Abstract
In this commentary, the author discusses the recent publication by Kamila Lis (Coalitions in the Jungle), an article which summarizes the situation of farm animal welfare in the United States over the course of the 20th Century. Lis´ vision of the history of farm animal welfare is closely correlated with the rise, descent and resurrection of market power concentration of meat packing and processing industry. The author of the commentary discusses how the externalities from this concentration are imposed on to many actors outside the industry and that these could be fertile ground for cooperative work among advocates for animal welfare even though it may entail collaborating with groups with only tangential interests.
Highlights
The history of social movements which atempt to bring previously marginalized issues to the forefront is replete with examples of confict between cooperaton, compromise and collaboratng among actors whose interests and motvatons only tangentally coincide on the one hand and a desire to work with people whose aims and beliefs ft perfectly with one’s own
The systematc abuse of animals has historically reached its zenith during periods of concentraton; oligarchic market power in the meat processing industry is closely linked with negatve externalites such as lax animal and human safety standards, poor labor conditons and the atendant accidents and animal abuse due to overwork and frustraton
Union actvists championed the decrease of processing speeds because “it improved the physical safety of the workers, and simultaneously decreased their levels of frustraton while on the job”, benefts which decreased the prevalence of “inadvertent blunders” and “intentonal animal abuses in the slaughterhouse” (p. 75)
Summary
The history of social movements which atempt to bring previously marginalized issues to the forefront is replete with examples of confict between cooperaton, compromise and collaboratng among actors whose interests and motvatons only tangentally coincide on the one hand and a desire to work with people whose aims and beliefs ft (nearly) perfectly with one’s own. For Lis, the history of the meat processing industry and levels of animal welfare is one of market concentraton, de-concentraton and re-concentraton.
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