Product Description

Suggest to the average leftist that animals should be part of broader liberation struggles and—once they stop laughing—you'll find yourself casually dismissed. With a focus on labor, property, and the life of commodities, Making a Killing contains key insights into the broad nature of domination, power, and hierarchy. It explores the intersections between human and animal oppressions in relation to the exploitative dynamics of capitalism. Combining nuts-and-bolts Marxist political economy, a pluralistic anarchist critique, as well as a searing assessment of the animal rights movement, Bob Torres challenges conventional anti-capitalist thinking and convincingly advocates for the abolition of animals in industry—and on the dinner plate.
Making A Killing is sure to spark wide debate in the animal rights and anarchist movements for years to come.

Table Of Contents:
I Taking Equality Seriously
II Chained Commodities
III Property, Violence, and the Roots of Oppression
IV Animal Rights and Wrongs
V You Cannot Buy the Revolution

Advance praise for Making A Killing
"Bob Torres' Making a Killing draws a very straight line between capitalism and the oppressive system of animal agribusiness. Drawing from social anarchist theory, Torres provides a convincing argument that in order to fight animal exploitation, we must also fight capitalism and, in doing so, animal rights activists will need to reconsider their methods and redirect their focus. While his critiques of the animal rights movements' large organizations may not earn him friends in high places, such considerations are crucial to keeping the movement on track and for preventing stagnation.
Making a Killing is an important work from a new voice in animal advocacy that will surely spark heated discussions amongst activists from all corners of the movement."—Ryan MacMichael, vegblog.org

"In Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, Bob Torres takes an important and timely look at the animal rights movement, calling for a synthetic approach to all oppression, human and animal. His analytical framework draws together Marxism, social anarchist theory, and an abolitionist approach to animal rights to provide a timely social analysis that will no doubt have profound effects on the animal rights movement literature."—Gary L. Francione
Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University

"Bob Torres's socioeconomic analysis of nonhuman animal use is a welcome and important addition to the understanding of human-nonhuman relations at the beginning of the 21st century. In particular, Making a Killing, makes vital a contribution to understanding the role of the property status of animals and the continuing strength of various welfarist positions on the ethics—and indeed the economics—of the human utilisation of other animals. Making a Killing will become required reading for social scientists and others interested in modern social movements and the socioeconomic forces that shape their activities and their claims-making."—Dr. Roger Yates, Lecturer in sociology at University College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland

"This is the book I've been waiting for. Making A Killing is a rare and powerful example of first-rate scholarship, a searing critique, and lively declaration of the rights of animals and humans. You will walk away from this book with a clear understanding as to why social justice movements for people must take animal rights seriously, and vice versa. Bob Torres has forever deepened my thinking about these relationships."—David Naguib Pellow, vegetarian, animal rights and anti-racist activist, and Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego; and author of Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago and Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice

Bob Torres is assistant professor of sociology at St. Lawrence University, received his PhD from Cornell, and is co-author of Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World. His writings have appeared in Critical Sociology, The Journal of Latinos and Education, International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, and Satya magazine.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104052 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 185 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781904859673
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Bob Torres is assistant professor of sociology at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY, USA, where he teaches courses on social theory, globalization, political economy, and animal rights. Coauthor of the vegan how-to guide, Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World, Bob also publishes scholarly literature on topics around globalization, food, and the social implications of technology.

Customer Reviews

What I've been waiting for!
Making a Killing is the book I've been waiting for since I went vegan five years ago. First and foremost, Torres demonstrates that animal exploitation is not merely a consumer problem, but is part of an integrated social system based on hierarchy and domination. Through a clear and accessible introduction to Marxist political economy, Torres discusses animals through the logic of commodity forms and puts forth a set of flexible and empowering guidelines to abolish animal exploitation through an anarchist interpretation of Gary Francione's abolitionist framework.

Furthermore, Torres discusses the issues with contemporary anarchism and social justice politics, suggesting that to take equality seriously we must recognize animal subjectivity and fight for their liberation. In his use of Murray Bookchin's libertarian philosophy, aptly named 'social ecology', Torres makes the case for animals based on the anarchist critique of hierarchy and power.

Making A Killing is an excellent, entertaining read with an ambitious call for a serious reworking of our understanding of the animal rights movement based on social justice and democracy. Anyone hoping to understand animal rights, abolitionism, Marxism and anarchism will be delighted by this smart and readable book.

Important theoretical basis
Before I read this book, I couldn't really say why I was a vegan. I mean, I could rattle off various problems I had with the suffering that animals endured, the health and environmental benefits, etc. Torres's book provided the theoretical support for my personal veganism. It was a revelation. I had never really considered veganism as a way to reject the capitalism-induced hierarchy that plagues society today. I never really understood what it meant to be vegan. In fact, I wasn't entirely vegan. I wavered quite a bit, knowing somewhere, deep down, that eating animal products was wrong. Making a Killing synthesized it all for me.

The writing is direct and informative. Torres draws from a wide variety of sources. And while the writing is still a bit unpolished, all writing is a work in progress. That said, Torres ties together well the various social justice movements and provides a critical analysis of the animal rights movement today.

For me, this book changed my perspective on animal rights and what it means to be a vegan.

Impressed, inspired...
As a committed listener to the "VeganFreak Radio Podcast" and vegan myself, ever since Bob Torres, the author of Making a Killing a political economy of animal right , made it obvious to the listeners of his and his wifes' Podcast that he was working on a book I become eager to purchase and read his only solo documentation of animal rights. Being a professor, Torres shows a sense of very well researched and expanded upon ideas within the book all revolving around the main reason for the book, animal rights. He takes everything from the most commercialized concepts to the smaller ideas behind closed doors and expands upon their deeper sociological meanings to help provide insight to the reader on all sides of the mostly horrible animal agriculture in this country, and all over the world for the most part. His highly articulated commitment to the welfare of animals comes across boldly within every section of this book, commenting on many of the well known activists articles of literature and explaining their importance to the reader. Describing the animals, viewed from a pure profit stand-point, as being exploited and simple commodities, not the living beings that they are. These "commodities" being parallel to a companion animal, being a dog or a cat most commonly. Overall this book opens ones eyes about the truths of the horrific animal agriculture, and slaps articulated and rich words on top of the commonly looked past ideas behind all aspects of the world of animal rights. From both a political stand point and sociological stand point this book presses important issues that should be realized by all americans who care about the welfare of living beings on earth, and have an interest in anarchist ideas related to animal rights.