Vegan Consumerism within Ethical Capitalism Jordi Casamitjana, the author of the book “Ethical Vegan”, explores whether there is such a thing as ethical capitalism, and whether it can be achieved within the vegan paradigm. I must be honest. Christmas is not my favourite time of the year. There are many reasons for that — which I may not be bothering you with — and rampant, uncontrolled consumerism is one of them. I know how much waste there is in the commercial sector, about all the unnecessary packaging, about the CO2 that gifts emit travelling to their destinations, about all those animals that suffer to satisfy self-blinded customers, and all those unwanted items people feel compelled to buy. This habitual wasteful consumer extravagance is multiplied by a thousand or more during the winter holidays. Most years I try to go to a quiet place to remove myself from that madness, but, more often than not, I fail. Even when many years ago I spent the 25th of December in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon, my plan to cheat Christmas fever crumbled when I saw someone sweating in a
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Father Christmas costume waving at me a few hundred metres ahead. There is no escape, I thought. With age, I have learnt to take an equanimous attitude to fir trees in living rooms and sparkling balls in shops’ windows. Like it or not, I live in a capitalist country that had collectively decided a long time ago that, regardless of religion or background, we all need to celebrate jointly the natural austerity of the winter solstice by spending up, showing off, and socialising more than usual. In a way, it is the time we ritually synchronise our civilised status by saying the same things, wearing the same clothes, eating the same food, singing the same songs, and watching the same programmes —all at the same time. It’s all part of living in a western capitalist country. I tolerate it all now. I know everything is transient, and Christmas will eventually pass.
However, my grinchy attitude is caused by something more transcendent than just glitter and bells. My current Instagram account profile says the following: “Vegan, atheist, animal rights advocate, environmentalist, rational, and author of the book Ethical Vegan. Any views are my own.”. At the request of my publisher, I changed it to add my book to it. But there was not enough room, so I had to take out some of the adjectives that I had initially written to define my identity. One of those I removed was “lefty”. Not that I have switched political sides, but I thought that, these days, saying you are leftwing is not sufficient. You need to be more specific, and I had not enough room for that. I am still a lefty, and as such, I am all for a progressive, tolerant, inclusive, and democratic society that embraces diversity and looks after the needy. But that’s only the social side of it. The Economic
