Vegetarian Capitalism

David M. Boje, Ph.D.

New Mexico State University

June 10, 2004; revised June 11, 2004

This Chapter for Shaun Chapman (ed) book on ethics is condensation and addendum to a talk presented at the First Asian Vegetarian Congress in Goa, India, October 14 to 20th, 2001.

Introduction

            This moment, capitalism is at the intersection of its past and future, in between meat and vegetarian capitalism.  My thesis is simple, vegetarian capitalism is a more efficient use of planetary resources, is making inroads in many industries (restaurants, supermarkets, etc.), and may well become the dominant forms of capitalism within another century. That does not mean that meat capitalism will disappear. In this chapter I review the claims for and against vegetarian capitalism, define 12 types of vegetarians, estimate their number of the world, look at the top 10 reasons for being vegetarian, and sketch out the economics of capitalism turning vegetarian. My main thesis is the capitalism is becoming a doublet, meat and vegetarian capitalism simultaneously.

How I became a vegetarian is quite amusing as I look back at it. I grew up a flesh eater, the grandson of dairy farmers. They also raised bees and produced the best honey in Washington State. While standing in line for food at a conference, some ten years ago, I overheard Grace Ann, a long-time student of Jain philosophy say that in the future she would only date vegetarians. I introduced myself, saying, “I am a vegetarian” and at that moment I became vegetarian. In 1995 I was given the Jain name Arihanta by Gurudev Chitrabhanuji (a Jain monk), when he blessed my engagement to Grace Ann Rosile (whose Jain name is Eruna). And it is Gurudev who has taught me that Ahimsa (reverence for life) can guide us in creating a non-violent way of doing business, an alternative Meat Capitalism.  Grace Ann and I turned vegan a few years ago, as our consciousness about factory food production deepened. Jain vegans do not wear silk, leather, or wool, and do not eat honey or consume dairy products.

My central thesis is that there are points of convergence between meat and vegetarian consciousness; the overlap is around the themes of health, environment, and humane treatment of animals. There are also incompatible elements: many vegans want all people to stop eating meat and cease consuming animal products. These points of disagreement are not fused in contemporary capitalism. Capitalism is heterogeneous, a composition of meat and vegetarian capitalism. Capitalism is getting more complex; there is a multivoicedness and unmerged (Bakhtin, 1973: 13) composition of meat and vegetarian capitalism.  Some vegans and some meat-eaters would reduce capitalism to a common denominator (one way or the other), and make it monological (one logic fits all). I would like to pick up on Bakhtin’s (1973) concept of the “polyphonic novel” and suggest that capitalism is polyphonic, the unmerged voices of meat and vegetarian capitalists.

To push the idea a bit further, contemporary capitalism is not dialectic, it is dialogic. Capitalism is not going through a meat-thesis, veggie-anti-thesis, and being synthesized into a common consciousness. Rather, there are many voices, many vegetarian and many forms of meat consciousness, and they are all simultaneous, not forming some kind of cohesive unity. This does not mean that meat capitalism is not the dominant discourse, and vegetarians have been marginalized.  Nor, does it mean that as vegans multiply that they will someday convert all capitalism to veganism. Dialogism means there is not a single logic or consciousness that will rule the day, only heterogeneity and plurality rule. What is happening is that vegetarian and meat worlds are blurring their boundaries. As Bakhtin (1973: 15) puts it:

Capitalism destroyed the isolation of those worlds and broke down the seclusion and inner ideological self-sufficiency of those social spheres.

            The theme of this chapter is to look at the ways in which the isolation and self-sufficiency of the worlds of meat and vegetarian capitalism are being broken down. We will explore such examples as the proliferation of vegetarian food sections in supermarkets, the trend in fast food restaurants offering salads and in some locations vegetarian burgers, ecological sustainability, growing preferences for organic food, free range chickens, and humane animal killing practices in slaughterhouses. Capitalism itself is causing the vegetarian and meat worlds to collide, but not welding them together into some kind of synthesis. Vegetarian food industries are growing; some are being acquired by traditional meat industries. Despite the growth in vegetarian industries, meat industries have not changed their ways of production that much.  There are more changes we can expect in their mien. Fellow vegans may not want to hear this, but vegetarian capitalism is not self-sufficient. I notice this when I show at the Market View Coop in Las Cruces, New Mexico. They sell organic meats, free range eggs, and some dairy products. They can not survive in cowboy country otherwise. Capitalism is a blending and a co-existing of the two forms. Many cowboys live in blissful ignorance about the consequences of their meat diet for their bodies, animals, and the planet. I know vegans who assault meat cowboys when they order sirloin steaks at local restaurants. A friend of mine has been arrested for his protests of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s. This builds both awareness and resentment in the meat self-insulated meat community.

A friend of mine, who had a vegan accost him when he ordered a steak, said he wanted to say, “Take off that leather belt and those leather shoes, then you can criticize how I eat.”  In short, there are contradictions in both types of capitalists, yet there is increasing co-existence being brought about in restaurants and supermarkets, school and college cafeterias, in vegan apparel choices. This capitalism is just beginning its polyphonic epoch, where contradictory consciousnesses can communicate. Next, I want to talk about meat capitalism: it is the bloody soil in which a more vegetarian capitalism option is growing.

What is Meat Capitalism? – Meat capitalism of western cattle production is linked to global capitalism. Rifkin (1992: 28) puts it this way, “The emergence of the great Western cattle cultures and the emergence of world capitalism are inseparable, each feeding the appetites of the other.” And not just beef, but mouton, elk, buffalo, poultry, and fish feed the appetite of world capitalism, what I will abbreviate as “meat capitalism.” A cow was considered a form of capital by the Romans and the Huns; Eurasian herdsman made cows into mobile capital. With the globalization of fast food, and global increases in population, rates of meat consumption are still on the rise. Simultaneously there is a growing and expanding base of vegetarianism.

World consumption of chicken has been steadily increasing for over 20 years, while there is small decline in world beef consumption.[i] According to the USDA, world pork consumption is forecast to grow by 1.4% in 2004, to 87.9 million tons.  Similar to pork, world consumption of chicken is forecast to grow by 2.5% in 2004, to 52.7 million tons. World beef consumption in 2004 is estimated to total 48.6 million tons, a 0.3% decline on 2003 consumption.

The American Meat Institute says the average American consumed 211.1 pounds of red meat, poultry, and fish per person in 2001 (that translates to 41.6% poultry, 41.7% red meat, and 6.7% fish consumption). [ii]  Annual sales for 2000 (the last year for which statistics are available) are estimated at more than $100 billion among the U.S. meat packing, meat processing and poultry processing industries. In the US, about 8.5 billion chickens and 269.3 million turkeys were processed into poultry products in 2001. The figures as of Jan 1 2002, are 45.8 billion pounds of red meat (beef, veal, lamb, mutton & pork); 26.2 billion pounds of beef, 204 million pounds of lamb and mutton, and 19.1 billion pounds of pork. Add another 37.4 billion pounds of annual U.S. poultry production (of which 5.5 billion pounds is turkey).  The meat packing industry had sales of $58.5 billion in 2000; meat processing had sales of $25.8 billion; poultry industry sales were another $32.5 billion. From 1980 to 2000, the USDA Economic Research Service says:[iii]

·        Per capita chicken consumption grew 62%, from 33 to 53 pounds per person.

·        Per capita turkey consumption grew 68%, from 8 to 14 pounds per person.

·        Per capita "fish and shellfish" consumption grew 23%, from 12 to 15 pounds per person.

·        Per capita beef consumption declined by 11%, from 72 to 64 pounds per person.

·        Per capita pork consumption declined by 8%, from 52 to 48 pounds per person.

Figure 1: Total US Meat and Poultry Production[iv]

“Overall, per capita meat consumption in the United States grew 8.7% from 1980 to 2000, from 180 to 195 pounds of meat per person, on average.”[v]  To put this in perspective: in 1992, total red meat, poultry, and fish consumption reached a record 189 pound per person in the US (6 percent above 1980-83).  In 1992, chicken and turkey accounted for 32 percent of total meat consumed; fish and shellfish, 8 percent.[vi] The total annual per capita consumption of red meat and poultry in the United States has increased by 10 to 20 pounds since 1970.  "Americans have doubled their per capita consumption of chicken and turkey, but their beef consumption has declined by 20 percent," says Dwight Aakre, extension farm management specialist at my university (ibid).

            There are growing health concerns about beef and chicken. As grain prices increased, the cattle industry began to feed cows more livestock wasts (even rendered remains of dead cattle, at least untile Auguts 1997. Schlosser (2002: 2002) says “They were also fed millions of dead cats and dead dogs every year, purchased from animal shelters.” It was not until a widespread outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, more commonly known as ‘Mad Cow Disease’) in the UK, that the FDA in the US banned the practices. Current FDA regulations (Schlosser, 2002) still allow remains of pigs, horses and poultry to be rendered as cattle feed; and poultry can be fed dead cattle.

            A second source of ‘Mad Cow Disease’ is thought to be cross-contamination, from one dead animal, to the next by worker’s knives, hands, gloves, and boots. In addition when slaughterhouses speed up the production line, the intestines and stomachs splatter manure on the meat. This also leads to E-coli. Schlosser (2002) estimates that three to four cows bearing the E-coli microbe are eviscerated at the larger slaughterhouses every hour, and each of these can contaminate 32,000 pounds of ground beef. Food gian ConAgra recalled 18.6 million pounds of ground beef in July 2002, aft an outbreak of E-coli poisoned 47 people in 14 states.[vii]

            There are many reasons stimulating the emergence of a vegetarian capitalism. One is certainly the ecological footprint of vegetarian capitalism, as compared to its counter-part. Ecological footprint is defined as “a measure of each individual’s impact on the environment and sustainability by estimating the total resources uses” (Jeffreys, 2001; Boje, 2002). Vegetarian capitalism uses fewer acres of land, less transportation, and utilities to feed the world. The ecological footprint of vegetarian capitalism also absorbs the waste more effectively (Wackernagel & Rees, 1996), and there is less of it, than is generated by an equivalent population of meat eaters. In short, the carry capacity of vegetarian capitalism is greater. The estimated (1999) average U.S. ecological footprint is 30 acres (or hectares), larger than most nations; the world average is 2.3 hectares. And this higher than the recommended global carrying capacity of 1.9. In short, meat capitalism is not a biologically productive or efficient use of space available per person on the planet. And the earth cannot sustain meat capitalism continued growth. We are using up earth resources faster than they can be replenished; this is largely doe to meat and poultry production and over-fishing. Vegetarian capitalism helps to renew the carrying capacity of the planet. The biosphere needs 14 months to renew what meat capitalism consumes each year; of course, resources such as forest, top soil, water, are not renewable when they are exhausted.  It is estimated that a vegan has the smallest ecological footprint and a vegetarians is 1.4 hectares more than a vegan; a meat eater needs more than 7 hectares than a vegan.

            The riches 1% of the world’s population is consuming the resources of the poorest 44% of the nations on the planet. If the world’s wealthiest nations turn toward vegetarian capitalism, it is not only more sustainable, but more equitable.

            One place to begin is with the fast food industry. In 2000, U.S. consumers spent $110 billion on fast food (Schlosser, 2002). McDonald’s paid out $10 million to religious and vegetarian groups for flavoring its French fries with beef tallow; defiantly, McDonald’s managed to funnel much of the award to anti-vegetarian groups.  Burger King after pressure from PETA asked the USDA to implement rules that set in motion more humane treatment of animals.[viii]

            In sum, farming methods have changed since my grandfather operated his farm, after WWI, and they changed again after WWII. My dad grew up knowing the names of every animal on the farm, chickens were free range, and the animals were well cared for. He told me he could not eat one calf, because he knew it by name.  Agribusiness operates with factory farms, growth hormones, genetic engineering, and rendered animal feed. According to the USDA, livestock worldwide consumes half the world's total grain harvest. Many people are not aware that the world’s fish population is fed on livestock. With water shortages around the world, the fact that one cow consumes 2,500 to 5,000 gallons of water is a consideration.  Each year in the U.S., 10 billion “farm” animals are born, only 8 billion survive till they arrive at the slaughterhouse. Most of the animals are poultry, and the biggest producers are Tyson Foods, Gold Kist, Perdue Farms, and Con Agra. Meat capitalism practices are inhumane to animals (& farm workers), and are grossly unsustainable.

            What is Vegetarian Capitalism? – Vegetarian capitalism is growing each year. Businesses (restaurants, supermarkets, & apparel) are adding vegetarian products to their offerings. Supermarkets chains are putting in special, “alternative food” sections that have more vegetarian food options. Various polls suggest that 20 to 30% of the U.S. population is interested in vegan or vegetarian products.

“Mintel Consumer Intelligence estimates the 2002 market for vegetarian foods, those that directly replace meat or other animal products, to be $1.5 billion” (Ginsberg and Ostrowski, 2003). They forecast the market will nearly double by 2006 to $2.8 billion. Confidence of major corporations in market growth is evidenced by recent acquisitions:

ConAgra purchased Lightlife Foods in 2000. In 1999, Kraft Foods bought Boca Burger, and Kellogg acquired Worthington Foods, maker of the Morningstar, Natural Touch, Worthington, and Loma Linda brands (Ginsberg and Ostrowski, 2003).

More proof: “Proof of this trend toward vegetarianism can be found in the grocery store. Where Heinz used to be the only vegetarian baked beans available, now there are several varieties on the shelf, from Campbell's to store brands. As we previously informed our readers, Archer Daniels Midland and Green Giant (Pillsbury) are introducing the vegetarian (vegan) Harvest burger in about half the supermarkets across the country this year.”[ix]  According to a 1991 Gallup Poll conducted for the National Restaurant Association, about twenty percent of the population looks for a restaurant with vegetarian items when they eat out.

What is Vegetarian? To get some idea of the impact on capitalism as it turns vegetarian, we need to precisely define what is a vegetarian? When the first meeting of the Vegetarian Society of the UK was held on Sept 30 1847 (in Kent, England), that may well be the first time the word “vegetarian” was used. To word comes from the Latin root, “vegetus,” which means whole, sound, fresh, lively. There are various definitions of vegetarian. The Vegetarian Resources Group, for example, has a narrow definition: “Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, and poultry. Vegans are vegetarians who abstain from eating or using all animal products, including milk, cheese, other dairy items, eggs, wool, silk, and leather.” However, Amato and Partridge (1989: vii) list nine vegetarianisms, Fox (1999: 55) adds the tenth, and I will include an eleventh and twelfth, and add a zero point (carnivore) to the growing list.

Table 1: Twelve Types of Vegetarianisms and Ten Ethical Senses for Becoming Vegetarian

• V_{0 -} Carnivore eats only meat; avoids all vegetables
• V₁ - Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat eggs and diary but not meat
• V₂ - Lacto-vegetarians eat dairy but no eggs or meat
• V₃ - Ovo-vegetarians eat eggs but exclude dairy products and meat (also know as eggitarians)
• V₄ - Vegans eat no meat, dairy products, or eggs (may forgo honey, silk, wool & leather products)
• V₅ - Macrobiotic vegetarians live on whole grains, sea and land vegetables, beans, and miso
• V₆ - Natural hygienists eat plant foods, combine foods in ritual ways and fast periodically
• V₇ - Raw foodist vegetarians eat only uncooked non-meat foods
• V₈ - Fruitarians eat fruits, nuts, seeds, and certain vegetables, and
• V₉ – Semi-vegetarians eat small amounts of fish and or chicken in their diets (can add fishitarians and polotarians to this group). Some prefer the label Omnivore.
• V₁₀ – Non-interventionist vegetarians eat no living things for food except what has fallen such as nuts, fruits and vegetables and the seeds that can be harvested without killing the host plant.
• V₁₁ - Jain vegetarian eat vegan (no honey) but will not wear leather, silk or wool and practice the Ahimsa philosophy of reverence to all life, including human life.
• V₁₂ - Deep Vegetarianism, or Mother Earth vegetarianism, or Eco vegetarianism, and parts of eco-feminism philosophy are compatible with the idea of an Ahimsa capitalism.

The point of Table 1 is that there is an infinite series of vegetarianisms that begin with the Zero point (V₀) and include vegetarianisms that include the eating of meat and dairy, those that focus on fruit (V₈) and on into (V₁₁) and (V₁₂) where issues beyond violence to animals and our own diet health become important.  This is a series that keeps subdividing and new vegetarianism niches keep proliferating. For example, I fell in love with Grace Ann and publicly announced my vegetarianism, but had been (V₉) semi-vegetarian for several years and first encountered the ideal of vegetarianism while I was in Junior High. I read Gandhi's (1957) autobiography and became enchanted with (E₂) animal suffering, and (E₉) ahimsa.  He talked about being a (V₈) fruititarian, but this did not become real to me till I hiked with Rynn Berry last year at Dripping Springs in New Mexico. And the Jain ideal of Ahimsa (V₁₁) did not deepen in my life until I met Grace Ann. Gandhi describes how he became many kinds of vegetarian then, each time experimenting to go deeper in his self-discipline to find self-restraint that is Ahimsa and the avoidance of Himsa (means violence). The following quotes (Gandhi, 1957) give you some idea that becoming vegetarian takes on through many vegetarianism stopovers and many ethical claims, some of which are quite contrary to one another:

How many vegetarians are there? Estimating of the number of vegetarians in the US is more difficult; each survey has its own definition.[x]   Vegetarian Times magazine reported 7%, or 12.4 million vegetarians, after asking people, "Do you consider yourself a vegetarian?" While survey results vary, but it appears, in the US 5 to 9% of the U.S. population considers themselves at least semi-vegetarian. The Vegetarian Society of the UK reports 5% as of 1999.[xi]  A Gallup Poll (released August 2001) found: 4% of those polled were vegetarian, 33% ate meat only occasionally, & 7 million were vegetarian or avoided red meat. One U.S. study in 1992 found 7% of the population (18 million people) considered themselves vegetarian.[xii] Another study concluded that many of these sometimes eat meat. A PETA fact sheet, I have, says 12 million in the U.S. are vegetarian, and that 19,000 are making the switch every week.

If we use the Table 1 (more diverse) definitions of vegetarians, then the estimates change; Table 2 is adapted from Ginsberg and Ostrowski (2003).

Table 2: Estimates of Types of Vegetarians

Table 4: How Many Vegetarians in the world?[xiii]

National Association of College and University Foodservice, discovered that as many as 20% of college students consider themselves some kind of vegetarian. The next table is an adaptation of Fox (1999: 61) by focusing on the Deleuzian "sense" of an ethical or moral claim: Among the many reasons for being a vegetarian are health, ecological, and religious concerns, dislike of meat, compassion for animals, belief in non-violence, and economics. In table 2, the ten ethical reasons why people become vegetarian are listed.  Right now the top reason is health: Vegetarians have 50% less cancer overall and 97% less colon cancer than meat-eaters; eat lower on the food chain and there is less chance of heart disease. The ethical reasons are put into my own estimated order. [xiv]  And the reasons are not independent. People can subscribe to many of them, or enter into vegetarianism for health (or some other reason) and sign on to other reasons (as their consciousness grows).

Table 3: Top Ten Ethical Reasons for becoming Vegetarian:

• E₁ - Health - reverence for our body
• E₂ - Animal suffering and death - reverence for animal suffering
• E₃ - Impartiality or disinterested moral concern - Range of ethical positions from being totally vegetarian will disrupt the global employment economy, to being vegan will save animal lives, and deep ecology positions that being vegetarian is essential to being ecological.
• E₄ - Environmental concerns - give Mother Earth a break
• E₅ - The manipulation of Nature - no Frankenfoods, no genetic food additives, no cloning
• E₆ - World hunger and social injustice - if Americans become vegan, there would be enough food for the rest of the world to live
• E₇ - Interconnected forms of oppression - You are what you eat. Eat flesh and other forms of violence become tolerable, from war to genocide.
• E₈ - Interspecies kinship and compassion - If man is most evolved animal species, why does he eat his animal brethren and sistern?
• E₉ - Universal nonviolence - Pursue Ahimsa and restrain yourself from as much himsa as humanly possible.
• E₁₀ - Spiritual and religious arguments - Dead Sea scrolls say Jesus was a vegetarian, not an omnivore; Buddha was a vegetarian; Mahavir brought vegetarianism to the Jains.

1998 Vegetarian Journal survey, 82 percent of vegetarians are motivated by health concerns, 75 percent by ethics, the environment and/or animal rights, 31 percent because of taste and 26 percent because of economics.

Vegetarian capitalism is growing in terms of the number of vegetarians and the dollar size of the vegetarian market. A 1991 Gallup Poll indicated that 20 percent of the population looks for vegetarian menu items when they eat out. A  National Restaurant Association's 2000 consumer survey showed 16% of adults were ordering more vegetarian entrées compared to two years ago. According to the Association's 2000 ‘Tableservice Operator Study’ (Ginsberg & Ostrowski, 2003): “More than 70% of restaurants with an average check size under $8 offered a vegetarian option, and 91% of those establishments with average check size $25 or more offered a vegetarian entrée.”

            This trend can be seen in fast food restaurants. Many of the biggest users of meat are integrating salads, fruit drinks, and even vegetarian burgers into their menus. Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, and McDonald are in the middle of this long-term transformation.  Estimates of the number of cows it takes each year to make McDonald’s burgers ranges between nine and ten million. One estimate is “At 100 pounds per cow, that means that the company sends some ten million of the gentle creatures to their doom every year.”[xv] A more conservative estimate is that worldwide, McDonald’s sells about 3.75 billion burgers a year (estimating the average patty weight at 3.5 ounces) another estimate is 9,014,423 cows to the slaughter each year to make McDonald’s burgers.[xvi]

            Ronald McDonald is changing his image, becoming a comic-leader in America’s latest war, against obesity. The 2004 “Get Moving with Ronald” road show is a comic spectacle of the fast food marketplace. The comic theatre is a parody of the obesity of America, starring the crown prince of the fast food industry. Customers, employees, and celebrities gather in the McDonald’s parking. Miss Universe, Bob Greene, and Olympic Athletes are among the celebrities. Ronald leads them in calisthenics, and in walks around the neighborhood. Ronald does magic tricks, performs in skits, sings and jokes to entertain, while conveying the nutrition-fitness message.

            This new show is double-accented: it is first of all a corporate spectacle, with serious science and fitness speech, and second, there is a limited form of carnival, where the clown scoffs at corporate seriousness with ritual laughter. In “Get Moving with Ronald,” two worlds are at a moment of interaction: the old meat capitalism is uncrowned, and the first signs of veggie-capitalism are being crowned.

What are the Consequences of Vegetarian Capitalism?

This is a topic for research.  Many say that we will be worse off.  Frey (1983) says that if the world's population becomes totally vegetarian, than there will be fourteen catastrophic effects on the global economy and its civilizations.  These range from collapse of such significant parts of the world economy as the animal food, leather and pet food industries; social disruption of the loss of many animal farming, slaughterhouse, and meat-restaurant jobs, and my favorite the loss of 'haute cuisine' based on meat and milk.  Fox (1999: 140-142) thoroughly deconstructs these arguments, since the consequentialist  arguments assumes that the revolution will be instantaneous, and that no new jobs and industries will be created to supplant those lost in the transformation to vegetarian capitalism.  It is obvious from Table 1, that there would be ample variety in vegetarian cuisine to accommodate many restaurant chains and anyone who has eaten at a five star vegetarian restaurant, such as in Photo 3, is not terribly worried about the plight of haute cuisine.

A second argument against vegetarian capitalism is raised by Kathryn Paxton George (2000).  George raises a challenge to the vegetarian critical theory of Carol Adams (1990/2000).  As with vegetarianisms, there are many feminisms. George's (2000) feminist critique of vegetarianism opposes drawing a connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of animals. She argues a relativist positions, stating that universal ethical senses of being vegetarian (see Table 1) cannot be grounded in classical moral theories such as utilitarianism or rights of animals theories, since there is no normalizing standpoint for a privileged, white male subject (Fox, 1999: 156). Further,, she argues that health risks of a strict vegan diet would have severe effects on many women, infants, children, and elderly, and some nonwhites, as well as impact people from developing countries.  Finally, Georges objects to the vegetarianisms and the ethical senses (again Table 1) that would allow humans to be a voice for animals or Mother Earth.

Fox (1999) does provide a discussion of one major consequence, what to do with all the animals, such as all that beef grazing around the world, waiting to be consumed as a fast food burger?

I tend to side with cowboys such as Lyman (1998: 187) who argues that "the savings in medical costs attributable to meat consumption, estimated at $28 to $61 billion annually, would be plowed back into our economy and boost its productivity enormously." And this is just in the U.S. Imagine the medical cost savings for the entire planet.  As Robbins (1987: 206 points out, of the ten leading causes of death in the US, eight can be significantly lessened by becoming some kind of vegetarian.

From an ecological sustainability point of view, vegetarian capitalism has massive energy savings in petrochemicals that go into livestock and slaughterhouse production and distribution. The idea that starving people could grub stake all that land that the meat industry would no longer have a use for, appeals to me.  And then there are the long term consequences of being a better steward of the world. As the gentleman who presented on the extinction of Tigers in India put it, Tomorrow's children will not bless us if we leave a car park or a hotel; they will bless us if we leave a forest (Goa Conference, 2001).

Conclusion

Vegetarian and meat capitalism co-exist. More industries are learning to accommodate both types of consumers, to provide product choices for both.  There is no monological consensus, nor is capitalism some kind of synthesis of meat and vegetarian capitalism. Vegetarian capitalism lives in the shadow of meat capitalism. It struggles to find spaces to grow.  Increasing there is a polyphonic capitalism, where both meat and vegetable eaters have a voice.  Many vegans would like to monologize the world, make it all vegetarian.  And many meat eaters fear their world is being radically changed (and it is). There are five basic fears:

1.      Creating a combined meat and vegetarian food pyramid will negatively effect the meat and dairy industries that created it in the first place;

2.      Vegans will succeed in creating a meat prohibition, and the vegan police will create a meat smuggling industry;

3.      The integration of vegetarian sections into supermarkets will cause more people to experiment with vegetarian foods;

4.      Integrating vegetarian choices in fast food restaurants will lower beef, poultry, and fish production;

5.      Bans on bull fights, cock fights, and rodeos as well as hunting will mean that the cowboy lifestyle will be threatened.

In short, there are many meat capitalists who perceive a threat of lifestyle extinction and a crisis to meat capitalism.

            And many vegetarians feat the end of the world, the death of rain forests, entire species of animal (& plant life) will result from unbridled meat capitalism. I have argued in this chapter that there will be a contrapuntal relationship, a point and counterpoint discourse, but not one that is dialectic leading to some kind of synthesis or convergence.  Capitalism is becoming increasing polyphonic, meat and vegetarian voices remain independent. Capitalism has a “polyphonic will” (Bakhtin, 1973: 17). There is a plurality of wills within the 12 types of vegetarians we discussed, which become vegetarian for at least ten reasons. And there is a plurality of meat eaters, many of whom are part-vegetarian, trying veggie dishes one or more times a week. Capitalism combines these many wills, but does not fuse them into a totalitarian existence.

References

Bakhtin, Mikhail (1973). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Translated by R. W. Rotsel. US: Ardis. Originally published in 1929.

Boje, D. M. (2002). Vegetarian capitalism’s ecological footprint. Working papter at http://business.nmsu.edu/~boje/Veggie_Club/papers

Ginsberg, Caryn & Ostrowski, Alissa. (2003). The Market for Vegetarian Foods. The Vegetarian Resource Group Website http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/market.htm

Rees, William e. (1996). Revisiting carrying capacity: area-based indicators of sustainability. Population and Enviornment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. Volume 17 (3), January.

Rifkin, Jeremy (1992). Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture. NY:  Penguin Books Ltd.

Schlosser, Eric. (2002). Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

Wackernagel, Mathis & Rees, William (1996). Our ecological footprint: Reducing human impact on the earth. New Society Publishers. P.O. box 189 Gagriola Is., BC, VOR 1XO.