberation do.

If everyone lived vegan people would be compelled to work as they are able in order to not cause undue burden on others, which again would not be vegan.

i don't quite get your last sentence. what if the person themselves doesn't want to work?

exploitation by circumstance notwithstanding

yeah that was exactly what i was referring to. as long as we'd rather stay in bed in the morning, we're not doing it voluntarily. and be honest, do you go to work voluntarily? would you still do it if you didn't need the money? if so, then yes, it is vegan.

yeah but do you go to work voluntarily? would you still do it if you didn’t need the money? if so, then yes, it is vegan.

not necessarily, very abridged version:

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall will soon mean that an industry will stop producing said commodity. It can't anymore if it's unprofitable. This is where the state has to step in and start subsidizing that industry or buying the commodity themself in order to articially inflate demand in order to keep that industry afloat. See e.g. the "butter mountains" of the EU.

That wikipedia article on "The tendency of the rate of profit to fall" is a horrible introduction btw. If you want to know more you can read "Arbeitslohn und Kapital"/"Wage labour and capital" by Marx himself, much more digestible. And rather short.

If the person doesn't want to work how will they sustain themselves? They have to rely on other peoples labor without contributing their own. If people don't want to subsidize someone else then that person would either have to start working "against their will" or take other peoples labor without consent, which you have already pointed out, is not vegan. So if everyone were vegan that person would be compelled to work as they are able in order to be able to remain vegan.

Idk its kinda tortured logic when spelling it all out lol

no that's biblical https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/die_Hände_in_Unschuld_waschen look at "Herkunft"

Nature compells us to work for food anyway, that's not exploitation and coercion, that's just survival.

The construct of society is predicated on the idea of "from each... to each..." That saying often gets conflated with left-wing politics, but that's just the point of animals (humans included) grouping together; after all, what's the point of living in society if it doesn't convey any benefits to the individual that they could not provide for themselves? That would be exploitative of the individual. But if they are benefitting, then it is only fair and just to also give back to the society one extracts benefits from, otherwise it is exploitative of the others.

Put another way: no one should be obligated to participate in society, but then society should likewise have no obligations to the non-participants.

Thats the exact opposite of capitalism. Unprofitable business go bankrupt. Then their possessions and their labor force gets absorbed by other companies.

This is to align work with reality.

If politicians would artificially decide what companies to keep someone would have to pay for their mistakes. Markets are much better at this (just read “the use of knowledge in society” by Friedrich von Hayek)

Just like the suffering of animals is unnecessary to feed the planet, we now have to pay for the costs of climate change, because people want to life in a socialist fantasy.

Buying and selling with a currency is capitalism. If I would just get a meal ticket from the communist party, I might trade away more of my belongings, but thats not the same market vegans try to address.

Consent is a bad metric because it ignores externalities—stuff like economic incentives, implicit threats of loss of basic needs, propaganda, trauma. Someone can be said to consent to exploitation, even if they only did so to continue surviving under oppressive economies/states. I "consent" to have the value of my labor extracted, pooled, and distributed to business owners in the same way I "consent" to the privacy policies (and the sale of my Personally Identifying Information) of the software the company I work for requires us to use (to remain employed)

That's why I prefer focusing on exploitation. Someone doesn't have to know they're being exploited, agree that they're being exploited, nor even want to not be exploited for it to still be unjust to exploit them and identify when it is happening. Veganism is a stance against animal exploitation.

Ok so unprofitable businesses keep going bankrupt, get gobbled up by a bigger corporation until one corporation has a monopoly. That's the trend we're seeing right? How many corporations for food are there left now? Nestle, Unilever, Coca Cola, Mondelez and that's pretty much it right? Well what happens when the tendency of the rate of the profit to fall forces them to no longer produce food. Do we just go extinct?

This (in case of the "butter mountains" and in general) isn't some politicians deciding which companies to keep, this is the state intervening to save itself. They have to prop up an entire industry that cannot reduce costs any further which means that the price keeps fluctuating around 0 profit which means the entire industry goes extinct. That's why there is a fixed price on milk, not to save some companies, but to prop up the entire industry. Capitalism will devolve sooner or later into state planning since without this state intervention industries start collapsing.

Could you imagine the ramification of the entire dairy industry dying out? (😸) The economy would go haywire, entire villages depend on their dairy farming, they would revolt it would be pandemonium. This is where capitalism finally leads.

This is not how communism works, how any socialist society operates, I'm sorry but you've completely fallen for the propaganda and are living outside of reality.

The fact that "Buying and selling with a currency" is not capitalism is also very clear from the fact that we were buying and selling with a currency under feudalism, under slavery, currency predates capitalism by millenia.

Mm, so if a worker creates added value, that makes the worker a slave? Interesting theory.

Level 8 veganism iirc

I go to work for money (in the job I chose), and I get money, i call that a fair deal. If I was owned by someone, was forced to work, and would not get paid in return, I would be a slave.
I mean what do you think it should be like? I don’t go to work and I get paid anyways? Who makes the shit I buy with the money then?

Nature compells us to work for food anyway, that’s not exploitation and coercion, that’s just survival.

Not all of us ahem bourgeoisie ahem

The construct of society is predicated on the idea of “from each… to each…”

of course, however what makes a societies differ is exactly what gets filled in to the "..."

"from each slave to each slavemaster" -> slavery
"from each serf to each lord" -> feudalism
"from each worker to each owner" -> capitalism
"from each person (according to their ability) to each person (according to their need)" -> socialism 😄

i mean, i only asked whether you go to work voluntarily, and whether it could therefore be considered vegan.

what you're describing is just capitalism with extra steps

When GDP is three times earned income, labor is being undercompensated so much that approximately two-thirds of the workforce is enslaved, yes.

The tendency of the rate of profit to fall will soon mean that an industry will stop producing said commodity. It can’t anymore if it’s unprofitable. This is where the state has to step in and start subsidizing that industry or buying the commodity themself in order to articially inflate demand in order to keep that industry afloat. See e.g. the “butter mountains” of the EU.

ahem i just so happen to be very familiar with the whole concept of the tendency of rate of profit to fall (TRPF) and you're misunderstanding it here. it turns to be unprofitable in the sense that the profit rate approaches zero (for example, exponentially), it does not go negative! companies continue to produce stuff as long as the profit is larger than zero, which it always stays. so they continue to produce stuff indefinitely, according to the model. even though they make less and less profit with it. no state subsidizing involved here.

this is maybe a subtlety here. something can converge towards zero while also always staying positive. check out this function:

i do think that "voluntary" is a pretty clear term. would you still do it if it didn't cost you anything, and it also didn't get you any physical reward?

dude ... pls put that behind a spoiler tag. that is a serious infohazard there

Sorry to burst your bubble, but if your work's payment feels like a fair deal, you're very privileged when compared to the average human

Edit: even being able to choose your job is a privilege...

Yes

I will try rephrasing it: its a nonsensical, fucking stupid proposal that gdp should equal earned income, and that somehow if the two are not equal then the difference amounts to slavery.
Do you care to elaborate, why do you even think these two should be the same, and what the difference has to do with slavery, as it relates to the actual meaning of that expression, not random things you don’t like.

The only way someone can work voluntarily is if they have the option to not work and still live with some semblance of comfort and security.

This means that almost all people are obliged to work.

done

They could be slave part time though

ahem I know about e^-x^ and convergence thanks, I had some math in high school too.

I don't know what it means for the tendency of the rate of profit to be negative (or positive, or 0 for that matter). It's not a number. If you're talking about the rate of profit of course that can go negative. I think what you mean is that it will be balanced out, but not as high as it was before. Here is how its explained in Wage labour and capital, emphasis mine

We have just seen how the fluctuation of supply and demand always bring the price of a commodity back to its cost of production. The actual price of a commodity, indeed, stands always above or below the cost of production; but the rise and fall reciprocally balance each other, so that, within a certain period of time, if the ebbs and flows of the industry are reckoned up together, the commodities will be exchanged for one another in accordance with their cost of production. Their price is thus determined by their cost of production.

If you want to illustrate this movement a function like cos(x)/x would be more prudent. Here is 10*cos(x)/x to make it "pop" more:

Remember that convergence doesn't necessarily mean monotone convergence, and you'll be hard pressed to find a monotone graph in economics 😄 Here is a more illustrive graph for TRPF

You also say that "companies continue to produce stuff as long as the profit is larger than zero, which it always stays" which is absolutely false! A companies profit absolutely can be zero, or even negative! Remember profit = m - m', where m' is the money you have after selling the commodity. Or in more plain words, if you have less money after selling than before producing you made negative profit. If you didn't get your investment back, you didn't make profit.

As a vegan I'm of the opinion that humans are an exception and as such cannibalism, murder and genocide are all vegan and morally correct.

Define "physical reward"?

I would argue that the good feeling from a well done job counts as a physical reward 🙂 and is a necessary motivational feedback. If you mean monetary or resource awards, I agree.

I don't think you need to be vegan to realise we're the exception.

Like, people don't tend to get very upset about cannibalism in the animal kingdom, it's actually quite normal for some species. And murder and genocide only apply to humans in the first place, as these concepts don't exist for animals, either.

Sorry babe, i can't vacuum the house cause I'm vegan.

That good feeling is a psychological reward. It is not physical. You cannot hold it, touch it, or give it to someone else for doing a job.

There is some labor out there that doesn't really contribute to the reported GDP numbers. Water and wastewater workers don't directly contribute to GDP numbers but do allow other people and businesses to contribute to GDP. The amount of treated water a city creates isn't counted towards GDP.