A global war against animals is driven by capitalist exploitation and profit. Dinesh Wadiwel, author of Animals and Capital and The War Against Animals, shows how capitalism treats animals as commodities, raw materials, and self-reproducing labor. He advocates for an anti-capitalist animal politics that builds alliances with social justice movements to advance both animal and human justice. Highlights include:
- Why the concept of 'hierarchical anthropocentrism' is essential in revealing how human-centered thinking and systems of hierarchy together justify domination over both animals and marginalized human groups;
- How 'hierarchical anthropocentrism' spread globally through colonialism with its racial and ethnic hierarchies and was then exponentially increased in its destructiveness by global capitalism;
- How human relationships with animals - from industrial farming to pet ownership - reflect human domination and control of animals;
- How we are waging a war against animals, even as we try to hide the reality of industrial animal killing through consumer distance and sanitized language;
- Why animals’ physical resistance to human violence is politically significant and doesn't rely on moral appeals to animal sentience;
- Why the rise of utilitarianism within animal rights philosophical theory coincides with the rise of neoliberal capitalism;
- How animal agriculture has grown so large - not because of human need - but to serve capitalist profits by stimulating demand for cheaply overproduced animal products;
- How capitalism sustains animal exploitation by treating animals as laborers that reproduce themselves as profitable commodities;
- Why an effective animal rights movement must have a structural critique of capitalism that allows it to build alliances with social justice groups, such as labor and indigenous rights, in order to resist the capitalist structures that oppress both animals and people;
- Why the lack of a theory of the state weakens animal advocacy by leading activists to overestimate the role of liberal democracies and legal reform, even as both animals and many humans experience increasingly totalitarian relations to the state.
See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:
https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/dinesh-wadiwel
OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance
OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.
Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance.
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