Ways to reduce meat consumption – Is increasing meat prices an attack on the poor?

In recent discussions about the highly negative impact of industrial meat production on the planet’s eco-systems [1, 2], one can often hear the logical demand to reduce meat consumption, and, hence, production. To reduce meat production the following measures are possible:

  • legal: Create laws which make the production of animals for human consumption (above a certain threshold) illegal.
  • fiscal: Create laws which make the consumption of a animals more expensive, e.g. an ecosystem protection tax (“meat tax”).
  • social: Promote the protection of ecosystems, the impact on animal consumption on human and planetary health, e.g. by advertising campaigns, word of mouth, to change social norms and reduce animal production and consumption.
  • ethical: Explain that eating animals, especially grown under ecologically destructive conditions, is morally inferior compared to eating plants.

First, it seems obvious that a legal intervention seems the hardest to achieve, but the most effective. However, in Germany animal protection laws have been in place to protect pigs from being kept in to small stalls since 1992, which just have not been applied and breaches not prosecuted. In addition, a waiver for existing laws for another 8 years was recently issued [3].

Second, the fiscal intervention will reduce animal consumption by increasing prices by a consumer tax (assuming that the meat producers and traders cannot reduce their costs, will not reduce their profits and the budget stays the same for consumers). Here, a often used argument is that increasing meat prices is an attack on the poor [4] is misleading.

In my opinion, the poor are “attacked” by existing and increasing inequality. Even if meat is made cheaper, rich people will be able to buy more meat than the poor, ie inequality will persist. In addition, increasing prices of a variable-sized product (e.g. in contrast to a fixed-sized car), poor people will still be able to consume meat but fewer or smaller portions. Moreover, processed meat has negative health effects, so reducing meat consumption may actually promote the health of the poor [1]. To allow capitalism to minimize production costs of animal meat without any regulation means to allow the stronger  to exploit the weaker in society, e.g. humans exploiting animals,  to the point of cruel treatment. Thereby, it allows also poor people to externalize the costs of producing meat for their consumption to animals, ie by suffering, and future generations, e.g. by eco-system destruction. In my view, nobody should be allowed to do this, neither the poor nor the rich. In my view politicians using this argument (“raising meat prices is an attack on the poor”) to frame this question of meat pricing as a misleading question of social justice between poorer and richer members of society while it is actually a question of ecological justice between humans vs animals and the current vs future generations.

In my view politicians using this argument (“raising meat prices is an attack on the poor”) to frame this question of meat pricing as a misleading question of social justice between poorer and richer members of society while it is actually a question of ecological justice between humans vs animals and the current vs future generations.

One has to acknowledge that the mere increase of meat price is only expected to directly create tax revenues (which are used for an unclear purpose) and indirectly reduce animal production & consumption. However, such “meat taxes” will protect animals and eco-systems by NOT consuming and protecting meat, e.g. animals will not be raised and according eco-systems not destroyed. It will not change how animals and eco-systems are still used to produce meat. To have a regulating effect, differential taxes would have to be raised for industrially-produced vs biologically-produced meat. However, the regulatory effect of price control may still be unclear and weak in comparison to strict regulatory control of animal welfare. Re-purposing the tax revenues from the meat tax to support producers to change their production methods to more ecologically sustainable methods consistent with animal welfare may have an additional effect to change the system of animal food production by not only reducing quantity but also the quality of the produced meat. However, it would in some way reverse the action logic by first increasing prices (by fiscal control) to then change production methods, in comparison to first changing production methods (by regulatory control) and thereby increasing prices. The first method features a greater risk that the subsidies from the government to the meat producers are not used as intended (“loopholes”) and may just indirectly contribute to the profit of meat producers via the tax collected by the government. Therefore, there is no way around strong regulation and supervision of use of granted subsidies.

Third, the social intervention is the easiest to implement, for example, by just stopping eating meat yourself, change to plant-based food and talking and broadcasting about it on social media. Larger organiyations and agency may even engagement in promotional campaigns to advertise against meat consumption and for plant consumption.

Finally,  independent of legal measures, fiscal incentives, and social pressure, humans may just gain insight in the ethical values of their actions of industrial meat production and consumption and, therefore, may slow down or even stop their meat-eating habits. Alas, this strategy may only be applicable to a very small number of consumers.

References:

[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6399/eaam5324.full.pdf
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production
[3] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/steuer-warum-fleisch-nicht-teurer-werden-sollte_id_12182625.html
[4] https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article198104111/Fleischsteuer-Union-SPD-und-Gruene-offen-fuer-Verteuerung-von-Fleisch.html

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