Blue Collar Beasts: review of 'A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things'

I read books, unlike you, you fool, and have just finished A History of the World in 7 Cheap Things by Raj Patel and Jason Moore. In brief, it describes capitalism as an ecological model which draws on natural resources, including human work, and also shapes them. Different chapters describe the appropriation and control of territory, energy, labour, care, food, money and human lives, processes of cheapening which serve each other. For example, production of cheap energy allows the cultivation of cheap food which fuels cheap work &c.

Patel & Moore take a holistic view of the ecological and humanitarian devastation that fuels capitalism, and refuse to see its activities as outside nature. In support of this perspective the concept “work” is applied to nature - the Earth and animals in their capacity as providers - as well as to things humans do.

Inexorably obsessed with animals, animals on my mind, on my jumper, photos of dogs surrounding me, howling and panting softly under my breath, I was interested in the authors’ conception of animal “work”. The term’s used broadly to describe what capitalism’s instruments do to enable profit. I thought this was useful in detaching will from work - so much of the labour extracted by capitalists has been forced and without volition, or else the volition is a mask forged by necessity, which is why my cover letters always insist that I’m “passionate” about tedious occupations that fundamentally make me puke.

However I think the multiple meanings of the word meant several ideas were at risk of becoming clotted over the course of the book. At one point it gets etymological, the Latin root of travail being trepaliare, to torture (though conversely the root of the English work is werk, as in “to werk it in a sexy manner”). The authors discuss the werk of survival, which is not always fun; work done under conditions of exploitation; work being historically “integral to life” but also, under capitalism, an “organising principle” and means of control. Necessary or not, most of the work described is negative, but the authors gesture in one chapter to the potential of work to be uncoupled from drudgery. Creativity, the building of communities and cultures, is also work.

When this came up I felt there were more careful distinctions to be made between human work and the work of nature, particularly that of animals. It’s made clear in the book that the opposition of humans:nature or humans:animals is artificial, and also that this opposition is a “real abstraction” made actual by the assumptions we make and the way we live. It bears stating that animal work, above all that of livestock, has distinguishing factors. Humans are immiserated and destroyed in various ways, but they’re not farmed. For animals there’s no redemption of any work that serves human purposes, it can’t liberate them because it’s not for them. It’s not work that can be organised against by its subjects either. And while subjugated humans are made into “things” (“things” which have often been conceptualised as animals), livestock is literally made into inanimate matter, into food. The word “work” sometimes means things for people that it doesn’t mean for any other life form - after all, it’s a human word.

This isn’t to undermine the book’s argument, and definitely not to downplay atrocities visited on people, but the distinction is needed, because without recognising the difference between the way humans and animals are used, there’s a risk that referring to “animal work” is to make rhetorical use of their presence as an exploited resource, but then to turn aside at the “work’s” apotheosis. At that point the human:animal divide is a very real abstraction, easy to see in slaughterhouses, and in cellophane-wrapped or jarred or tinned components of creatures in the supermarket aisle.

The book once refers to “acts of chauvinism against human and animal life”, and gestures several times to the grotesqueness of the meat industry, especially the quantity of animals reared and destroyed. But it doesn’t pursue this idea of animals as real lives, and as victims - for the sake of its argument, they are still “things”. In that way, the authors perpetuate the human: nature distinction without questioning it. Granted it’s not an animal rights book, but it didn’t need to be - to acknowledge the differences between human work and nature’s work would only take a few words, and words are cheap.

Taking the Michael

What follows is a portrait of Michael Gove - the methods, the man, the mango - through three news stories in 2018. 

1. Infamous Grouse

It's grouse shooting season, and though most of us will not have bagged any grice, a lucrative industry exists around the hobby, which sees an estimated 700, 000 of the birds shot each year. The practice has a range of environmental consequences, from the collateral shooting of other wildlife to habitat damage, decline in species such as mountain hares and hen harriers, and massive carbon dioxide emission from burning heather.

A campaign group's FOI request revealed that Gove met with owners of grouse moors and encouraged them to make a voluntary (non-binding) "commitment" (yes I'm doing plenty with my punctuation, enjoy) to end heather-burning, so the government could fend off a compulsory ban on the back of an EC investigation into its potential infraction of european environment law. Two of those attending the meeting were Tory donors. 

This chat between friends was the scene of a particularly blantant statement of intent from a government which, with reverse performativity, will "demonstrate its intent" to act, to ensure that action will never take place.

This early stage in the portrait reveals a politician of impervious dishonesty, barely bothering to cover his tracks, but I can't think of a time when members of this government have faced consequences for telling lies.

2. He sold us a pup*

In February this year, Gove's "cavalier" Animal Welfare Bill was found wanting by a Commons committee. The first clause of the Bill aimed to enshrine animal sentience in British law, stating that ministers should have "regard" to the welfare needs of animals when making and implementing law. It failed, however, to define key terms including:

"a)The definition of “sentience”;

b)The definition of “animal”;

c)The definition of “welfare needs of animals”;

d)The definition of the phrase, “Ministers of the Crown should have regard to”;

e)The scope of the legislation, i.e. whether it should apply to all policy areas;"

meaning that if passed it could have led to a chaos of unproductive legal challenges of literally anything on animal welfare grounds, all without offering meaningful protection to animals.

The committee noted that while Gove had at one point made headlines by talking big about how leaving the EU would allow us to reform the breeding and trade of puppies, the proposed bill didn't include any measures pertaining to these "professed objectives." Its limited scope and lack of accountability mechanisms were criticised, and it was added that the "symbolic" intention of the Bill "to reinforce that the government recognises sentience in(some) animals was probably unnecessary," as precedent for this already exists in British law.

Now I see a former Minister for Education lacking in the most basic academic or ministerial competence, and a windbag bloated with empty promises and specious justifications. But I also wonder to what extent Gove's ineptitude is a deliberate form of planned obsolescence in his own laws, and how much comes down to laziness and indifference.

3. Promises, promises

As the boss at DEFRA, Gove has a significant role to play in warding off the apocalypse, which bodes well. At the start of this year the Government put out a 25 year environment plan, setting out policies on sustainable farming, landscape preservation, increased efficiency, reduced waste, marine and global environmental protection, amidst a rhetoric of nationalist schmaltz.

Last month, the Environmental Audit Committee met to discuss the plan and an upcoming bill to be based on it. It was found that the plan "lacks details of how [its] objectives will be achieved," and that its proposals don't support the government's "stated ambitions" for the environment. The preservation of EU legislation after Brexit hasn't been safeguarded and work towards effective legislation has been pencilled in, "expressed in terms of further consultations and long-term aspirational targets without supporting delivery plans." As with the Animal Welfare Bill, its language was called out for being imprecise. 

In January Gove promised to reform the current system of agricultural subsidies for landowners (including grouse moor owners), payments which are primarily based on the amount of land owned rather than the use made of it. This is an area where leaving the EU is an opportunity for massive improvement. By June he was rowing back, suggesting that he would reduce subsidies for all farmers rather than put caps on payments to large landowners. If Gove was in any way committed to reform - to redirecting subsidies towards environmental good practice, to protecting and restoring wildlife - it's not clear why he's cronying up with large landowners who gain most from dysfunctional subsidies, and scheming to protect heather-burning.

Perhaps it's not the hottest take to suggest that Gove is systematically disingenuous, or that his stupidities merge seamlessly with his cunning. These three stories from this year show a consistent strategy of using vague language in the service of anti-feasance. Gove isn't the first to use words about the environment and animal welfare to make himself more palatable. This practice is yet another way of treating animals and the natural world as an exploitable resource, not just for profit but for soothing ideas and vacuous, consoling lies. 

*According to Wikipedia, the phrase 'to be sold a pup' comes from "an old swindle, where one would be sold a bag purportedly containing a piglet, but which actually contained a puppy."