When the political left uses a class analysis to consider the nature of capitalism in its various forms, it usually sees it as being based on the relationship between labour and capital with the latter controlling and benefiting from the surplus value of the former.
At its core this class analysis characterises capitalism as being driven primarily by wealth accumulation.
When this is drilled down to employment relations it is seen in terms of employers benefiting, from the exploitation of their workers; benignly or otherwise, lightly or otherwise.
Sometimes, more often than many would be prepared to admit, this exploitation involves cruelty, particularly of those in vulnerable employment.
Migrant labour in New Zealand is arguably the easiest of vulnerable workforces to immediately identify.
But cruelty is not confined to humans. Animals, including pets, are not always spared. This can be at a much lower, but still concerning, level of severity than can be seen in some other countries.
This is highlighted by Newsroom politics journalist Emma Hatton (19 July): SPCA fury to support farming, not protect pets.
Companion farm pets
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) has a proud record of proactively and reactively protecting animals from cruelty for over 150 years. Its abbreviation is one of the most well-known and trusted names in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Hatton reports the “fury” of SPCA over the direction of the Associate Minister of Agriculture, ACT MP Andrew Hoggard, to the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee to cease working on welfare standards for pet rabbits, cats and dogs. He is also a former Federated Farmers national president.
Currently there is no code of welfare that sets minimum standards for the ownership of pet farm rabbits. The code for companion dogs is 14 years old and the one for cats is 17 years old.
SPCA’s inspectorate is tasked with protecting companion animals. It depends on welfare code when bringing a prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act. Both existing codes are outdated; “almost irrelevant”.
The Society had been working with the Advisory Committee to both update these companion codes and develop a new one for pet rabbits.
Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard and former Federated Farmers head blocks progressing companion farm pet protection
Hoggard has now intervened to stop this work. This is despite the fact that this committee is supposed to be independent.
Further, in respect of farm livestock welfare, he has instructed his advisory committee to consider the financial implications its plans may have on farmers.
In his words, “…it was appropriate for the Committee to have to consider the practicality and economic effects of its welfare proposals.” Farms, of course, are businesses which need to accumulate profits.
Meanwhile 9,700 kilometres away
The capitals of New Zealand and Thailand are over 9,700 kilometres apart. As big as this distance is, it pales into insignificance when the exploitative neglect of companion farm pets in the former is contrasted with that of draught elephants in the latter.
Elephants have long had cultural and religious significance in Thailand which has helped to sustain their population over the centuries. Prior to 2020 at least, there were up to an estimated 7,300 elephants in this Asian country.
Of this number fewer than 48% (3,500) of them were likely to have been wild elephants living in their own natural habitats.
The remainder were domestic elephants estimated at around 3,800. Of these, more than 2,700 (at least 71%) were used in the exploitative tourism industry. Included among the rest were those working in the also exploitative logging industry.
Wild elephants have protections under Thai law. However, this protection deliberately excludes registered draught animals, such as those working in tourism and logging.
Elephant sanctuaries: humanity at its best
In late June I visited Phuket and had the opportunity to visit the Phuket Elephant Sanctuary, the first Thai ethical elephant sanctuary. There are now 13 such sanctuaries in Thailand.
Subsequently, as a co-panellist, I discussed this in the ‘I’ve been thinking’ segment of Radio New Zealand’s The Panel (18 July; first item in the following link): Elephant exploitation and sanctuary protection.
The message taken from my visit was powerful. Captive elephants are suffering by being forced to live in unnatural and traumatic conditions. They are imprisoned by their captors.
Elephants in sanctuaries were rescued from situations of cruelty, abuse, and exploitation. None are young; all arrived in very poor shape.
They were seriously physically damaged. Among them were partially or fully blind elephants due to being unnecessarily exposed by their captors to the sun for prolonged periods of time.
There is no comparison between rescuing abused elephants in Thailand and animals in New Zealand. In the latter case, animal abuse can be prosecuted and pets physically rescued. In the former case, exploitative business owners can’t be.
Sanctuaries have to negotiate a price and usually when the physical and other damage has already been done and the elephant’s earning capacity reduced or gone. And then there is the cost of transportation for sanctuaries to absorb.
Take-home points
The Phuket sanctuary was not just impressive; it was emotionally overpowering: Humanity at its kindest. There were 18 elephants in this spacious natural setting, each with their own dedicated adult to protect them from accidents.
My photo of Phuket elephant in its sanctuary habitat
I came away from the sanctuary with two overall take-home points. First, I was overwhelmed by the stunning quality of care the elephants received in the large open space of the sanctuary. It was as natural as elephant safety requirements could allow.
Second, I was shocked by the inhumane and cruel exploitation that these captive elephant had been brutally subjected to.
This cruel exploitation was not driven by the need for the elephant captors to be profitable. Instead it was driven by the all-consuming desire to maximise profits to the fullest extent.
This is the wealth accumulation foundation of capitalism at its most visible harshness. It is not just greed; it is ‘greed plus’.
Ian Powell was Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the professional union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand, for over 30 years, until December 2019. He is now a health systems, labour market, and political commentator living in the small river estuary community of Otaihanga (the place by the tide). First published at Political Bytes
I suspect that the industrial slaughter of animals for meat has allowed most of the population to believe that animals do not have feelings which is why there’s only a limited number of people supporting animal rights. This allows farmers to do things to animals that almost all of us would not do to humans in the aim of production at the lowest cost while the system still charges the consumer as much as possible.
If people had to rear their own cattle, sheep, chickens etc there would be the obvious physical limitations as well as a reluctance by some to kill animals that they had some form of bond with. If they had the opportunity to grow their own plants for food that would be even better for them. Unfortunately we live in a society where profit is considered more important than health so I don’t see anything changing.
Hopefully we will one day get to the point people will look back with shock and horror at the industrial exploitation of sentient beings for slaughter which by then is a relic of the past.
I suspect that it will take mass outbreaks of disease caused by the sickening conditions that animals are raised in to transfer to humans before the majority of the population wakes out of their stupor.
Woww, that’s a post oozing with pure ignorance Bonnie.
I farm and I have multiple agencies, some Govt and some charged by the Government and some more local, watching us do it. I have zero issue with that as like an field, even interweb posters, there are a small number of utter muppets who need a kick in the arse.
What is fucked up though is I am held to a higher account over the welfare of our cows than I am the welfare of any fellow human, including my mum.
Farming – noun – The art of losing money while working 400hours a month to feed people who think you are trying to kill them.
You call it ignorance, I call it a different viewpoint. What I know is real is the thousands of about 30 day old chickens that travel in trucks after being raised in conditions that end up with them only able to eat, shit and grow, the farmers care enough to make sure that they can all get food though. They then get processed which consists of hanging them by their legs to the production line when they’re short life is quickly ended by cutting their heads off. You didn’t specify if you had a dairy farm so since beef for meat farming is nicer to the animals I will just comment on dairy farming. We start with a cow/heifer that comes on heat so some person sticks their arm up the cows bum to guide the tube into the uterus to get it pregnant, about 285 days later a calf is born which depending on its gender and breeding value determines its fate. The male calves usually have a short life, days not weeks although the demand for bull beef allows many of them to have a reasonable life while they live, the mother cow gets to lose contact with her calf and endure about 9 months being machine milked so stupid humans can consume milk products under the illusion that it is healthy for them. I guess my knowledge is a bit hazy because it is over 40 years ago that I did a BAgCom farm management degree then worked on a dairy farm for 3 months with the intention of going share milking, I should have done valuation but I got into building instead. I don’t hate farmers, my best friend from uni brought the family farm and I know or are related to other farmers also so while you might call me ignorant and I do agree that people are often treated badly although they do not suffer the ways that animals do under our industrial production system. The farm I worked on had a couple of cows that were about 20 years old and almost all farmers are trying to treat their animals decently yet it comes from a mindset that animals are a source of profit and death is a normal event.
I also hold the view that a better life is coming by Divine intervention where we won’t be using animals for food so I decided years ago to get ready for the change now.
Thailand is a poor country compared with NZ.
In a country as wealthy as the US, they use a horrific method to kill intelligent sentient animals such as pigs, again to save costs. Its equivalent to being shut up in a sauna and cooked alive, the process taking hours. And all completely legal.
https://www.hsvma.org/factsheet_ventilation_shutdown
China on the other hand, a communist world superpower and the second biggest economy in the world cooks sentient animals like cats and dogs alive.
Makes them taste better apparently.
Let’s not talk about irony and jet travel to preach about conservation.
Animal welfare depends on how poor the locals are, and culture.
Thailand sells whatever you want, including eco fantasies. Looks like you bought one.
nice right wing deflection,LOOK OVER THERE ,ANOTHER COOKER SAID IT WAS THE usa THAT COOKED PIGS ALIVE .
lIKE THE ABUSE IN CARE REPORT WE HAVE SPENT YEARS ACUSING OTHER COUNTRIES ALL THE WHILE WE ARE THE WORST PLACE ON EARTH.I know that its hard for you to understand ,but the old saying ,people in glass houses should not throw stones comes to mind.Your beloved market will end up saving the cows and sheep because the customer is way better informed these days .Note how clean green NZ is no longer heard .
Buddhism actually has far more of a vegetarian culture than the West, and if you are talking of culture Taiwan has more vegetarians (13%) than New Zealand (5-6%).
The Japanese banned meat eating for centuries, until it was introduced to them by the West.
Asians rarely hunt animals for ‘sport’ to take trophies, or torture large fish endlessly for hours on the end of a line and call that a ‘great fight’. That is a Western depravity.
The trope that animals are cooked alive complete bs, as everyone knows that the quicker an animal or fish is killed the better it tastes, to avoid the release of cortisol. Hence the Japanese ‘iki’ method for fish. Moreover, the cats and dogs are not allowed to be commercially bred and sold for meat in China, making it de-facto illegal, and the consumption of dog and cat meat is now outright banned in China’s large cities.
When I see hoggard and anything to do with federated farmers words all but fail me. Where the visually offensive meets the dumbest ass. I’d personally like to chain both the fuckers to a Southland fence post with nothing but their arse hair to keep them warm.
Mr Hoggard and his shape convey an uncomfortable message and looking at his expression leaves me with a feeling that he may lack some human sensitivity.
Read up or watch documentaries about Moon bears and the bear-bile industry if you want even worse stories involving SE Asian animal welfare abuses.
another right wing deflection .How does that justify what happens here in NZ .
Don’t be a dick, it’s just a recommendation to look at that appalling industry as well. If it’s right wing then the logic of Q Anon’s arguments should appeal to you, and if you think I’m right wing then you’ve been asleep for the entire time you’ve participated in TDB.
Oh come on – no deflection. It’s a big world and just keeping others in our peripheral vision but our main interest on our own doings and realising what is needed, is all. All else is regression so butt out about others faults; at this time it doesn’t matter whether mote or beam, they are both to be condemned and minimised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_and_the_Beam
These stories of Asian (and African) animal abuse, poaching is high handed Western preaching.
No countries eat more factory farmed meat than Western countries, and if it was a choice of exploiting an elephant for profit or putting food on the table for one’s kids or a basic education, I’m sure many white Westerners would not do much different. Moreover, non-white populations rarely hunt for ‘sport’ or trophies, but more for survival.
Comments are closed.