Veganism is incomplete without anti-capitalism, actually.

Full disclosure: I don't have the time or patience to watch a thirty minute video, and perhaps the OOP discusses this point somewhere in the video. I don't know.

But I believe vegan activism doesn't require anti-capitalist activism. Or even opposition to capitalism in general.

I agree that capitalism is inherently anti-vegan. The logic of capitalism sees both animal bodies and human bodies as objects to be owned and used for their masters' profit.

I think it's more ideologically consistent for vegan activists to also oppose capitalist systems as a whole.

But vegan activism doesn't require ideological consistency. We're not trying to change the entire world economic system. We don't need to change the entire world economic system. If abolitionists could oppose slavery without opposing capitalism - and win - vegans can oppose the slavery of animals without opposing capitalism. Vegans can win victories and have protections for animals written into law without opposing capitalism. We can and we have.

And if you can be a vegan activist and still be a capitalist, you can certainly just be an ordinary vegan and still be a capitalist.

Frankly, absolute ideological consistency is for heroes in an Ayn Rand novel. Vegans can work with with anybody who puts the animals first. And anybody who puts the animals first can be a vegan.

Want to sabotage a protest? Encourage advocacy for increasingly tangential issues. Focus splits, folks start disagreeing on new issues, folks start disagreeing on how issues get prioritized, everything falls apart.

Sadly, this doesn't even require a malicious actor encouraging it. Well-meaning folks see a potentially sympathetic audience for their pet issue and boom.

I'll happily debate political beliefs, but not here. In vegan communities, I'm here for the animals and welcome anyone here with similar motivations. Fragmenting the community by requiring increasingly narrow adherence to beliefs X, Y, and Z is not helpful.

I agree that capitalism is inherently anti-vegan. In capitalism, both human bodies and animal bodies are commodities to be used to profit their owners (or employers/shareholders/government/etc).

Factory farming as a whole monstrous edifice is a result of capitalism, the drive for profit and the dehumanization of both animal victims and human workers.

In the same vein, capitalism is inherently pro-slavery and anti-worker.

And yet, there are laws and reforms that, in the United States, have nominally abolished slavery and protected workers' rights.

How effective those laws are is an open question, of course. But the laws exist and they are to some degree enforced.

We also have laws and reforms that protect animals, and they are to some degree enforced. For example, it's illegal to eat dogs and cats in many U.S. states, and it is illegal to kill and eat a bald eagle anywhere in the United States. And if you do eat a dog or a cat or bald eagle, you will face not just legal penalties but social condemnation.

So the concept and the precedent exist that, even under capitalism, if society believes killing and eating a particular animal is wrong, we can pass laws to protect those animals, and those laws can be enforced.

I can envision a society that is both capitalist and vegan.

As such, I don't think it's necessary for vegans to be anti-capitalist.

And like the other commenter pointed out, the more purity tests you apply to a movement, the weaker the movement becomes. Do you think using and consuming animals is wrong? Do you want to protect animals and animal rights? Welcome to the club.