Wednesday, August 29, 2018

3009. On the Labor of Non-Human Animals

By Dinesh Wasiwel, Progress in Political Economy, August 28, 2018
Chicken Harvestor: Automation of chicken slaughter. 
The place of animals in relation to left movements has been highly uncertain. On one hand, there has been at least some historical ambivalence from the organised left around animal welfare as essentially a bourgeois pursuit, something that was reflected in Marx’s brief comments on the issue in Capital, Vol.1 (also on this see Gunderson 2011). There has also been a deeper problem in how the left has conceptualised animals within capitalism, particularly the question of whether animals labour, and how this is understood. Again, this problem has some fundamental roots within Marx’s philosophy: it is well known that the 1844 Manuscripts very clearly articulate a supposed fundamental difference between how humans and animals labour, attributing a capacity for conscious creative work only to humans.
A number of scholars have made admirable attempts to both challenge Marx’s anthropocentricism and imagine animals as labouring subjects, including Ted BentonDonna Haraway,  Jocelyne Porcher and Kendra Coulter. I believe much of this work is in sympathy with recent green scholarship which has attempted to understand the relations between capitalism and nonhuman natures, such as the recent work of Jason W. Moore.
What strikes me as curious in surveying the small but growing work on animals, labour and their relation to capital, is the lack of analysis of the specific value-role of animals, not merely as commodities but as producers of value (i.e. labourers). I should say that I am less interested in the question “Do animals labour?” From my view this question misses something fundamental. The point of Marx’s analysis is to understand the value-role of labour within the context of capitalism. In other words, the important question is “What is the value of animal labour power?” Indeed, as Brian Whitener has recently pointed out, there is a need for a developed “animal labour theory of value”.
In my recent article in South Atlantic Quarterly I attempt precisely this sort of analysis of how animals might function as producers of value. While it may be tempting to begin this analysis by examining animals who are deployed within production as instruments of traction – such as the continued use of draught animals within small hold farming globally – my object of analysis is the much more complicated problem of human utilisation of animals for food.
It may be disorienting to imagine food animals as labourers. For example, how might we conceptualise a chicken kept in a small cage, intensively fed, and ultimately destined to be slaughtered for food, as a “worker”? However, recent theoretical developments in conceptualising labour offer some useful tools for thinking about this problem. Scholars such as Melinda Cooper and Les Beldo have theorised the body and its metabolism as sources of surplus. In addition, feminist labour theorists have explored how a work on one’s own body within reproductive labour functions within circuits of capital: for example Amrita Pande’s analysis of commercial surrogacy.
Building on this work, my argument is that we can understand the labour of food animals by comprehending the unique way capital positions these animals as neither just a raw commodity to be worked on, nor as purely a source of labour, but as a combination of both. That is, a combination of constant and variable capital. Understanding animals as this hybrid allows us to gain a fuller picture of what these animals mean to capitalism: they are a special  raw material that circulates (that enters production as one commodity and leaves as another) and can be relied upon to labour upon themselves through their own metabolic processes and thus produce value within production processes.
Thinking about animals as a hybrid of constant and variable capital gives us some useful insights into the lives of animals within capitalist production.  At least one promising aspect of this analysis is that it allows us to re-narrate the transformations in industrial agriculture that we have seen in the twentieth-century and beyond from the standpoint of both human and animal labour. The implications for human labour of the arrival of the factory farm are reasonably clear from the standpoint of Marx’s theory. Intensification of production and the increasing deployment of automated processes, aim at displacing human labour – that is increasing relative surplus value by reducing human labour time. But this story of the arrival of the factory farm requires more nuance if we are understand animals as labourers. While the industrialisation of animal agriculture aimed at a relative reduction in human labour time, it simultaneously expanded animal labour on a massive scale, since then an explosion in the production of animal products was necessary (on this expansion, see Weis). In this way, labour time was reoriented between species – human labour time is reduced, animal labour increases as animal products massively expand.
However the same drives towards expanding surplus value, whether in an absolute or relative sense, informed the transformation of animal labour that has been seen over the last century. Recently Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore have pointed out the specific history of poultry in industrial agriculture, and the success of producers in using selective breeding to reducing growing time and increase bird weight. We could understand these developments in industrial agriculture as driven by the need to reduce human labour time in production or reduce the costs of food for human workers (that reduces the cost of the means of human labour reproduction). However, a focus on animal labour shows us that capital seeks to seize all labour (human and non human) and increase its relative efficiency. For human labour this has often meant the deployment of technologies to reduce labour time, sometimes completely replacing human labour with automated processes. But the dynamics are different for animals as their labour is essential since they are also the product. They cannot be replaced. Instead, lives have been shortened in order to reduce the costs of animal labour and selective breeding has been used to increase the meat that can be yielded. The animal that used to be slaughtered at 12 weeks old now can be slaughtered at 6 weeks, and now weighs more than it ever did before, producing more meat for consumption.
A particular interest for me is trying to understand how animals as labourers resist and exert agency, and how this in turn shapes what production processes looks like. The expansion of constant capital, including machines, in intensive agriculture has displaced many human workers. However, it has created a different relationship between technologies and animals within agriculture. This is because human labour in animal agriculture was often about dominating and coercing animals to make them work (think of stockmen and stockwomen, whip in hand, herding cattle). New technologies which replaced humans would need to take over this specific coercive role. Thus the drive to improve the efficiency of human labour has informed attempts to create replacement technologies that must coerce animals and must deal with animal resistance. An example of such a technology is the chicken harvesting machine, which aims to “save” human workers (often highly exploited and precarious workers) the job of trying to catch chickens before they are sent to slaughter. This work is usually dangerous, since chickens do not want to be caught (see Quandt et al). The “harvesting machines” which are replacing human labour are designed to confront and deal with animal resistance to being caught. In a sense this tells us something about the unique structural position of animals under capitalism – they produce under conditions of domination, and efficiencies in production will aim not necessarily to replace them, but instead to more effectively counter their resistance in order to make them more productive.
In my view asking how animals are positioned within capitalism is useful for thinking about what the left project is and who it represents. A stronger analysis of the structural position of animals within capitalism may elucidate the links between human and non human labour and open up opportunities for a broader understanding of labour struggle that includes recognition of animals and the violence we expose them to. Certainly my hope is that we can produce a politics which challenges the way capital has come to dominate all life, human and non human.
* Thanks owed to Adam Morton for the edits on this piece and the continuing encouragement; the Past & Present Reading Group at the University of Sydney that has provided a wonderful space to think through ideas; and ex-political economy honours student Eliza Littleton, for many chats over the years.
Dinesh Wadiwel is a senior lecturer in human rights and socio-legal studies at the University of Sydney, with a background in social and political theory. He is the author of the monograph The War against Animals (Brill, 2015) and co-editor with Matthew Chrulew of the collection Foucault and Animals (Brill, 2016). Dinesh is co-convener of the Human Animal Research Network (HARN) at the University of Sydney:

3008. A Rejuvenated Science for the People to Advance Scientists and Technologists Activism

By Rebecca Onion, Slate, August 29, 2018










Monday, August 27, 2018

3007. Red Light At Night: A Potentially Fatal Attraction to Migratory Bats

By Science Daily, August 26, 2018

Night time light pollution is rapidly increasing across the world. Nocturnal animals are likely to be especially affected but how they respond to artificial light is still largely unknown. In a new study, scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Berlin, Germany, tested the response of European bats to red and white light sources during their seasonal migration.

Soprano pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) and, to a lesser degree, Nathusius' pipistrelles (Pipistrellus nathusii) were recorded more frequently near red LED light, indicating that the animals might be attracted to red light during their migration. In contrast, the scientists did not observe such behaviour near white LED lights. The wavelength of the experimental red LED lights was similar to that of red safety lights used for indicating the presence of wind turbines or tall buildings to aircraft pilots. Warning lights such as these might therefore lure migrating bats precisely towards the danger which the lights help people to avoid. Switching to more bat friendly lights or deploying on-demand lighting -- which only turns on if an airplane approaches -- would most likely reduce bat collisions and bat casualties at wind power stations.

The study has just been published in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution.

Each year, light pollution increases by around six per cent worldwide. In particular, energy efficient and cheap LEDs are more and more used. Light is an important cue for orientation used by many animals, and also influences their diurnal rhythms and behaviour. It is well established that bats are sensitive to light while hunting at night. While some species are attracted to artificial light sources because of the insects nearby, most bat species generally avoid artificial light. Most previous studies examined the response of bats to artificial light during non-migratory periods. It is already well-known that artificial light causes disorientation in birds that migrate at night. Does the same apply to bats? Many bat species also travel for several hundred or even thousand kilometres during their annual migration, yet we know virtually nothing about their response to artificial light.

During late summer, thousands of bats migrate along the coastline of the Baltic Sea in Latvia, through Pape Nature Reserve. Nights are starlit and largely devoid of light pollution as there are only a few human settlements in the area. Here, the scientists installed an eight metre high pole near the shoreline. A plastic board fixed to the pole was lit-up in 10-minute intervals alternating with darkness. The LED lights illuminating the board switched between red or white LED light. By using ultrasonic microphones the scientists recorded the echolocation calls of bats coming close in order to identify both the species and the number of bats passing by the unlit or lit experimental site.

Soprano pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) and, to a lesser degree, Nathusius' pipistrelles (Pipistrellus nathusii) were recorded more frequently at the experimental site during the red light phase than during darkness. However, bats did not use the artificial light to hunt insects, since the number of hunting echolocation calls remained approximately constant during the light-on periods. "We assume that bats forage for insects early in the night before they continue with their long-distance flight," explains Christian Voigt, lead author of the study. "Also, insects are generally more attracted to short-wave light -- such as ultraviolet light -- than to long-wave red light. Therefore, the displayed light was not attractive for insects." During the white illumination phases, no increase in the number of bats passing the board was observed.

"Bats are at a higher collision risk at wind power stations during their autumn migration. Our study indicates that the use of red light signals could have fatal consequences for them as this appears to attract them to operating wind turbines," explains Oliver Lindecke, co-author of the study. Technological solutions already available could help: "Existing light signals could easily be replaced by bat friendly alternatives, or context-dependent illumination could be deployed which is only activated if planes or helicopters are approaching a wind power plant."

Exactly why bats are attracted to red light sources is unclear. "Bats have excellent eyesight and can even detect wavelengths invisible to us. Some red light sources might potentially blind and disorient them. Whether they then respond by flying towards the source of light with the highest intensity requires further research. It is also absolutely crucial to understand the long-term impact of increasing light pollution on populations of nocturnal animals," explains Christian Voigt. "Many bat species already struggle in our current anthropogenic landscapes characterised by intensive agriculture and high densities of wind turbines. Light pollution is likely to increase pressure on them even further. From a conservation perspective, it is highly advisable that we limit the use of artificial light sources at night to cover only the most pressing and essential human needs. And if there is such an essential need, then bat suitable light sources should be used."

Journal Reference:

  1. Christian C. Voigt, Katharina Rehnig, Oliver Lindecke, Gunārs Pētersons. Migratory bats are attracted by red light but not by warm-white light: Implications for the protection of nocturnal migrantsEcology and Evolution, 2018; DOI: 10.1002/ece3.4400

Sunday, August 26, 2018

3006. Geoengineering and Environmental Capitalism

By Linda Schneider, Science for the People, Summer 2018


A Climate “Technofix”


The perfect excuse for continuing business-as-usual


New industries for engineering the planet


Engineering the climate for profit


Convergence of new and emerging technologies

The Cool War: Hacking the planet for strategic interest

Power, profits, and authoritarian control: Petrifying the status quo


A deeper crisis



  11. Ibid.
  14. Ibid.