Podcast episode 01: Pioneer in animalist Marxism Marco Maurizi speaks with us about historical antispeciesism and the animal movements in Italy.
-—–
Here you can find a transcript of the first episode. Made and kindly provided by Tierrechtsradio.
-—–
J/mutb:
Okay. So welcome everybody to the first episode of our podcast from the association for Marxism and animal liberation. My name is John and I’m part of the association.
C/mutb:
Hi, I’m Christine and I’m part of the association too.
J/mutb:
So we will host the first episode of our podcast today. The idea is to meet comrades and people, especially from other countries who also relate to Marxism and animal liberation and who have been partners in discussion or comrades that we have been working with. And we are quite happy to have somebody very special today for our first episode, Marco Maurizzi from Italy. It’s good to have you here. Hello.
MM:
Hello everybody. Thank you for inviting me.
J/mutb:
Sure. Good to have you here. You’ve actually been very important for the work that we are doing and the positions and theories that we’ve been dealing with because, what maybe not everybody knows listening to the podcast is that Marco has written a text that kind of inspired very much of our dealing with animal liberation currents and movements from a Marxist point of view. And I guess it was called the critique of metaphysical anti-speciesism. Am I right?
MM:
Yeah, that’s correct.
J/mutb:
I don’t remember when that actually was, but that was very-, that text was very important for the work that we are doing. So you’re kind of the grand master of our alliance, so to say, and so we’re very happy to have you here. For everybody who does not know Marco Maurizzi yet: Marco’s a philosopher based in Italy and working on, well obviously Marxist theory and coming from the animal liberation movement. Is there something special you would like to add? You’re a musician as well.
MM:
Yeah. I work with students and music. That’s the best thing to do.
J/mutb:
Besides Marxism and animal liberation.
MM:
Of course, of course.
J/mutb:
So just for the introduction or for people who would like to get to know you better, can you tell us a bit about when and how you did actually became interested and, of course, politically involved with animal liberation and with Marxism? Where does that come from?
MM:
Okay. Let me say something on a personal level. Of course, I don’t want to tell you the story of my life, but this could be interesting. As a child, I really loved animals. I really cared for them. And I even figured out that I could be a vegetarian and that was (when I was) around six or seven years old. But this is not important. This is not what matters. It’s not the reason why I write in defense of animals now.
First of all, because as a child, I could be cruel to animals. I did horrible things, even when I loved them. And I believe that I loved them. And I think this is important for adults too, because every time we ask people to care for animals, the question is, when is that too much or is it not enough? How can you judge when empathy or feelings are irrational? You just can’t find a way to base your philosophy or your politics on feelings. Okay.
So I criticize Peter Singer, but one thing that I agree with him in animal liberation or rights, is that it’s not a question of love. I don’t love animals. It’s a question of justice. And, of course, I think that his idea of justice is abstract and formal. I just don’t buy that as a materialist. I would rather use the word solidarity.
And this takes us to my interest in Marxism. Because Marxism taught me to formulate my ideas in objective terms. Solidarity means that society as a whole is organized around principles of equality and respect. And as I never felt any contradiction between my interest in animal liberation and socialism, justice and solidarity means that you have to recognize that it’s not right to exercise power over the weakest. You share the bodily experience of mortality and suffering with other beings. So I think that from a materialist and socialist point of view, we have to take the interest of non-humans into account. So it was really simple for me just to take this experience of “I want to take care of others, humans and nonhumans on an objective level” - and (derive from that) what kind of society I want to build. In what kind of society (do) I want to live?
C/mutb:
Can you explain in two sentences, what do you mean by an objective level if you say that?
MM:
Yes, because, when you talk about animal liberation with animal rights activists, you often talk about morals, morality, ethics, and there’s always a subjective, an individual side involved. And I call this methodological individualism: You believe that society is made up of individuals, but there are social structures. There is something that goes beyond what individuals do and think. It is, as a matter of fact, the condition for what they do and what they think. Okay. And this is the objective level that I think it is important to stress, to understand. And, of course it’s the object of any political practice. You change institutions, you change the economy, you change the social structures.
C/mutb:
So, you write in defense of animals clearly from a Marxist perspective. If I remember correctly, you keep writing, but you’re not politically organized at the moment. But as I just said, you continue doing scholarly work on these issues. And not long ago, you also published a book titled ‘Beyond nature - animal liberation, marxism and critical theory’. And one of the basic pillars of this book is-, you are engaging with a kind of socialism that strives for animal liberation. However, you also sharply criticize what you call animal liberation ideology. And you just started talking about methodological individualism. Maybe this is connected to each other. So, why is that? Why do you criticize animal liberation ideology? And does it have anything to do with you not being organized politically at the moment?
MM:
Yeah, definitely. This obsession with practice on a subjective, personal dimension is what alienated me from organized militancy. Animal liberation ideology is an attempt to explain a frustrating experience that lasted over 10 years. I’ve been working with groups in which the concept of society was replaced by humanity. And this means an undifferentiated subject in which there was no tension, no no conflicts, no contradiction. Just humans exerting violence on animals. And this didn’t didn’t make sense to me at all. So I just couldn’t stand it anymore. That’s the reason why I’m not organized at the moment.
And from this idea follow two mistakes. And this is what I call animal liberation ideology: From one side, systemic violence against animals is conceived as a consequence of individual indifference, prejudice or bad will. And, from the other side, and this is a consequence, all those who fight for animal liberation believe they have a moral superiority certified by some kind of lifestyle. And they believe social change takes place when you convince other people to change their lifestyle. So, everything is reduced to this subjective individual point of view. And I think one of the contribution I try to make in my book is to understand speciesism, not as an individual inclination, a moral prejudice, but as an objective phenomenon, a system of exploitation rather than discrimination.
And therefore to understand the goal of animal liberation, you have to take into account these structures. So you have to dismount them. You have to find a way, find the key to change what happens between individuals, among individuals. It’s something that is not coming from within. On the contrary, it’s there, it’s within you because society works in that way. So you have to think about it. Okay.
So from-, there are some sociological explanations which are called functionalism, okay.
The idea that structures are more important than individuals. The good thing about Marxism is that this is not an ontological position. Marxism is a way to understand these structures in order to change them and make individuals matter. So the point is there should be a society where individuals are important, but you have to build it. You have to make it possible. And in my-, my point of view is that Marxism is the way to make this possible.
J/mutb:
So that is a very clear plea for a Marxist position. Just like you said, so, let’s talk-, I would like to talk about a very central concept, that you also-, that we’re discussing, or that you’re also placing in your book and in your analysis. So, as you know, and as maybe some of the listeners know, is that our association wrote 18 and published 18 theses on Marxism and animal liberation, arguing that, and of course why they both belong together. And from what I can tell, and what I know is you’re fond of our position or such a position. And the book we’ve just mentioned, and we’ve just talked (about), might also be best read as a plea for that sort of historical materialist understanding of the relations of humans and animals. And as part of this book, and in this vein, you also offer a historical analysis of early class societies.
However, in your writing, in the book, you often focus on domination or the concept of domination. And that seems to be the most important or one of the most important explaining factors when it comes to the exploitation and the oppression of animals. So what I’d like to ask you is: Is that a more political or a power theoretical approach rather than a classic political economic one?
MM:
Okay. That’s a good question. First of all, I think it’s important that, both my book and the aging thesis come from the same theoretical and practical needs. Okay. So we apply the means of Marx to the animal question. And Marxs teaches us to look not at society in general, which always ends up in producing obstructions, but at the essence of modern society, that is the capitalist mode of production.
Okay. So, before I talked about the importance of structures over individuals, and then secondly, it’s important to stress that we are talking about this society here. Marx does not talk about society in general. This is very important because the central point of our mode of production is the self-organization of capital, its relationship with the extraction of human labor. And this is so important because it’s not about society in general. It’s not about social relations in general. Okay. It’s really the point where everything gets organized in the present society. And I appreciate that in your thesis, you criticize the postmodern left because part of the problem we face today derives from the underestimation of this key concept in Marx. Okay. And I know that this underestimation is the consequence of the defeat of the left in the ages. And we began not only to fantasize that the struggle against capital was a matter of personal lifestyle. We also really started to believe that it was enough to think differently in order for capitalism to magically disappear. Okay. We interpret things in a different way and everything changes. Okay. So socialism has been interpreted as a fixation and obsession with economics, with the economy.
But the strange thing is, that no matter how everything changes and is unpredictable, according to postmodern philosophy, the comment of capital on wages, time and the quality of our life is still there. That doesn’t change. So I think it’s important to repeat that, okay, there are a lot of things in society that are not directly connected to capital and the process of self-organization of capital, but where do they take place? In which kind of society and how is the society organized? How does it reproduce itself?
So to return to your question, the problem is how to understand the role of non-human animals in this specific society, because it is this society that needs to be changed, not society in general or worse humanity, which is something that does not exist. There is no such thing as humanity is a subject or society as an essence. Okay. So animals are exploited because capital turns everything it needs into commodities. And it does this to animals, not because they are animals, but because they are matters that can be turned into commodities.
So this is the first important thing I want to stress. And then you ask me about domination Okay. I don’t understand domination as a power related category. I think it’s an economic category. And in my point of view, from my point of view, the way I use it, or I wanted to use it, okay, I want to use it. I think the misunderstanding lies in the way in which this category is usually used in the so-called critical theory, which is not the ‘Kritische Theorie’ of the Frankfurt school. It’s something else. It comes from the American Anglosaxon academy. It’s more about Foucault, or Agamben or biopolitics and it’s really a different theoretical horizon, in respect to Adorno, Marcuse and Horkheimer.
And there’s this interpretation given by Kojeve and Fukuyama of Hegel’s servant master dialectic. I think this is a problem, but because I interpret Hegel’s dialectics in a different way, or at least I think I interpret it well, not as a political dialectic. Because it’s true that in ‘The phenomenology of spirit’, Hegel speaks of these dialectics in terms of Selbstbewusstsein, self consciousness. The need for recognition, the drive for supremacy and so on. And yet all these subjective elements are important to Hegel because they produce objective structures. So again, we go to this problem. The servant master dialectic in Hegel is important because it produces historical and social formations. And according to Hegel, what matters is not the cause, but the effects. So all these subjective elements are important in that they produce real effects, Wirkungen. So Wirklichkeit, Realität. Reality is what produces enduring consequences at the level of totality.
So the way I understand domination is not the will to power of humans. It’s just, okay-, there’s something here that produces facts in history. We don’t know where it comes from. We just-, we can speculate. We know that from a certain moment, we started to exert power over nature. Okay. And this power is connected to social structure, to classes. And that’s important to me, not because it’s a will to dominate, but because it produces economic structures and political structures, and these are linked together. And if you read Hegel, you know, that the master becomes the servant of the servant because the servant with its labor appropriates nature and creates a more concrete, determined form of freedom.
So I think that the history of domination is the way in which human beings produce social formations, which are more concrete and allow them to build their social freedom in a more differentiated way. And this is already economic in Hegel. It’s the Genesis of economy. It doesn’t matter where this comes from. It doesn’t matter if the Genesis of economy is not economic in itself. The point is that in the realm of economic laws, all this is subjected to economic laws. So domination is-, works according to economic laws that may be produced by something else. But what is important is that, once an economy is established, it works according to its own laws. So unlike many Anarchists, who believe that life and freedom are (…) by social form, I stand with Hegel who teaches that these forms are the universal substance of life and freedom. They enrich our collective experience. They take it to a higher level. Thus talking of domination does not mean to identify a cause that has to be removed in order to remove the effect, but rather something which must be understood in terms of the possibility it discloses to humanity as a whole. So that’s the way I understand the relation between domination, politics and economy. They go together. And you just cannot work on domination in itself as is something other than the laws of the economy.
J/mutb:
So then let’s talk about who exactly then is exploiting the animals, because, like you just mentioned before, something like an abstract humanity as a subject, or as a collective does not exist. Now, however, you were talking about human society in the way you understood it and as you said it. And that kind of relates also to an argument that we keep hearing in the discussions within the animal rights and animal liberation movements, and the argument goes: It’s not only capitalists exploiting the animals, it’s actually human society. So kind of everybody. So is it right to speak of human society as a totality in that way that exploits and oppresses animals? And maybe, relating to that, to start talking more about the political side of this, then what do you think follows from that? If speaking of a socialism that also strives for animal liberation and class struggle put together, how do these go together in practice, politically?
MM:
Okay, first of all, there has never been an exploitation of animals in the interest of humanity. Because humanity, again, has never existed as a subject, either through society (or) where class society is. So everything that happens in this society is from the point of view of the economy. And this implies the exposition of dominating nature has always been in the interests of the ruling class. Now, I think it’s important. And I think this is plain Marxism at least interpreted in a certain way, but it’s Marxist. It’s Marxist’s point of view to understand humanity, as I said, as a potentiality. So this human subject could exist in a free society. Okay. But what does this mean? I think this is-, yeah, this is important, because we struggle for the abolition of classes. Okay. That is what Mars called the end of prehistory. Okay. Because, (at) the end of prehistory, socialism puts an end to a certain universal history, as we know it. To a certain kind of civilization. Now, for both Marx and Engels, communism is the solution of the contradiction between humanism and materialism. It’s the end of the alienation of humans from nature. This is Engels in ‘Dialectics of nature’. Now, the point is, what kind of subject is that? What kind of subject are we struggling for? Will it still need to exploit animals? Okay.
So, there is no automatic answer. Of course, we don’t mean, I think-, I don’t mean that socialism per se will put an end to animal exploitation. Okay. But it is the necessary condition for it. There is no way to figure out how that should work. I think it’s pretty clear that a real, a true social society would do it. Why? Because this exploitation of animality, of animals comes from spiritualistic tradition. It’s really grounded on the idea that we are others and we can do whatever we want to animals. And this is at odds with the way I understand materialism. And, as I said, an equal society, a solidaristic society, I think that the way to understand this is the way Adorno interprets the dialectics of nature.
Okay. Adorno says that the more reason denies nature in itself, the more it gets distorted and becomes prey of blind, natural self preservation mechanisms. Okay. The point is to free reason from this mechanic of self preservation, which reason learns from his struggle, from his natural struggle with nature. And it is only when reason learns to recognize itself in nature, that it truly becomes (…) reason.
And the two things are connected. Okay. Natural reason is reason freed from the limits. It has inherited from a long tradition of spiritualism. So it is only by opening up to non-human nature that reason becomes truly universal. Reason is intended here as a social form. Okay. (In) Hegelian and Marxist terms. So, reason is the way we organize ourselves as society. Okay. So the point would be a true humanity, which is something that even Engels wrote: True humanity exists only in socialism. Okay. It’s the way-, it’s the step away from this long history of violence and exploitation, which is bound to limits that we have inherited from our natural history and from our social history. …
What was the other question?
J/mutb:
Um, talking about the socialism that you’re fond of. So how do animal liberation and that struggle politically concretely go together?
MM:
Yeah. Okay. I think we can understand this in three different ways. Okay. They are all related, but they’re not the same. So first of all, Marxism is essential for animal liberation, as we said, because it’s the precondition of liberation as such. Only an authentically democratic society in which information and deliberation are freed from the partial private interest of profit can realize a true social change in the interest of all, of everybody. So, a democracy of labor is the basis for a society oriented towards equality and solidarity. As I often say, we cannot talk to free animals if we are unable to free ourselves. Okay. Secondly, if we think of social change, we must necessarily think about how society will be organized. Again, what kind of society is society where animal liberation takes place. And there are not many options.
Either the productive means of production are in private hands, or they are collectively shared. So the point is, dear friends, you want to liberate animals. Okay. Tell us what kind of society are you struggling for? Because maybe we could fight together. Okay. And, okay, there are different waves and nuances in the way we understand the collective means of production. Okay. I give (you) that. Okay. But then, this is the option. Let’s discuss this, not a society of which you don’t know how it works, and you imagine that animals will be free and you don’t yourself know what that could be. Okay. So-, and it’s not just a formal question because, a society where humans are not-, don’t feel this pressure we feel because we always have to run, because profit is all that matters. It’s a society where humans can relate to one another, and humans can relate to non-human animals in a new way. They are more free to relate to others, to imagine a way of building relationships. And, first of all, because society, as all is organized on a new principle, has a new foundation.
So the problem with the current critics of lifestyles is that they are oriented to consumption.
They understand the struggle for animal liberation as a struggle for consumption. While the real question is the productive relations. So what kind of production relation you imagine would allow us to be freer and to have a free relationship with animals? And, last but not least, this is the most important and most difficult question. Marxism, again, understood from a Hegelian point of view, has a stress on universality. So universality is a process. It means universalization. Okay. And this process by which our society becomes more and more universal, which means global, but also they take into account the problem of everybody . So everybody is implied in this society and rights become universal. And so on. What does this mean? How is this possible? Marx says, okay, the first, the material basis is capitalism because capitalism achieved a level of human universality through its economic and political structures, which destroyed all forms of relationships.
Okay. Family and all forms of economies and so on and relation to nature, the mystical, the mythical umbilical cord that relate that bond us to nature. This gets destroyed, melted into air by capitalism. And then capitalism is a society of universal mediation through the market. Okay. So, and Marx starts from this and they, okay. How can we go farther? How can we make this develop into a real universal society? Because socialism is placed on a higher level of universality. It’s the process of self-determination of humanity now freed from inherited natural social limits. (It’s a) humanity that becomes the subject of its own becoming. This is what Marx writes in the ‘Grundrisse’. And I think it’s a magnificent place. It’s really beautiful. Humanity becomes the subject of its own becoming.
C/mutb:
Marco, let’s keep talking politics a bit, boots on the ground. You’ve raised, so far, some points about the animal liberation movement. You’ve told us that you couldn’t stand among other things, their methodological individualism, you’ve talked about what kinds of class politics we would need in order to make a socialism realizable that includes the animal question. Now, we have to hear about Italy and I think everyone is interested in what you can tell us about their situation in Italy regarding these issues. How would you describe the situation on the ground with regard to both the socialists and the animal liberation movements? Are there connections among them? Are there, you know, people trying to realize what you just described to us as a project?
MM:
Okay. The situation in Italy is a complicated one, because we have-, we live the consequences of the defeat in the nineties and in the 2000s because the major communist party in Italy got dissolved and it splitted into ‘groupuscules’, so micro-parties, and this is really bad for politics. It’s the reason why I’m not organized from a political point of view. Because I see that the problem here is not different from the problem I see in some animal rights groups, that you overestimate your role and you understand your marginality. You’re (at) the point that you don’t count from a social point of view as something good. Okay. “We are external to society, we don’t take part in this”-, and this is so wrong. Uh, I understand the limits of electoralism. I understand that it is important sometimes to have a minority party, a little party, which sets the jury and organizes the forces in order to become important from a political social point of view. Okay. But it is not what happens now. We have little groups of 1% that-, they just reproduce themself. It’s just the bureaucracy inherited from a long history and we don’t need that.
Okay. Uh, so as far as politics are concerned, it’s really a bad, bad moment. What is good is that some of these little parties start to receive the elaboration of anti-speciesism from a Marxist point of view. So they are reading your thesis. They are reading my books, they’re trying to discuss it and to embody (it), to put it into their own programs. Okay. This is unprecedented. It never happened in the history of socialism. So even if it’s little groups, it’s okay that this happens. And the same could be said for the animal liberationists.
The problem in Italy is, these groups are mainly hegemonized by anarchists. And this is not something wrong in itself. The problem is that these are the kind of the kind of anarchists that believe that everything that is organized from an institutional level is wrong. So they just don’t work on this. And they’re just self-referential. And so it’s really difficult to discuss these topics with them, because every time you talk about social structure and political organization, you just quarrel and you just can’t agree. And, the point is-, the problem is that there is no alternative. So it’s just a matter of lifestyle (for them). And the problem is that this struggle on lifestyle isn’t understood as political. So they say, “We are doing political anti-speciesism”. Okay, what’s that? Why are we all changing our lifestyles and saying that we don’t want capitalism? Okay, and what do you want you to replace it (with)? What are you struggling for? And then everybody goes nuts and there is no discussion anymore.
So-, but, but your thesis, my book and order contribution start to circulate in the animal liberation movement in Italy. And I think it’s important not to make the mistakes we made before, that we want everybody in. We don’t want everybody in. We want a political struggle and a political struggle means you have certain goals. So although all those who are interested in those goals should take part in it, the others, okay, they make their political struggle and that has nothing to do with us.
C/mutb:
Yeah, exactly. So, to wrap up, maybe the most difficult question could be asked, (at the end). I mean, our-, the question socialists have to ask themselves is always what to do. And given the political situation and the picture you just painted, I think this is a question that’s not too easy to ask, but on the other hand, we can’t lean back (either) and say, “let’s just write what to write instead of what to do”. So my question would be, what do you see as an opportunity, or as something that can be done actually, locally, in Italy to change that situation? To maybe create such a struggle that you just described that has specific goals that wants to get rid of capitalism and animal exploitation, and that wants to create a real offensive against the meat industry.
MM:
Okay. Let’s start with the fact that, unless there is some social transformation, which initiates, so to say, a new wave of struggles, it’s really difficult to to act differently from a political point of view. So we have to organize that you have to prepare, okay, this. I think there’s a lot of things we can do, both as socialist and animal liberationists. Animal liberationists, I think, should work on a social model. They should change their slogans, change their strategic and tactical goals. Okay. And you have to fight with other people and go to the streets and march with them and try to build a subject on specific issues, which are shared. And again, I always say socialism is not a subject that should hybridate with other subjects. It’s like an axis. It’s like a bar, what kind of society are you working for? And then you have to fight with all other subjects that believe that they want an equal society. So, the point should be for animal liberationists to really change the way they talk about these issues in order to get the possibility to work with other groups. And that could make the difference, because I think that, now, if you translate the problem of animal suffering from a moral to a political point of view, you get a lot of people saying, “Yeah, that’s true. I don’t want this. I would really like a society that works in a different way.” And you have to make clear that unless you check the means of production, that is not possible.
J/mutb:
So these were good final words. Thank you very much, Marco. And thank you very much for your time and for being with us here.
MM:
Thank you. Thank you.
C/mutb:
Yeah, it was great having you here. See you next time, I guess.
MM:
See you.
J/mutb:
Yes. And for everybody who’s interested in reading more of what Marco has to say, your book is called ‘Beyond nature - animal liberation, Marxism, and critical theory’. Where can people get it if they’re interested in it?
MM:
Yeah. That’s-, you can get it on the internet.
J/mutb:
Just download it.
MM:
Yeah. Unfortunately it’s a Brill publication, which is very good because they do good work, but it’s really expensive now. There’s going to be a pepper back edition, I think, next year. So I hope this will help the distribution of the text.
J/mutb:
Good. Okay. So thanks again. And, yes, everybody, make sure to read what Marco has to say, and we will hopefully meet again soon and exchange positions and keep discussions going.
C/mutb:
Yeah. Bye.
