I escaped the Reddit regime a little while ago. I consider myself a marxist-leninist-MZT. Vegetarian and vegan for a few years. I've a lot of thoughts on how marxism and veganism are connected. Never wrote them down. I'd like to start smth like a club for marxist vegans to develop our own proletarian theory. Most vegan theory I found is either openly bourgeois (Francione is a literal TERF) or revisionist (anti-China, anarchist, libertarian). How about fixing this?
Here are my thoughts. Not polished but hope they make sense:
Point 1: Most socieities in a smartphone phase have a contradiction between the bourgeoisie that exploits animals and vegan activists. Farm workers take part in this exploitation but they're not benefiting from it, they're also exploited in this slaughter-hell. Animals don't have a weight in this xontradiction because they can't really fight back their oppressors. The people in general buy animal products but I think they don't reall benefit from animal exploitation. Most people buy & use animal prod because they're used to and attached to them culturally-emotionally.
Point 2: People actually care about animals, they just can't change their habits. With each friend, I had at least a few convos on veganism. The most honest non-vegans tell me exactly that.
Point 3: People are speciesist because they exploit animals, not the other way around. Humans ate animals in the past because this helped them survive. Before veganism, I went "reducetarian" for health and environmental reasons. Only after that I went vegan.
Point 4: When capitalism started to dominate, animal industry appeared. This industry is interested in preserving speciesism. That's why the bourgeoisie attacks animal rights activists so much. It even tries to ban anything that can push people towards veganism:
https://nationalaglawcenter.org/cell-cultured-meat-updates-state-bans-labeling-requirements-and-regulatory-clarifications/
Point 5: All vegans must support socialism. Socialism will eliminate the bourgeoisie but speciesism will stay for much longer. Under socialism, it will be easier to eliminate speciesism because proletarians have no (or little) material interest in animal exploitation. You can convince a socialist .gov to make steps towards veganism for environmental and health reasons. China already does that: https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/food-policy-snapshot-china-five-year-agricultural-plan-cultivated-meat/ With this, veganism will stop being seen as a fringe thing. People always ask me how am I capable of living without so many products. All the alternative foods will answer this question. People will slowly adopt these foods and eventually speciesism will crumble.
My veganism came from my socialism. I went vegan in 2020, when meat packing plant managers were gambling on the lives of their employees with a literal betting pool about who would catch COVID next. I was always sympathetic to the animal rights angle of veganism, but it was connecting it to the workers' struggle that made it the only personal choice I could tolerate.