The Pork industry, circa 1860

30 comments on “The Pork industry, circa 1860 ”

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1. serpico 1

   21 May 2009 at 10:42 am

   Anyone would think that cartoon was directed at the former Labour Minister Phillip Field.
2. Michael Mathieson 2

   21 May 2009 at 11:24 am

   This is great! :]
3. StephenR 3

   21 May 2009 at 11:35 am

   Interestingly Adam Smith actually opposed slavery on economic (as well as moral) grounds, I forget how that goes though.
   • serpico 3.1

     21 May 2009 at 12:07 pm

     Amazing Grace how sweet you are….
4. Sausage Fingers 4

   21 May 2009 at 11:37 am

   You comparing black people to pigs? Are you a racist?
   • Maynard J 4.1

     21 May 2009 at 12:55 pm

     Sausage Brain, may I ask a question:

     Is that the best interpretation of this cartoon that you can come up with? I ask, because it seems to me such an incredibly stupid conclusion to draw that I hope this is not the case.

     If it is, you are a testament to the wonders of modern technology: someone so stupid that by all rights they should not be able to tie shoe laces or cease drooling and yet can use a PC/Mac and the internet. Simply astounding.
     • Sausage Fingers 4.1.1

       21 May 2009 at 5:50 pm

       My point, oh intellectually gifted one, was that, just because we have given people rights, doesn’t automatically mean we have to extend them to pigs. Or trees. Or rocks.
       • felix 4.1.1.1

         21 May 2009 at 6:56 pm

         The cartoon is about how we justify causing suffering when we benefit from if. The same justifications are being used in both cases. Nowhere does it equate people with pigs. Your point is redundant.
         • Maynard J 4.1.1.1.1

           21 May 2009 at 8:04 pm

           Thank you felix. Indeed.
5. vto 5

   21 May 2009 at 11:42 am

   Brilliant. Moreu also did a great cartoon again today on the Israeli/Palestinian debacle… http://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/cartoons/
6. Bill 6

   21 May 2009 at 1:42 pm

   “Sorry, but slavery stays. But you know what? We’re going to introduce a thing called wages into the equation. We call it wage slavery. The good thing is this means you won’t be a slave for your whole life. Cause if you save money from your wages, then you will no longer be a slave. And even better than that is the fact that the day will come when most people like you wont even think of yourselves as slaves at all. Now wont that be a glorious day!?”
   • vto 6.1

     21 May 2009 at 7:55 pm

     are you an alsation Bill?
     • Bill 6.1.1

       21 May 2009 at 9:08 pm

       Neither an alsation nor a ‘two legs’ deluded enough to believe that abolition was about an end to slavery ; that we are all equals now at the troughs of production and distribution.
7. toad 7

   21 May 2009 at 6:35 pm

   The WTO is really the problem here re being able to enforce animal welfare (and, for that matter, environmental sustainability) policies.

   There needs to be a balance – freedom of trading should not supersede all other considerations, as it does now. Problem is, for the Labour supporters here, your parliamentary representatives have taken us further down that track, and it is very hard to go back.

   Um, Party Vote Green seems a good look in that regard.
   • Nick C 7.1

     21 May 2009 at 8:42 pm

     Or you could eat free range pork, let everyone else decide for themselves whether pigs have rights, and then let them decide if them want to follow you and eat the free range pork or buy the caged stuff.
     • Maynard J 7.1.1

       21 May 2009 at 10:35 pm

       Yeah, but the market completely fails to account for externalities. So that would be a terrible method.

       Look at how the market works now: do you want your jeans to be made by child slaves in china and cost you $129.99, or made in NZ for…oh wait – the market decided, there are no NZ made jeans. Child slaves it is.

       Human irrationality and ignorance as the arbitrator for rights. There is a reason we have had to regulate in the past.
8. toad 8

   21 May 2009 at 6:38 pm

   Oops, last comment on WTO and animal welfare in moderation! No idea why, didn’t say anything abusive. Please clear, it’s a goodie.
9. Paul Walker 9

   21 May 2009 at 7:45 pm

   One problem with your cartoon is that for the US, at least, at the time of the civil war, slave agriculture was not inefficient compared to free agriculture. See Time on the Cross by Robert Fogel and Stanley Engermann.
   • Bill 9.1

     21 May 2009 at 7:48 pm

     Does the efficiency argument not depend on the crop?
     • Paul Walker 9.1.1

       21 May 2009 at 8:21 pm

       Bill. I don’t think so, but I may just not remember correctly. I think F&E used a measure of total factor productivity in their study so crop type shouldn’t matter.
       • Pascal's bookie 9.1.1.1

         21 May 2009 at 8:46 pm

         It seems pretty plausible to me that slavery might be efficient, but that’s not really the point of the cartoon I think.

         Going out on a limb, I’ll suggest that the cartoon should be read as saying that slavery is fucking immoral; efficiency be damned.

         So the parallel to pig farming is that the stalls and factory farming standards are immoral, so the farmers arguments are irrelevant. I’ll note too that by this reading the farmer isn’t the (only) ‘bad guy’. It’s consumers and regulators that are in Moreu’s sights, at least as much, if not more so.
         • Paul Walker 9.1.1.1.1

           21 May 2009 at 8:58 pm

           Don’t see how you get that as a moral argument. Everything the guys talks about is economic.
         • Bill 9.1.1.1.2

           21 May 2009 at 9:14 pm

           Because the economic rationalisations are to be seen as nothing more than an attempt at intellectual trickery to cover obvious moral bankruptcy?
         • Pascal's bookie 9.1.1.1.3

           21 May 2009 at 9:15 pm

           “Don’t see how you get that as a moral argument”

           the argument goes like this:

           A: Arguments x,y, and z are used to support factory pig farming (cartoon frames 1,2,3)

           B: x,y,z also support slavery. (frame 4)

           C: Slavery is immoral (unstated premiss, but alluded to in the first clause Frame 1)

           Therefore x,y, and z, aren’t always knock down arguments made of win.
         • Anita 9.1.1.1.4

           21 May 2009 at 10:05 pm

           Hm… but just because arguments x, y and z just took a justifiable battering doesn’t mean that everything that one could use them to justify is morally wrong.
         • Pascal's bookie 9.1.1.1.5

           21 May 2009 at 10:30 pm

           “but just because arguments x, y and z just took a justifiable battering doesn?t mean that everything that one could use them to justify is morally wrong.”

           True, but that’s why there’s an ‘aren’t always’ in the conclusion. 🙂

           The point is, I think, that x,y, and z don’t make immoral things ok,
           and the farmer already admits that the farm practices are inhumane in frame one…
         • felix 9.1.1.1.6

           21 May 2009 at 11:38 pm

           Paul, the whole cartoon is a moral argument. I find it absolutely unbelievable that you don’t understand the point being made.
10. spacealienpig 10

    21 May 2009 at 10:01 pm

    Great cartoon, it is so true and tragic how humans put profit before decency to one another and to other species.
11. the best of humanity is compassion 11

    21 May 2009 at 10:06 pm

    Better to remove the laws that make this abuse possible in pig farms. It is illegal to do this to other animals already, so it won’t be hard to do.

    It is not a ‘choice’ to treat animals with abuse, it is not a choice when it effects me and my friends.
    • Anita 11.1

      21 May 2009 at 10:06 pm

      It’s legal to do it to chooks.

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