Would Veganism Ruin the Economy and Cost Jobs?

Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume IV, p. 57 of the PDF edition · English translation

12.1. The objection that veganism would ruin the economy

The animal exploitation industry is big business. It moves a great deal of money around the world. On this basis it is sometimes argued that if many people became vegan, the economy would collapse, and that for this reason we should not be vegan.

The first problem with this argument is that, even if large-scale veganism ruined the economy, it would still result in a world with less suffering and death than there would be in a world where animal exploitation continued.

The second problem is that it is false that large-scale veganism would ruin the economy. As the demand for animal products decreased, the demand for vegan products would increase.

12.2. The objection that those who work in animal exploitation would lose their jobs

It is sometimes claimed that large-scale veganism would cause the people who work in animal exploitation to lose their jobs and that, for this reason, animal exploitation is justified.

There are two fundamental problems with this argument. One concerns the conception of ethics the argument assumes. The other concerns what it assumes about the facts. Below we will look at each of them separately.

The first problem is that, even if what the argument claims were to happen, losing a job, although it is something quite bad, is nowhere near comparable to what exploited animals suffer. Anyone who has any doubt need only imagine which of the two situations they would rather be in.

If humans were bred and killed to be eaten, to make clothing, or to be used as test subjects, it would sound ridiculous to say that we should not end such practices just because doing so would cause the workers in that system to lose their jobs. The reason attitudes are so disparate depending on whether we are talking about the exploitation of nonhuman animals or of humans is simply that respect for humans is already taken seriously to a far greater degree than respect for nonhuman animals.

Thus, the ethical problem with the argument is that it assumes a biased conception that gives more weight to the lesser harm, just because the greater harm would fall on nonhuman animals. It is therefore a speciesist conception. Such a conception would never be accepted if we did not know who would be benefited and who would be harmed. For example, imagine you had to say which of these two things is more important: (1) avoiding losing one's job, or (2) avoiding going through extreme torment for an entire lifetime and being killed brutally. No one in their right mind would say that avoiding losing one's job is more important. This shows that the conception of ethics assumed by the argument fails the impartiality test. It is therefore a biased conception and, for that reason, an unjust one.

The second problem concerns what the argument assumes about the facts. The argument assumes that the more people became vegan, the fewer jobs there would be. However, this forgets that, as the demand for vegan products increased, job opportunities would increase accordingly, whether in companies focused exclusively on vegan products or in companies that sell products from animal exploitation but also deal in vegan products. Therefore, there is no necessary connection between an increase in the number of vegans and an overall decrease in job opportunities.