Beyond Nature: Animal Liberation, Marxism, and Critical Theory

Historical Materialism #235

by Marco Maurizi

In Beyond Nature Maurizi tackles the animal question from an unprecedented perspective: strongly criticizing the abstract moralism that has always characterized animal rights activism, the author proposes a revolutionary, historical-materialistic analysis of the relationship between humans and non-humans.

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Hardcover

Published August 19, 2021

Reviews

[Allen Soberanes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mainstream vegan ideology is very much tied to moral philosophy, which limits its ultimate usefulness. It stung how accurate it was when Marco Maurizi said something along the lines of the vegan community being stuck in a cycle of endless debates with hostile non-vegans over whether it's okay to eat meat or euthanize people with mental disabilities.

Maurizi takes up the challenge of pulling away antispeciesism (say that three times fast) from the idealist, utilitarian roots of Peter Singer and formulating a new historical, materialist theory of antispeciesism. Succinctly put, Maurizi is saying "we do not exploit animals because we consider them inferior; rather we consider them inferior because we exploit them."

The book is broken up into three parts, but can be simplified to these two:
- Critiquing modern animal liberation ideology and critiquing Marxist takes on animal liberation
- Tying together Marxism and animal liberation ideology

It does the latter by finding a common root cause between human and animal liberation struggles: our animal self-hatred, which originates from the divide between human and animal consciousness created by the need to dominate nature in order to satisfy the high levels of production necessary to sustain class society.

Humans are animals, of course, so dominating nature means dominating both external nature and our own internal nature. Thus, "human beings internalize as individuals the oppressive praxis that they exert on nature as species." Silvia Federici highlights some of the more obvious historical examples of this in Caliban and the Witch, such as Descartes' quest to dominate the human body to increase its potential for production. Descartes vivisected many animals during his study, and ultimately concluded that human and animal bodies are mere automata.

The human and animal struggles are one in the same not based on some metaphysical concept of equality between all beings, but because they are literally one struggle originating from the same cause. Thus, we human animals have an established interest to pursue animal liberation.

The book has a strong start but begins tapering off toward the end. It's a worthwhile read for anyone interested in modern antispeciesist theory.

[Dayton Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some ways this reads like two books in one: a mostly successful (if surprisingly harsh) critique of mainstream animal rights theory and activism from a Marxist perspective, then a dense but creative attempt to elaborate the place of nonhuman animals within Marxism and critical theory. Glad I read it, even where I disagreed (or where I failed to totally grasp the argument). Would probably read other stuff first if you aren’t a real theory nerd.

[ReadingCat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. Ordered it directly from Haymarket Press, and was excited to see how he approached animal liberation through a Marxist lens. I’m a multi-decade vegan, and dedicated animal rights advocate, and so was eager to read Maurizi’s take.

While he’s correct that animal and human animal liberation should not be viewed as opposing forces, he spends a lot of time going after Singer, Regan, Adams, Francione, etc., and the book starts to read like a smug condemnation of the earlier work of animal rights thinkers and advocates.

He cherry picks their arguments and plays “straw man.” And little careless slips like calling the famous quote about Auschwitz and slaughterhouses “fake” when it’s not fake, it appears in Charles Patterson’s fabulous Eternal Treblinka. It’s an attribution error (Adorno), not fake.

I also think for the average informed, thoughtful reader the book is a challenge. Familiarity with the Frankfort School is helpful, but Mauriizi seems to be addressing a reader already knowledgeable.

I love a lot of theory, and expect to work hard at theoretical writing, but the language here often feels dry and uninspiring. There are moments and flashes of brilliance. But I disagree that Singer is “not a deep thinker.” He’s just a very different thinker. By dismissing so many of his predecessors this way, without fully engaging with their work, Maurizi comes across as needlessly high-handed and arrogant.

I’ve taught animals and ethics to university students, and included multiple thinkers, writers, scientists, philosophers, lawyers, etc., so am quite familiar with those he believes “got it all wrong.”

I will be thinking a lot about what Marxism has to offer animal rights conversation and activism, but I’m not completely sold on dispensing with moral arguments. I do agree fully on the role of capitalism and the fact that speciesism is not just an individual belief. And he’s right that human beings want to distance themselves from their own animality.

That distancing is indeed totally tied to the capitalist project. Great line from the book: … first question should be not be ‘when did we start to oppress the other animals?’ but rather ‘when did we forget we are animals, too’?”

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book must be a joke:

*Compares class struggle with animal activism (wtf!)
*Antistalinism (so pathethic it tries to catalogue the Soviet Union as "State Capitalism")
*Misunderstands a lot of basic concepts of marxism (specially ideology)
*Doesn't takes into consideration the most important concept, when talking about the relation between human and nature, Marx developed: social metabolism. Therefore, Maurizi doesn't really know how there can't exist a mode of production where humans don't use animals. In other words, metabolism is always gonna exist (but in socialist nations and future communist ones, the relationship is gonna be planned rationally).

It goes without saying, but obviously capitalism is cruel and only sees animals as use values (even pets): only psychopaths enjoy the suffering of another living being. Now, Marco compares that capitalist reality with other socialist realities and comes to the conclusion that they are EXACTLY the same. Give me a break. You cannot compare the meat industry from capitalist nations with the necessary calorific income from socialist countries (not in the past, not in the present and not in the future).

The only thing I can rescue of this book is the veganist critique in chapter 3 (as an individualistic approach), but it doesn't elaborates too much (and any real marxist can elaborate much more than Maurizi).

God I hate hippies.

[Giorgio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Textbook application of Adorno and Horkheimer's Critical Theory (mainly The Dialectics of Enlightment) to Critical Animal Studies, without:
- taking seriously Eco-Marxist scholarship from the 1990s onwards (not only Foster and Burkett, dismissed in a footnote of considerable pettiness, but also Moore and Saito);
- relying on archeological, anthropolical and historical research published after 1990;
- practically anything concrete to say about praxis (strategy and tactics for class struggle in the economic, political and ideological domain).