DSA Says Smash Capitalism to Free the Animals: Their Socialist Comrades in Venezuela Ate Dogs, Cats, and Pigeons
the article discusses the recent stance of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) on animal welfare, framing it thru a Marxist outlook that associates capitalism with the exploitation of both workers and animals, advocating for its dismantling to achieve animal liberation. the author criticizes this viewpoint, emphasizing that efforts to improve animal welfare should focus on practical measures like enforcing animal cruelty laws, responsible shelters, veterinary care, and responsible breeding-rather than ideological revolutionary approaches.
The article highlights historical and contemporary examples, such as Venezuela’s failed socialist experiment, where resource-rich nations faced shortages, violence, and suffering, including reports of citizens hunting pigeons, dogs, and cats for food. It underscores that capitalism, despite its imperfections, has led to significant agricultural abundance, private philanthropy, veterinary advancements, and a culture where families treat pets as animals and as family members.
The author argues that protecting animals effectively involves pragmatic policies rather than ideological upheavals and warns against the false promise that abolishing capitalism will create a utopian, classless society free of poverty and war, citing historical examples of authoritarian regimes that resulted from such experiments.The piece advocates for compassionate, law-based approaches to animal welfare and cautions readers to scrutinize claims that socialism will lead to better outcomes, pointing again to Venezuela’s hardships as a cautionary tale.
The Democratic Socialists of America have apparently discovered animal welfare. That is encouraging. Perhaps next they can discover economic history.
A recent article published by DSA’s Democratic Left discusses “animal liberation” through the familiar Marxist prism: capitalism exploits workers, capitalism exploits animals, capitalism must therefore be dismantled before animals can truly be free.
Naturally.
Because apparently the Dachshund curled up on your couch has been waiting patiently for the proletariat to seize the means of production.
The timing is especially remarkable because DSA’s new national program declares:
“As capitalism fails to solve problems of its own making, it turns to right-wing authoritarianism.”
And then comes this extraordinary promise:
“If we lived in a classless society and governed ourselves, we could freely build a world without war or poverty.”
Godspeed, comrades. There is only one problem: Human beings have conducted these experiments around the world during the 20th century, always ending with the same results: gulags, prisoner camps, and countless millions shot or starved to death.
We don’t have to go that far back for a glimpse into the atrocities committed in the name of free groceries and healthcare.
Consider Venezuela in 2016: the Venezuelan government promised his country a socialist revolution in one of the most resource-rich nations on Earth. Government controls expanded. Private businesses were expropriated. Markets were distorted. Production collapsed.
By 2016, the consequences were no longer theoretical.
And it got worse: Venezuelans had begun hunting pigeons, dogs, and cats for food.
Read that sentence again: Pigeons. Dogs. Cats.
This was happening in a country sitting atop some of the largest petroleum reserves on the planet. So forgive Americans for declining another lecture about how abolishing capitalism will finally usher humanity into paradise.
Socialism’s sales pitch is always magnificent: Everything will be free. Nobody will be poor. Everybody will be equal. Nobody will worry about groceries.
Then somebody inevitably starts wondering where all the groceries went.
America is imperfect. Capitalism is imperfect. Every economic system created by human beings will be imperfect because human beings are imperfect.
But here is what America has produced:
Extraordinary agricultural abundance, unprecedented charitable giving, enormous private investment in veterinary medicine, animal shelters supported by prosperous communities, pet food aisles larger than grocery stores in many countries, and millions of families financially capable of treating dogs and cats not merely as animals, but as family.
You cannot protect animals by impoverishing people. You cannot feed dogs with ideology.
And you cannot claim capitalism inevitably produces authoritarianism while ignoring governments that centralized economic power in the name of socialism and produced shortages, repression, and desperation instead.
Americans who genuinely care about animals should focus on the work that actually protects them: tougher enforcement against animal cruelty, fighting rings and neglect; responsible shelters and rescues; better veterinary access; responsible breeding; and ensuring law enforcement has the tools to punish people who abuse animals.
Florida has already moved in that direction. Florida State Rep. Meg Weinberger, a Republican, sponsored Dexter’s Law, landmark legislation strengthening Florida’s response to aggravated animal cruelty and creating greater public accountability for convicted animal abusers.
That is animal welfare policy in the real world — no re-education camps required, no Lenin, and no need to nationalize the dog park. Just compassion, common sense, prosperity, and the rule of law.
America has plenty of room to improve. But when someone promises that abolishing capitalism will create a classless world without poverty, remember Venezuela in 2016.
And keep an eye on the pigeons.
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