The Political Economy of Veganism

I’m not a vegan, though for no substantial reason I must confess. Perhaps it is this lack of tangible opposition to veganism which is why I find myself increasingly thinking about the motivations and mentalities of those that do pursue the diet; at the same time, I’m apprehensive to discuss veganism with sweeping generalisations. Yet, from a political economy perspective, veganism offers some interesting musings that — perhaps because they’re not wholly relevant beyond merely being interesting — I don’t believe are ever discussed that much. For the purposes of this piece, let us define political economy as the study of the distribution of excess production.

As the global population increases, food demands, logically, will also increase, and as such the means by which we produce food should also be re-evaluated. The philosophy of veganism, to an extent, attempts to do so. By advocating a diet that is not dependent (where dependent, depending on one’s perspective, might be replaced with exploitative) on animals, those means of food production that are very resource intensive — such as cattle farming — become challenged; if demand for meat were only to fall, so the logic might go, resources used inefficiently in meat production could be redistributed to crop production and used more efficiently, and thus satisfy the increased demand for food.