First of all, animals should not be used for work because :im-vegan: . But having said that... I see how human labor creates surplus value. And I think I understand why machines don't create surplus value. But what about animals that get exploited to perform work, say the mule that pulls a plow? Like humans, they require a "real wage" to sustain them i.e. food, shelter, and medical attention, right? And if the value of labor power of a day of a mule is say 2 hours (that's how much human labor is invovlved in making feed, etc), then if this mule works for more than 2 hours, are they not creating surplus value for the capitalist that claims to own them?

  • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    in many cases though animals are used to do work they would do volunterily such as sheep dogs herding and many horses enjoy being ridden

    • Commander_Data [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Dogs and horses have been genetically modified for centuries to do those "jobs".

          • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            they aren't but they do involve it. how the animal feels about things depends a lot on how their trained and treated

              • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
                ·
                3 years ago

                yeah if a horse is broken they will hate riding but if you train them by building trust and continue to treat them with care and compassion they will enjoy riding.

                breaking a horse is just one particularly way of getting them to take a rider and it's an evil way of doing it

          • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
            ·
            3 years ago

            i'm not gonna make any blanket statements about animal domestication but i have no idea how anyone can learn anything about horse training and riding and think the animal is doing everything voluntarily lol

          • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            breaking horses is one way to get a horse to take a rider but there are other ways. You can train a dog by beating them and you can make a man work by whipping them but those aren't the only ways to do so

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Only after being psychologically and physically tortured into accepting human riders

        that's one way of training a horse to accept riders but it's not the only way to do it. It's used a lot as the other way involves caring for the horse and getting it to associate you with positive atmospheres and experiences which involves compassion and unfortunately some men think compassion is gay. It's like how you can train a dog by beating it but that's not the only way to train a dog

        And horse riding can be bad for the horses body if done a certain way and without regard for the welfare of the horse but it isn't automatically

          • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            of course it is a human can tell where a horse is uncomfortable but capital can only view the world as numbers. Training and looking after an animal properly takes compassion and capital has none