CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Perspectives on Base, Superstructure and Animal Liberation

Photo by Annie Spratt

For some years, I’ve been interested in the Marxist concepts of base and superstructure —  specifically what they suggest is necessary to achieve animal liberation, and, as a result, where animal activists should be focusing their efforts. I’ve come to believe protein alternatives that are identical in taste and cheaper to produce than slaughtered meat are likely a precondition of widespread animal liberation. Consequently, my activism has been focused on securing public funding for cultivated-meat research.

For those who don’t know, the new protein is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. The technology exists to create cultivated meat, but, for now, it’s too expensive to mass produce. My hope is that as the base of society changes, as cellular agriculture becomes more efficient than incumbent practices, the superstructure will change as well, allowing broader swathes of the population to accept the ethical case against nonhuman exploitation.

Still, I’m not an academic and a lot of theoretical discussion is over my head. I was curious how others interpreted the ideas of base and superstructure in the context of animal liberation. So I set out to interview various relevant thinkers on the subject. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to answer my questions. While I don’t agree with all of the arguments made here, I hope the different perspectives will spark further discussion of what I believe to be an important topic.

Marco Maurizi has taught Philosophy and History at the Lombardo Radice Institute and has held seminars in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. His research develops a materialist critique of nature, focusing on the historical and social conditions of domination and the human–animal relationship. His book Beyond Nature: Animal Liberation, Marxism, and Critical Theory has contributed to the international debate on Marxism and anti-speciesism, and his works have been translated into several languages.

“If we take the base/superstructure relation seriously, then animal exploitation cannot be understood primarily as an ethical failure or a cultural residue, but as structurally embedded in the mode of production,” Maurizi said. “The use of animals is not an accidental feature of capitalism (or pre-capitalist class societies), but part of the material organization of labor, food systems, and value extraction. This has two main consequences.”

First, Maurizi didn’t believe animal liberation could be achieved by ethical argument or individual consumer choices alone. He thought these might have some impact, but this would always be limited so long as the economic base remained the same. Despite minor and precarious cultural shifts, animals would continue to be exploited, because conditions of the system required it.

“Second, strategy must therefore prioritize interventions at the level of the material organization of production,” Maurizi said. “This does not mean waiting for a total systemic rupture, but it does mean orienting struggles toward transforming the economic structures that sustain animal exploitation. For example, this implies confronting industrial agriculture as a system of labor exploitation and ecological destruction, linking animal liberation to struggles over land use, food systems, and workers’ control, and challenging the commodification of living beings as such.”

Therefore, he argued animal liberation should be seen as part of a wider socialist transformation, not as a movement disconnected from others. Otherwise, Maurizi thought animal activists risked engaging in ‘ethical idealism,’ which would allow the base of society to remain unchanged and accomplish little.

“At the same time, the base/superstructure relation should not be read in a mechanically deterministic way,” he said. “Superstructural struggles (ideological, cultural, legal) can play a real role in destabilizing the existing order, especially when they articulate contradictions already present in the base, for instance the ecological unsustainability of animal agriculture. The key is that these........

© CounterPunch