Vegetarianism as a window into the pitfalls of activism
The smart vegetarian should probably avoid steakhouses like the bird flu. But she can’t always refuse her omnivorous friends. And at gently-named restaurants like “Paul’s Place” or “Baja Bowls,” she can’t always smell the beef until she’s opened the menu.
When she ends up there, she’ll probably order the vegetarian alternative. They’re recurrent. The veggie pasta in salted olive oil. The puff pastry with weird-colored stuff inside. The dreaded grilled vegetables, cold – usually over- or under-cooked, rarely substantial, always a rip-off.
A rip-off: why? Well, to start because she’s at a steakhouse. But further, vegetarian dishes tend to be disproportionately expensive. That is, they have higher profit margins than expensive foods like steak or lobster. In extreme cases, those expensive foods are even ‘loss leaders’ (as in this article from BusinessWire): they actually lose a company money in hopes the customer will also buy low-cost but high-priced items like drinks or dessert. (Think of the $0.99 burger; the casino buffet; the bargain-priced new video game console). With some exceptions, restaurants with meat options can earn more money from vegetarians and vegans than from omnivores.
As such, the smart vegetarian should proceed to order a steak.
Yes, it’s true we can’t always know where the low profit margins are. But if we did, ordering meat could actually be the better course (pun intended) because it better resists the restaurant. The fact is, your money doesn’t support what you want it to in a restaurant, because restaurants create their own controlled economies within the larger market.
And that’s a big problem, because the ethical and environmental arguments for refusing animal products often hinge on market forces. You buy (demand) a dozen fewer hamburgers, and your local supermarket learns to stock (supply) that much less meat. If they don’t, it goes to waste and they’ve lost money. Our steakhouse-visiting vegetarian has reduced overall meat demand – but she’s helped fund a restaurant that feeds a meat economy. The overall effect could actually boost the meat industry (particularly if a tasty restaurant’s existence makes people demand meat more often). At the very least, your financial support undermines the benefits of your choice not to consume meat.
This is an example of within-the-system activism that’s crippled by the system itself. Our vegetarian will affect the market both through the products she buys and the places she goes to buy them. And that means she’ll run into this problem over and over again: when she’s trying to be eco-friendly, say, and buys organic and local from a supermarket whose eco-footprint comes in bulk. (She shouldn’t forget her dining hall, either).
Moral action is easy to marginalize. Bike companies can’t lobby like car companies, because they’ll never use as much steel, gas, plastic, or money. Efficient companies will struggle to force systemic change in electricity or water utilities if they require little of either. Their reductions aren’t useless; rather, they’re almost exactly as useful as the resources conserved.
Useful change requires a form of activism that’s multiplied by market forces, not undermined by them. That means buying from the right people, the ones who will use your money to perpetuate the values that spurred your original purchase. Maybe it’s worth thinking of this as, literally speaking, an investment that brings a moral return on your money. Our vegetarian in a steakhouse finds herself at a payday lender; our vegetarian in a vegan restaurant might have discovered an elusive trust fund with low-risk and high-return. Now she – not the steakhouse – can reap large benefits for relatively small cost.
An activist’s actions are effective to the extent that they’re well meant and well implemented. The mere category of vegetarianism can’t be sufficient if it’s twisted to support the meat industry (just as ethical legislation can’t be sufficient if it replaces personal ethics with lip service). As such, we can’t merely put our money where our mouth is, by buying things we feel okay consuming. We need to put our money where our beliefs are, and buy things that came from places we don’t mind funding. If you refuse to shop at Walmart, you already do this. It makes sense to adopt the same stance broadly and consistently.
Real-life examples, of course, won’t be as simple and neat as mine. And this, I think, is why the real goal is a familiar one: conscious consumption. As helpful as categorical support of anything can be, from vegetarianism to feminism, it will at best do some good on balance: it won’t be efficient. The optimum return from our moral investment, meanwhile, starts with adaptation instead of rigid categories. Over-emphasize dogma and you de-emphasize consciousness; over-emphasize one prescription and you’ll forget the principles that produced it. So consider swallowing your dogma – it’s even better than the steak.
photo credit: meatheads.com