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THE POVERTY OF ANIMALS
TOWARDS A MARXIST THEORY
OF ANIMAL WELFARE
Mehmet Kanatli
The Poverty of Animals
This book makes a theoretical contribution to animal rights issues from a
Marxist perspective. Drawing on ethics, politics and philosophy, it focuses
on how to create a social formation that will improve animal welfare.
Further, the book enables the readers to grasp current theoretical debates
on animal welfare and to gain insight into theoretical and practical perspec
tives in dealing with the animal issues.
The volume will be of great interest to scholars of politics and political
philosophy, especially Marxism, and animal rights activists.
Mehmet Kanatli is Lecturer at the Department of Political Science and
Public Administration at Hitit University, Turkey. He received his MA from
the Political Theory programme at Manchester University, UK, and his
PhD from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration
at METU, Turkey. He is also the author of Private Property, Freedom and
Order: Social Contract Theories from Hobbes to Rawls (Routledge, 2021).
He is interested in a wide range of social science disciplines from international
relations to political theory, with a specialisation in theories of democracies,
political ideologies, and political thought.
The Poverty of Animals
Towards a Marxist Theory
of Animal Welfare
Mehmet Kanatli
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 Mehmet Kanatli
The right of Mehmet Kanatli to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781032366029 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032407289 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003353355 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003353355
Typeset in Sabon
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
This volume is dedicated to Karl
and Jenny Marx’s son Edgar.
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Why Do We Need a Marxist Theory
of Animal Welfare? 15
2 Marx and Animal Welfare 47
3 Capitalism and the Poverty of Animals 78
4 What Can Be Done for Animal Welfare? 108
Conclusion 137
References 143
Index 150
INTRODUCTION
Denmark revealed in September on 2020 that it would cull 17 million minks
after a dozen people were found to have a mutated form of COVID-19 in
North Jutland, eight from within the fur farming industry and a further
four from nearby communities.1 Thousands of camels in South Australia
were shot dead from helicopters by officials due to extreme heat and
drought in the beginning of 2020.2 In the USA alone, approximately
one hundred million chickens are slaughtered every week for their meat
(Arıkan, 2016: 28). By the same token, animals are killed every year across
thousands of commercial sectors, from clothing to cosmetics. It is also
known that hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in experiments in
which they are used as experimental subjects. Apart from these events, mil-
lions of animals undoubtedly die as a result of the direct or indirect human
intervention. In this sense, the fact that dozens of living creatures face such
negativities indicates how animal welfare is deteriorated by human beings’
destructive impact on ecology. Tragically, the fact that a famished polar
bear is the size of a large household dog is another indicator of the negative
effects of ecological damage on living things. More importantly, the cases
that negatively affect animal welfare are not limited to these. Many of us
also witness the abuse of animals and confiscation of their products in
thousands of different ways in our daily life, even though these negativities
do not result in the death of the animals.
Hundreds of similar events, as described above, are witnessed in many
parts of the world today and are considered direct threat to animal welfare.
Since the concept of animal welfare is an Essentially Contested Concept
(ECC),3 it is necessary to clarify what the concept of animal welfare means.
Such a clarification will also enable us to indicate the scale of the threat
on animals. In contemporary literature, the common definition of ‘animal
welfare’ reflects two dimensions. The first one, as Engin Arıkan states, is as
follows: “a concept expressing the pain and pleasure felt by animals with
interests” (Arıkan, 2016: 3). The other most commonly accepted definition
is that “it comprises the state of the animal’s body and mind, and the extent
to which its nature (genetic traits manifest in breed and temperament) is sat-
isfied” (Duncan and Fraser, 1997: 20; Hewson, 2003: 496–497). As a new
DOI: 10.4324/9781003353355-1
