Industrial Capitalism and Factory Farming Through the Lens of Commodity Fetishism

Industrial Capitalism and Factory Farming Through the Lens of Commodity Fetishism

While Melville and Arendt approach willful ignorance through its relationship to privilege, this page considers how the Marxian notion of commodity fetishism relates to willful ignorance. The Marx and Engelsian notion of industrial capitalism is comparable to factory farming in that they are both employed by willful ignorance. First, this page argues that industrial capitalism and factory farming are murder in its many forms as they promote conditions that lead to death, reflect negligence, and result in cultural murder. This page operates under the assumption that animals have the same natural rights as people. Next, this page will explore the Marxian notion of “commodity fetishism” as a form of willful ignorance. Marx’s notion of “commodity fetishism” functions as a blind that allows for tolerance of injustice [1]. This page will focus on the commoditization of living beings as a fundamental component of industrial capitalism. This perspective allows an individual to view living beings as objects, and in turn relieves them from a moral duty to act.

Industrial Capitalism and Factory Farming are Murder

Promote Conditions That Lead to Death

Both industrial capitalism and factory farming promote conditions that lead to murder. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan explains that cows in factory farms are fed an excess of grain, which helps them put on weight, but as ruminants, their stomachs are not built to digest [2]. As a result, many suffer from serious diet and digestion related problems such as acidosis or feedlot bloat, which can essentially cause their stomachs to rupture, resulting in death. Similarly, Marx and Engels describe the proletariat as living in conditions in which they physically depend on the bourgeois for survival. The modern laborer, instead of rising with the process of industry, falls deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. Marx and Engels write that “here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society...it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him” [3]. Industrial capitalism promotes conditions that lead to murder as it strips the proletariat of the ability to feed itself.

Cows raised on grain develop severe health problems including liver abscesses, bloat and sudden death syndrome. Taken from Affirmative Action Alliance 

Reflect Negligence 

Overcrowded Living Conditions. Taken from Food For Thought 

Both factory farming and industrial capitalism promote negligence. Negligence is a failure to provide proper care, which results in injury or harm to another being. For example, in Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser writes that cows are often housed in individual crates or pens with little space or chance for interaction with other cows, usually while standing in their own manure [4]. They are also routinely dehorned and castrated, without the use of pain relief. Similar to cows, pigs are often housed so close to one another that the agricultural practice of docking, or removing part of an animal’s tail, is routinely implemented to prevent the animals from chewing on each other’s tails [5]. Their teeth are also sometimes clipped to avoid biting. Both behaviors, chewing on each other's tails and biting, result from the high stress, confined environment that a factory farm produces and reflect negligence. Similarly, Marx and Engel’s write that “masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers… They are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overseer, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and more embittering it is” [6]. Industrial capitalism promotes negligence by failing to provide proper working conditions for the proletariat. Instead, industrial capitalism provides working conditions that enslave and harm the proletariat.

Sanitary conditions in the late 1800s in America. Taken From Synonym 

Cultural Murder 

Gestation Crates. Taken from Farm Sanctuary

Industrial capitalism and factory farming result in cultural murder. Cultural murder is the dissolution of mental well-being (i.e. through the removal of religion or morality). In factory farms, mother pigs, or sows, are characteristically crammed into gestation crates, which are about two feet wide, where they usually remain for their entire lives, subjected to an enduring cycle of repeated impregnation. This type of confinement obliterates the normal familial and social relations natural to pigs, in addition to contributing to pigs becoming depressed and behaving abnormally [7]. Following the aforementioned assumption that animals have the same natural right as people, this page operates under the assumption that animals, like humans, have a culture. In the condition of the proletariat, the conditions of old society at large are virtually swamped. Marx and Engels write that “The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests” [8]. Industrial capitalism distances the proletarian from the family and takes away the proletariat’s cultural identity.  Thus industrial capitalism is cultural murder as it strips the proletariat of their culture. Interestingly, the aspects of cultural murder discussed in relation to both factory farming and industrial capitalism involve stripping the individual from their family.  

Commodity Fetishism as a Form of "Willful Ignorance"

Marx's labor theory of value makes the argument that although various degrees of labor and different social relations underlie each commodity, we are unable to see these aspects [9].  Marx reasons that this abstraction is due to the false separation of two social realms: the realm of production and the realm of exchange. The first realm, the realm of production, is considered to be the “hidden” or private realm, but is responsible for labor conditions and all the social relations of production. The second realm is the realm of exchange, which is made public and represented by the market [9]. This is the realm where commodities make their appearance. Separating these two realms, however, is a metaphorical veil. In the excerpt from “The German Ideology”, Marx and Engels introduce the notion of an ideological veil, which separates material practices from how one consciously thinks of material practices. Marx and Engels write that “...Men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their actual world, also their thinking and the products of their thinking” (10). Marx’s notion of false consciousness creeps into this, as men alter their thinking in a way that allows them to blindly tolerate reality [11]. Marx explained this veil as contributing to what he deemed ‘commodity fetishism’ [12]. According to Marx, commodity fetishism keeps us from seeing the true nature of the commodity, which includes both the labor and the social relations associated with them. This veil hides the realm of production, which although is the reality, takes a backseat to what people actually see in the form of a price tag in the realm of exchange. 

Animals and Laborers as Commodities 

Meat Packaged in a Grocery Store. Taken from CBS News

In looking at animals as commodities, one can see how commodity fetishism works to hide much of the production in the industrial food system. For example, when one sees a cut of meat in the grocery store, nicely packaged in plastic with only a price tag on it, the social aspect of the commodity is no longer expressed. No longer do we see the poor living conditions of the animals or the brutal methods of slaughter. Similarly, in industrial capitalism, the “laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market” [13]. However, when one acquires the product produced by the laborer, the conditions of the laborer are no longer visible. The social terms upon which the commodity has arrived on our plate have become irrelevant amongst its fetishization, and we are, in turn, capable of willful ignorance.  

"Ignorant Eaters"

Pollan also highlights this issue and explains how the reality of the industrialized food system is obscured. Pollan is very critical of the American consumer, himself included, accusing both of being “ignorant eaters” (14). Pollan explains that the industrialized food system capitalizes on keeping the American consumer, a vital part of the industrial food chain, in the dark. He argues that America’s food culture is one full of confusion and anxiety, and one which “[needs] investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from” [15]. Industrial eating, Pollan says, obscures relationships in the food chain. He describes that there are three principal food chains (industrial, organic, and hunter gatherer) and these food chains link what we eat back to the Earth in different ways [16]. The problem with industrial eating, as Pollan sees it, is how all the interconnected relationships become obscure, similar to Marx’s depiction of commodity fetishism and how it obscures what is perceived as social reality. As Pollan describes, “To go from the chicken (Gallus gallus) to the Chicken McNugget is to leave this world in a journey of forgetting that could hardly be more costly, not only in terms of the animal’s pain but in our pleasure, too. But forgetting, or not knowing in the first place, is what the industrial food chain is all about, the principle reason it is so opaque, for if we could see what lies on the far side of the increasingly high walls of our industrial agriculture, we would surely change the way we eat” [17].

Paul McCartney "If slaughterhouses had glass walls everyone would be vegetarian." Taken from Youtube

The Other Side of those High Walls

Housing. Taken from Food For Thought

Pollan has been on the other side of those high walls, and so too has Schlosser, and both have revealed the horrific living conditions and slaughter techniques of cows, pigs, and chickens unbeknownst to many. Chickens are bred to grow at a fast rate, and are routinely fed so much so quickly that their legs are no longer able to support their own body weight [18].  Many die after they become unable to walk and thus lose access to food and water. The beaks of chickens also are usually removed, without anesthesia, so that they do not peck one another to death; a behavior caused by the stress of their overcrowding in wire cages [18]. To give an idea of how tightly packed these sheds can be, The National Chicken Council Guidelines only require 0.6 to 0.7 sq. ft. per bird, which is not much bigger than a sheet of paper, and many factory farms take advantage of this guideline to produce as highly dense environments as possible [19]. The conditions of factory farms­ such as overcrowding, extreme heat, and rampant disease­ often kill a large amount of animals, even before they are brought to slaughter.

Debeaking of Female Chicks. Taken from Youtube

While the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act is supposed to protect against brutalized forms of slaughter, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulation of slaughter methods is often very relaxed, and does not protect birds, which are exempt from the list [20]. While the majority of these things will never be seen first hand by anyone other than factory workers, Pollan, Schlosser, and Marx alike would argue that as consumers, we are still involved. Pollan specifically makes the claim that by choosing to eat the foods we do, we are also choosing and complying with the way the animals are raised and slaughtered. In the case of the industrialized food system, the compliance is, at times, that of sheer brutality. Pollan explains that the suffering and brutalization of animals is more prevalent than ever in factory farms but we tolerate it because we don’t see it; the suffering is removed from view, and therefore we are removed from the animals we eat [21]. We become capable of willful ignorance.

This separation is further enhanced by ag-gag bills, criminalizing any factory farms expositions or intense lobbying against the industry. Pollan argues that, “Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do” [21]. Since such transparency is not likely to come to fruition anytime soon, others have begun to work to figuratively lift the veil that has been constructed to conceal the reality of factory farms. Documentaries such as Food Inc. and Earthlings have also aimed to make the invisible, visible.  These documentaries hope to promote not only awareness but also hope to instill a higher level of consciousness when it comes to eating, a point highlighted time and time again by Pollan. For Pollan, eating industrially is akin to eating in ignorance, and the idea of an “open air-abattoir” is a morally powerful one [22].

Willful Ignorance is Timeless 

Although Marx’s analysis of capitalism is over two centuries old, many of it still remains relevant today. His Labor Theory of Value helped give meaning to the often hidden social relations of production. Picking up on this analysis in the context of the industrialized food system, Pollan and Schlosser both examine the myriad of relationships that, as consumers, we hold with our food. Both trace the consequences of the disconnect between the commodity that ends up on our plate and the once living animal, subject to poor living conditions and harsh methods of slaughter. While Pollan demands a greater consciousness out of the American consumer, the larger, structural aspects inherent in the food system, are not to be ignored. Potentially impeding “responsible eating,” is the fact that our food system is skewed towards unhealthy food due to large government subsidies of commodity crops such as corn. Unable to afford local or organic foods, many low-income families are forced to purchase “unhealthy” foods, which are the most affordable. Indeed, the poverty-stricken conditions of the working class in England, as described by Marx and Engels, are still prevalent today. As a result, working class people all over the world subsist on factory farmed food.

Willful Ignorance Ain't the Way 

While Pollan views this structural skewing as inherently problematic, among many other issues regarding America’s food policy, the incremental improvement he is trying to make centers around making the best choices he can at each meal, understanding that eating is a social, political, and economic act. He advocates for conscious, mindful eating, and while he does eat meat, he believes that animals should be eaten with the “consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve,” and arguably from a Marxist standpoint, not treated solely as fetishized, commodified objects [19]. Thus Pollan advocates against willful ignorance. Indeed, consumerism as a whole requires a veil of ignorance- much of what we wear, consume, and use on a daily basis requires a disjunction that enables us to ignore where each commodity comes from. Thus, on a daily basis, we are contributing to various networks of injustice as defined by Locke. The inability to physically see these networks enables us to deny the injustice. 
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1. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I. The Process of Capitalist Production, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1887), 47. 
2. Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World, (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 64.
3. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto: With Related Documents, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999), 76.
4. Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 57.
5.  Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 218.
6. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 72.
7. Tonsor, Glynn T., Nicole Olynk, and Christopher Wolf. "Consumer preferences for animal welfare attributes: The case of gestation crates." Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 41, no. 03 (2009): 713-730.
8. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 75.
9. Marx, Capital, 30-33.
10. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 143.
11. Eyeman, Ron. "False consciousness and ideology in Marxist theory." Acta Sociologica 34, no. 1-2 (1981): 43-56. 
12. Marx, Capital, 47. 
13. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 71.
14. Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 337.
15. Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 1.
16. Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 7.
17. Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 10-11.
18. Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 317.
19. "Animal Welfare for Broiler Chickens," National Chicken Council, Accessed November 23, 2016, http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/industry-issues/animal-welfare-for-broiler-chickens/.
20. "Humane Methods of Slaughter Act," United States Department of Agriculture: National Agricultural Library, Accessed November 23, 2016, https://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/humane-methods-slaughter-act.
21. Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 333.
22. Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, 331.