CHOCOLATE: THE ETHICAL VEGAN POSITION by Dr. Roger Yates

Sociologist and vegan historian Dr Roger Yates takes a look at the issue of child slavery and vegan chocolate from an ethical vegan perspective, referencing original vegan social movement pioneers Leslie Cross & Donald Watson.

The numbers of children currently subject to child slavery are disputed but hugely concerning. For example, I have seen estimates ranging from 10 to 40 million individuals involved. If a second category - child labour - is considered, then the numbers may be as high as 200 million children. Sometimes children are subject to slavery and onerous labour situations simply because their parents are in the same situation.

So, in what senses are child labour and child slavery vegan issues? Perhaps the most prominent modern-day issue involving vegan-friendly foodstuffs is chocolate manufacture and fruit and “produce” picking. For example, US law allows children as young as 12 to work the fields, while child labour campaigners say they commonly find children younger than 12 years of age doing field labour, working long hours, subject to heat exposure, and exposed the agricultural chemicals. The manufacture of clothing is another major concern.

In another sense, the vegan movement has always addressed human slavery issues: slavery - and also matters such as human famine - were serious concerns of the early pioneers of the vegan social movement.

In another sense, the vegan movement has always addressed human slavery issues: slavery - and also matters such as human famine - were serious concerns of the early pioneers of the vegan social movement. One of the most prominent of the pioneers of our movement, Leslie Cross, repeatedly wrote about veganism being about the moral evolution of humanity and suggested that, “at rock bottom, veganism is the most recent of the periodic surges which have marked the tide of freedom ever since history began.” Therefore, veganism is central to the “upward growth” of humanity, he stated.

In 1954, Cross wrote a passionate essay entitled The Surge of Freedom in the Vegan Society’s official journal. In the very first sentence, he outlined the role of vegan philosophy in the freedom of “mankind.” He says that veganism is a symbol, and that symbol stands for “massive” changes. For Cross, vegan represents, “a new mutation comparable to the freeing of the serfs and the freeing of the slaves.” Veganism will result in a new world - and consequently a new type of human being to inhabit it. Cross argues that veganism’s “deepest point” is its impregnable belief in freedom. Veganism should not be reduced in vision: “veganism is not a mere side-shoot in human evolution,” he says. The significance of veganism, in Leslie Cross’ eyes, is its scope which, in the long fight for liberty, is its “quite new and distinctive feature.”

Cross is saying that veganism’s unique contribution to freedom across the board is that it extends its concerns across species. The problem in the vision of other reforms concerned with “the tide of freedom” as been their limited vision of its boundary of concern - “the concept of the ‘free man.’” He suggests that few before the advent of the vegan social movement recognised other animals’ right to be free - that even that they “qualified” for such a moral right. Cross argued that recognising animal rights in this sense would have an “impressive effect” on humanity for, he said, “to believe in the right to be free means inevitably that we grant the same right to others.”

As ever, we should conclude that the scope of veganism extends far beyond its dietary aspects and its focus on human-nonhuman relations, and recognise that the vegan social movement is a movement of liberation and freedom for all sentient beings, which is precisely what Donald Watson claimed in 1945, one year after the movement was founded.