The economic rationale behind animal cruelty

687: 

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, and that if we want to enjoy the advantage of this  sort of energy, then its production must be economically viable. If that is accepted we take the next step, that it must be okay for ‘food’ animals to be held captive for their whole life and kept virtually immobilized to maximize their energy-giving properties. The poultry sheds and cattle feedlots are testament to that logic, in that they depend for their success 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, and that approval is given in return for product being made available and affordable.