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by moltenguardian 1781 days ago
> I'm totally fine with paying more for bacon if it means that pigs will be treated more humanely.

The problem is that these price increases are regressive, and disproportionately affect the poor.

3 comments

Yes. But it also affects all pigs at 96% of pig farms.

Humans' rights to luxury meats should not exceed animals' rights to a humane existence.

Pork isn’t luxury, it’s really cheap. It’s almost in chicken territory with how cheap it is (where I live).
Isn’t the reason it is cheap is because they have really horrible living conditions? Organic meat where the animals are treated properly is expensive.
I was thinking more of bacon when I wrote that, but yes, pork is more staple. It doesn't change my opinion about the balance of rights though.

As a sibling comment says, disadvantaged families could receive additional benefits to offset meat price rises.

You could subsidise welfare improvements but pushing costs up has the benefit of allowing more environmentally beneficial alternatives to break through on value for all consumers.

The answer to that is not to abandon higher standards that result in higher prices: it is to help the poor directly, in a variety of other ways.
the answer you are suggesting has higher deadweight losses to the economy and will make the poor (and everybody else) worse off, full stop. In exchange for which you claim a hypothesized benefit to pigs which I don't believe and also don't believe you have a basis for believing, and which sits on a very shaky foundation, see Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene"
yes, but when you do one without the other, you're making poor people's life harder. People care about animals more I guess.
Please go to therapy and learn about healthy boundaries. You have a savior complex that hurts the people you supposedly want to help.
OP is not poor and thus is totally fine with paying more