by David Michelson
“Thoughts do not have to be communicated in order to occur, but they cannot occur without being spoken—silently or sounding out in dialogue, as the case may be.” - Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind
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Lessons from Luxemburg's "Reform or Revolution"David Michelson
As one of the chief petitioners for a proposed ballot initiative to ban the slaughter, hunting, experimentation, and breeding of animals in Oregon, I often get asked—both from within and without the animal rights movement—why I put my efforts into such a radical campaign. While some of the initial reasons come down to a mere chance confluence of events, my rationale for sticking with this endeavor has become more deeply rooted in and influenced by philosophy, political theory, and the history of social movements. While I continue to study these subjects, I often find myself better able to articulate new aspects to my developing rationale thanks largely to the insightful words of others.
Recently, I came across one such instance when the words of others inspired me to articulate my belief in the IP28 campaign in a new way. While listening to the latest episode of the podcast What’s Left of Philosophy, in which four leftist friends and philosophers—Lillian, Owen, Gil, and Will—discussed Rosa Luxemburg’s essay “Reform or Revolution”, I found that much of their analysis of Luxemburg’s arguments could be applied to the IP28 campaign as well as the animal liberation movement more broadly. I’d like to share some quotes from the episode, which have been lightly edited for clarity, as well as my own reflections on how I believe they can be applied to the struggle for animal liberation.
Rosa Luxemburg was born in Poland in 1871 and is considered a revolutionary socialist, orthodox Marxist, and anti-War activist. She received her doctorate from the University of Zurich after studying philosophy, mathematics, political science, and national economics. She moved to Germany in 1898 and became one of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany before her murder in 1919 by counter-revolutionary soldiers. The exact publication date is debated but sometime around 1900 she published an essay titled “Reform or Revolution”, and it is the discussion of this essay that appeared relevant to the present day animal liberation movement.
Lillian introduces the podcast discussion by sharing that while Luxemburg is “not against social reform, and argues that no revolutionaries are, she thinks that the strategy for achieving social reform is self-undermining, because it doesn't seek to transform the whole mode of production, and only revolutionary attempts actually cause reform.” Lillian goes on to add that “the idea that revolutionary agitation is what leads to reform in the first place, and that can push beyond it, is, I think, an important argument that Luxemburg makes. So it's about the manner of organizing for reform and not necessarily reforms themselves [that Luxemburg takes issue with]. She thinks that the professed goals of reformism, because self undermining, actually expose a different goal that is not socialism at all.”
For those already familiar with discussions in the animal rights community, this will likely resemble the distinction made between those agitating for animal rights or the abolition of animal exploitation and those advocating for animal welfare or reforms to the ways we currently exploit animals. I believe this analysis of Luxemburg will bring a novel way of understanding the dichotomy that may pique the interests even for those who are exhaustingly intimate with such conversations.
Before getting into Luxemburg’s criticisms of reform, I want to first reiterate the distinction made between reform and revolution. According to Lillian, “In Luxemburg’s mind, the defining thing is, do you want to rupture or not? Do you think a rupture is what's necessary? I think that's a better word for talking about revolution. Do you want to rupture with this mode of production? And do you want a society that works by different rules and responds to different incentives and has different constraints. When you are engaging in politics, are you engaging it with the rupture in mind? Luxemburg’s criticism is that in proceeding in a reformist way, you have let it be exposed that you do not, in fact, share that goal any longer.” Owen adds to this when he says “these people that Luxemburg’s putting under the label of reformism, are those that are not actually fighting for the end [goal] of socialism. They’ve made the reforms the end. What they’re calling the means, that's actually just the totality of what they’re struggling for.” In other words, says Owen, revolution is interested in “ending exploitation rather than ameliorating it.”
To answer the questions Lillian poses, with respect to our campaign, I can say in the affirmative that I want to rupture with this mode of animal exploitation, to create a society that works by different rules than those of speciesism, hierarchy, and anthropocentrism. When I engage in politics, I am engaging in it with this rupture in mind. The ballot campaign I am part of seeks to end exploitation rather than ameliorate it. By banning animal slaughter, hunting, experimentation, and breeding, it would force a revolutionary shift away from the status quo of using animals for food, clothing, and entertainment.
"The strategy for achieving social reform is self-undermining, because it doesn't seek to transform the whole mode of production, and only revolutionary attempts actually cause reform."
Some who advocate for animal welfare may object to the implied claim that they have made reforms the totality of what they’re struggling for, or the claim that reforms are not actually part of the fight leading to the end goal of animal liberation. While the former is perhaps only a claim that can be proven true or false through introspection due to its focus on the inner mind and intentions of an individual, the latter claim can be more easily deliberated.
There are four criticisms of reform discussed with reference to Luxemburg’s essay. The first I would describe as being critical of the underlying motivations for reform. As Gil shares about midway through the episode, “Luxemburg puts it really starkly. She's like, this ends up [being] a moment of solidarity between capital and labor, against the consumer or against other units of production. There's no class struggle there. How could there be? You're getting capital and labor to collude to like, question mark, question mark, then finally, profit.” Within the context of animal welfare, many organizations openly acknowledge wanting to work in solidarity with companies or other entities that exploit animals, and to do so they will typically make the argument that whatever improvement they are advocating for would actually increase profit. To quote an article written by the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, “From an economic perspective, improving product quality and reducing animal losses are the potential benefits to improving animal welfare that are found in the scientific animal welfare literature most frequently.” Even “The Beef Site” agrees that “Improving Welfare Can Improve Profits.” There is no struggle for animal liberation to be found among the commitments made by Burger King, Nestle, or Unilever to “provide customers a sustainable supply of chicken” that meets requirements on stocking density and slaughter method.
When we observe how welfare reforms end up being economically beneficial, this is similar to the critical race theory lens of interest convergence, which argues that civil rights gains often occur when they coincide with changing needs and desires of white people. Improvements to the conditions of animals similarly come about when the reforms coincide with the interests of the companies who profit from animal exploitation or the consumers who continue to pay into these systems of exploitation. Stunning an animal before slaughter was implemented when it was made apparent that doing so resulted in fewer worker injuries and carcass bruises. The most recent push among welfare organizations for the use of controlled atmosphere stunning (CAS) or controlled atmosphere killing (CAK) is promoted as creating a “Better Work Environment” by avoiding the “bruising, broken bones, and other injuries to both the birds and workers” that occur from traditional methods for slaughtering chickens, according to Mercy for Animals. That such methods would also reduce the number of workers needed to operate such facilities in the first place again increases profits. As we have seen over the past few decades, by implementing these so-called improvements it has also enabled these companies to kill an even greater number of animals.
The second critique has to do with the pacification of the revolutionary struggle. Will mentions that Luxemburg is concerned that a practical outcome of reforms can be that they pacify class struggle. Although Will notes that he isn’t sure if “it necessarily has to be the case that reforms will pacify class struggle” he goes on to say that “it certainly seems to be the case that reforms with the end of ameliorating the divide between rich and poor, rather than dealing with the productive relations, will have that consequence.” Here the analogy to the animal liberation movement is less direct but still holds resonance for me. Welfare improvements certainly don’t pacify the animals’ desires for liberation, but I do believe some reforms risk pacifying the public’s desire for, or receptiveness to, animal liberation—particularly when consumers can assuage their concerns by purchasing “Humane Certified” or “RSPCA Assured” animal products (according to a 2017 survey by the Sentience Institute, 75% of US adults say they usually buy animal products "from animals that are treated humanely"). I’m also concerned that reforms risk pacifying the advocates themselves, who may have become conditioned to expect only incremental victories and are thus appeased or content whenever a reform is successfully achieved.
The third criticism has to do with an underlying belief among those organizing for reform that society progresses in a relatively linear fashion, without taking into account the possibility for progress to become undone. As articulated in the episode, “reformists seem to think that once you reform the state, the state can just remain as it is and progressively expand its capacities and improve itself.” Luxemburg disagrees, and the hosts point to recent decades of progressive reforms being rolled back, particularly in the US, as evidence of this outcome. Applied to the animal rights context, If we don’t rupture with the system of animal exploitation then the relative improvements to how that exploitation is carried out can always be revoked. In 2014, a rule became effective limiting slaughterhouses to kill no more than 140 birds per minute; this was raised to 175 birds per minute under a 2018 USDA decision. In the 1940s, battery cages (used primarily for egg-laying hens) were considered a welfare improvement meant to enhance hygiene standards and curb the spread of infectious diseases. Initially each battery cage housed only one bird, and were larger than those seen in modern farming. Over time, the number of birds per cage increased while the size of the cages decreased. What would one expect when the underlying premise of animal exploitation hasn’t been questioned?
The fourth criticism, which is tied to and yet distinct from this critique of linear progress, is introduced by Will early on in the episode. Will says, “[Rosa Luxemburg] is trying to show that it’s not about whether it's better for working class people's lives to be made better by certain reforms. The problem is thinking that reforms, in and of themselves, can be a vehicle for qualitatively changing capitalist society to a new mode of production.” Gil then adds: “stack up all of those gains, [that still] never becomes a qualitatively different thing called a change in the relations of production such that we're no longer dealing with a regime of labor exploitation.” The concern here doesn’t have to do with backsliding in particular, but says that even if society did continue to add up incremental improvements to the living conditions of those exploited under our current system, those improvements will never bring us to a point where we have transcended the basic form of group exploitation. I am reminded of the foot-in-the-door approach that I’ve heard advocated by some in the animal rights movement, where the strategy is to get the public comfortable with agreeing to modest improvements in welfare so that eventually they will be ready to agree to a more radical shift away from animal agriculture altogether. That strategy might work for sales, but I do not have confidence that it would work for parting ways with a system of animal exploitation that’s been around for over 10,000 years. Nor would it meet my need for authenticity to be intentionally advocating for far less than what I want while withholding my true desires until an opinion poll determines they’re more palatable. I am more confident in the strategic advice given by Gustav Landauer, another leftist who—like Rosa Luxemburg—was also killed in 1919 by German counter-revolutionary soldiers. He says, “if you want to awaken reason and energy from dormancy you have to assume that they are not dormant. You cannot awaken someone if you do not approach them as if they were not sleeping.” I don’t believe we can sleepwalk into liberation. As uncomfortable as it may be to risk waking someone, I believe to avoid doing so is tragically self-undermining.
"If we don’t rupture with the system of animal exploitation then the relative improvements to how that exploitation is carried out can always be revoked."
In responding to this critique one might insist that it is too early to fight for revolution. This topic was also discussed in the podcast. According to Owen, “[Luxemburg] tries to make clear that we have to stop thinking about reform and revolution in terms of a time scale, [where] reforms move at a different pace, but they ultimately have the same destination, [in contrast with] revolution [which] is trying to arrive at that destination prematurely.” Will adds, “When's the right moment for change? How slow is too slow? How fast is too fast? I think a lot of people [agree] with the idea [that] radical change should happen now, but [believe] that the conditions aren't yet ripe for it to happen tomorrow. And so [instead] they think, well, we have to do what we can in the meantime. I think [Luxemburg] is trying to navigate her way out of that double bind of thinking [that] either it happens now or we can only settle for sort of mid range reforms. I like what she says about revolution, where she's like, it's always too early.” I agree with their analysis that objectors to revolution will always say we are premature or too early, and that whatever we are asking for will always be too much. Even if our initial attempts at revolution prove insufficient to transform society tomorrow, Will notes that “I think the point Luxemburg tries to make is to not think that it has to be perfect on the first go around. This is meant to be an iterative practice.”
There was one defense of reform mentioned during the discussion, summarized by Gil in the latter half of the episode: “the partial defense of reform measures that Luxemburg gives is interesting. She says at some point, [that], yeah, of course, as a socialist, I also want to see working conditions improve, and if reform is a means for that, fine, fine, fine, but the how and the why matter, because for her, she thinks that the reforms are good from the perspective of the socialist movement in so far as they participate in or are vehicles for raising of working class consciousness, insofar as fighting for reforms and then winning reforms and seeing your material conditions improve teaches workers that they're in a fucking struggle.” What resonates for me about this perspective, is that it is tied back to the goal of awakening. Are we struggling with a rupture in mind? Are we intentionally trying to wake others up, or trying to quiet ourselves down so as not to disturb them? To bring in the words of Gustav Landauer once more, he says that we must realize “that a goal can only be reached if it is already reflected in its means,” and I believe Luxemburg would agree that reforms only help us reach our goal if they reflect our true aims of revolution.
