The economic rationale behind animal cruelty

8.

In this present day society, we are guided less by ethics and more by economics. From a need for food-energy comes the idea that high-energy-food comes from animals. This logic says that energy production has to be economically viable. Therefore it must be okay for ‘food’ animals to be held captive for their whole life and kept virtually immobilized to maximize energy. The poultry sheds and cattle feedlots are testament to that logic in that they depend on restricting the animal’s bodily movements to make their fattening more efficient. Nothing else makes economic sense. The typical intensive system must go unremarked if we want cheap meat, cheap eggs and cheap milk! There must be tacit public approval for treating animals in this ‘necessarily atrocious’ way.