The economic rationale behind animal cruelty

1691: 

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 to produce it our methods must be economically viable. If we accept that, we can move onto the next step, of believing it’s okay for ‘food’ animals to be held captive for their whole life. And better still, to keep them virtually immobilized, to speed-up growth, to minimise the amount of land needed to house them and to maximize their energy-giving properties. The poultry sheds and cattle feedlots are testament to that logic, in that they depend for their economic success on restricting the animal’s bodily movements, to make fattening them more efficient. Nothing else makes economic sense.

The typical intensive system must not be criticized if we want cheap meat, cheap eggs and cheap milk! - hence the tacit public approval for treating animals this way, in exchange for products being available and affordable.