Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights [Paperback]

Making a Killing is the book I've been waiting for since I went vegan five years ago. First and foremost, Torres demonstrates that animal exploitation is not merely a consumer problem, but is part of an integrated social system based on hierarchy and domination. Through a clear and accessible introduction to Marxist political economy, Torres discusses animals through the logic of commodity forms and puts forth a set of flexible and empowering guidelines to abolish animal exploitation through an anarchist interpretation of Gary Francione's abolitionist framework.

Furthermore, Torres discusses the issues with contemporary anarchism and social justice politics, suggesting that to take equality seriously we must recognize animal subjectivity and fight for their liberation. In his use of Murray Bookchin's libertarian philosophy, aptly named 'social ecology', Torres makes the case for animals based on the anarchist critique of hierarchy and power.

Making A Killing is an excellent, entertaining read with an ambitious call for a serious reworking of our understanding of the animal rights movement based on social justice and democracy. Anyone hoping to understand animal rights, abolitionism, Marxism and anarchism will be delighted by this smart and readable book.

Are you interested in reading about Marxist theory or the writings of Murray Bookchin and Gary Francione? If so, this book is for you. You'll encounter pages and pages of Marxist theory interrupted by pages of explaining what other authors have written. Details on animals fall in between, many of which, such as those on factory farming, you can read in most other animal rights books. Perhaps this describes what other reviewers wanted because frankly I'm amazed at the amount of 5 star reviews. It's not that I disagree with the message in the book or many of its observations, it's just that it has flaws. These override any desire I have as an animal-rights advocate to unequivocally champion it.

One of the flaws is that it is annoyingly repetitive. That's what you tend to get if someone is peddling a thin argument. It can also happen with books done in what I call "template academia" style, in which you take a theory as your template and apply your issue to it. Torres explains the template, then steps back and says, See this? It works the same for animals. There is only so much you can take "to understand the inequality and hierarchy between species, and to shed light on the constant oppression of animals in our society." OK, we got it. We got it several pages back. Too often, many of Torres' proclamations do not need a theory, anyway. They might be arrived at through plain observation. And I cringe when seeing the word "bourgeois" used--its seems quite worn-out as far as words go. Less template and more direct focus on animal rights is what I would have liked--after all, animal rights is in the title.

I wondered if I found it repetitive because I was familiar with a lot of the theory behind it. But no, it's just repetitive, such as this example within the Bookchin "block" of pages.

p. 76 - "such abject hierarchy, not only over animals, but over other humans and even the rest of the natural world"
p. 77 - "we not only oppress other humans, but we also dominate, abuse, and destroy nature"
p. 78 - "human domination of nature evolved from problems of hierarchy and domination among humans"
p. 80 - "domination of nature by humanity stems directly from the domination of human by human"
p. 81 - "human domination by human leads to the human domination of nature"
p. 83 - "our focus is now completely ruled by domination, and we turn this domination towards nature"

OK, nature/human, human/nature, We get it!

While on this section, another problem for me is the relative absence of a sense of hierarchy coming from our ape heritage. It's in our bones, just as it is for the baboon or chimp. You're not going to get rid of it. Yet Torres would have us believe humans once existed in some kind of noble savage era when "organic societies" prevailed. If I am to believe that, I'm going to need some evidence. In his argument, or Bookchin's, it's all about non-genetic social constructs and transformations, which I realize are critical to their theoretical position, but for me that just doesn't cover it all.

Similarly left out are references to religion. After the Bookchin section, Jim Masson's book An Unnatural Order: Roots of Our Destruction of Nature is referred to, and if you've read Masson's book you'll be thinking, Hey, a lot of what Bookchin says is similar to what Masson says, only in a different way. Torres acknowledges this, but he should have explored what Masson wrote about religion in relation to animal domination. Religion is the main player in at least the West's history of social hierarchies and the unnatural order based on an imposed chain of being. When talking about domination over animals by humans, as Torres is, no substantial mention of religion is a serious omission.

Torres is blatantly following the abolitionist lead of Francione, and that's all right, but the problem with abolitionists is that they are forever laboring to distinguish themselves from other animal rights groups. Torres is no different. Typically, he embarks on fashionable PETA and Singer bashing. They, along with numerous organizations, are rejected as so-called "new welfarists." I admit it's something I still struggle with, this debate over incrementally alleviating animal suffering versus holding out for some very, very distant abolitionist ideal. But a division shouldn't exist. Torres makes the argument against new welfarists, as groups that "disregard the rights of animals today... in the hope that some other animals will have rights tomorrow." Well, in a sense, you could apply those words against abolitionists too--they're doing a similar thing!

Torres also overlooks how the meat industry is not the only front for animal advocacy groups. Hunting, torture videos, clothing--the list goes on, and in many instances there is no compromise from the new welfarists. At the end of the day, they are after exactly the same ideal state the abolitionists are after. So what's wrong with a wide multifaceted front against the abusers and exploiters? I tend to think you have to throw everything you've got at the problem. It takes that just to get the average pleb to arise out of apathy. Take this very debate--it's nothing new and goes back over 100 years at least. You'll find it in Henry Salt's "Restrictionists and Abolitionists," for example. Yet here we are still talking about the same issues with a new generation, most of whom, it is sad to say, either react like hostile rednecks to animal issues or do not care enough to actually do anything.

One final thing I didn't appreciate in this book were occasional proclamations of the "ideal," you know, where you're told what society should be, how people should be living, how we must do this, how we must do that. While I realize some stab at a solution is required in a book on a social topic, such pronouncements for change always tend to irk me. They're too close to platitudes. It's all very fine to make them in an academic text and in the world of theory. Problem is that humanity includes the very stupid and the very evil and everything in between. And models of human conduct based on the socialist ideal don't work in reality. Never have, never will. There has to be bosses when you are dealing with humans because too many humans want to be the boss. Humans cannot self-organize indefinitely, not in the way Torres fantasizes.

At the beginning of the book, Torres states that his aim is to open people's minds and persuade new thinking. However, what he does is preach to the choir in a way that won't serve to inculcate the many facets of animal rights advocacy to the uninitiated. That's partly why I thought I should write a review, as a note to say that you would better off selecting something else by way of introduction or to learn more about animals rights. This book has its place, but it simply isn't all inclusive enough to suit a wide audience. It could very well turn people off animal rights, with all the theories and their explanations--if they buy it expecting something else. So, if you're new to animal rights or want a book that focuses more on animals, "Making a Killing" is not the one.

Go vegan.

Before I read this book, I couldn't really say why I was a vegan. I mean, I could rattle off various problems I had with the suffering that animals endured, the health and environmental benefits, etc. Torres's book provided the theoretical support for my personal veganism. It was a revelation. I had never really considered veganism as a way to reject the capitalism-induced hierarchy that plagues society today. I never really understood what it meant to be vegan. In fact, I wasn't entirely vegan. I wavered quite a bit, knowing somewhere, deep down, that eating animal products was wrong. Making a Killing synthesized it all for me.

The writing is direct and informative. Torres draws from a wide variety of sources. And while the writing is still a bit unpolished, all writing is a work in progress. That said, Torres ties together well the various social justice movements and provides a critical analysis of the animal rights movement today.

For me, this book changed my perspective on animal rights and what it means to be a vegan.

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