Have we lost our nerve as a movement?
How the struggle for animal freedom risks being co-opted by Big Agribusiness
Every social justice movement has been told to slow down. To be realistic. To settle for what seems possible rather than what’s right.
When we look at how far society still is from animal freedom, it can feel that progress for farmed animals is only possible through smaller steps – a new corporate policy, cage-free eggs, slower-growing chickens, larger sheds, more natural light…
Each step counts. Every improvement eases suffering, and every life made a little less painful matters. But a question has been growing louder in our movement:
Are we losing our boldness by asking for too little?
If our dream is a world where every being can live freely, should welfare be the centre of our movement’s story? Are we spending too much energy making exploitation a little less cruel? And are we unintentionally playing into the hands of an industry that wants us focused on bigger cages rather than freedom itself?
This is not a criticism of those working for welfare reforms. Those campaigns are vital for the animals trapped in the system today, and can lead to bigger reforms. But if welfare becomes our ceiling rather than a stepping stone to freedom, do we risk losing sight of what our movement is here to do – end the system, not reform it?
Perhaps we need to ask an even harder question:
By focusing on welfare as the most ‘realistic’ route to freedom, could we be slowing our progress?
What can we learn from the anti-slavery movement?
If animal freedom sounds too bold for where society is right now, history has something to teach us.
In Britain and America, early anti-slavery campaigners were often white reformers – sincere and devout, yet cautious. They focused on improving the ‘welfare’ of enslaved people, campaigning for shorter ‘working’ hours, better conditions on slave ships, policing the slave trade, and gradual change. They sought to ease suffering within the system rather than dismantle it entirely, and tried to persuade abolitionists – who fought to end slavery outright – to take a more gradual, ‘realistic’ path.
Many abolitionists refused to be swayed. They held firm in their belief that ending slavery was the only possible outcome. They weren’t here to push for better slavery – they were here for freedom.
If the movement to end slavery had made welfare the only focus of its story, abolition might never have been achieved. The moral argument that won was not that slavery should be ‘kinder’, but that no person should ever be owned.
That truth gained force when formerly enslaved Black people were able to start sharing their stories publicly. Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet rejected the idea that slavery could be made ‘ethical’. They demanded freedom, not gradual reform.
Abolition succeeded because it united survivor stories, moral clarity, political pressure and direct action. It shifted what society believed was possible.
The same moral truth applies to our movement. Fellow animals do not want bigger cages or ‘kinder’ killings – they want freedom. If we make welfare the limit of our ambition and the entire focus of our story, do we risk defending the very system they need us to end?
From welfare to freedom
Our movement, like others before it, contains a range of strategies and approaches.
‘Old welfare’ organisations worked to make the farming of animals ‘kinder’, with some promoting their continued exploitation.
‘New welfare’ groups focus on corporate campaigns and incremental reforms as a way to gradually phase out factory farming.
‘Abolitionist’ groups – sanctuaries, grassroots networks and direct action organisations – demand an end to exploitation itself.
Each strategy has a place in the movement ecosystem. Welfare reforms can reduce immediate suffering in the short term, while abolitionists keep the vision of freedom alive and expand what society believes is possible.
But when welfare becomes the main story of our movement, the public can start to see cruelty (not exploitation) as the problem, and kindness (not freedom) as the solution.
Our challenge is not to choose between these approaches, but to ensure they reinforce each other – that reforms bring us closer to ending exploitation rather than normalising it in a different form.
When it comes to other issues of animal exploitation – ‘fur’ farms, hunting foxes, dolphinariums or ‘wild’ animals used in circuses – our movement did not only push for welfare reforms. We demanded an end to these exploitations – and in the UK, we won.
Those bans, of course, did not start out popular. But years of campaigning made the harm impossible to ignore, framed it as a violation of our values, centred freedom in the story and, over time, public support grew. If our movement had chosen to make these forms of exploitation ‘kinder’, they might still be happening today.
When a lot of our movement’s energy goes into improving life trapped inside the system, rather than challenging the system itself, do we risk reinforcing the idea that farming animals is acceptable if it’s done ‘the right way’? Instead of asking whether it’s right to own, confine and kill anyone, do we unintentionally encourage people to see animal exploitation as something to improve, rather than end?
Lately, our movement has seen efforts to redirect the fire and creativity of grassroots energy into corporate cage-free campaigns. After years of hard work and investment, it’s understandable that some feel these approaches need fresh energy. But when bolder tactics are used for smaller goals, are we at risk of shrinking our ambition, narrowing our story, and losing sight of our larger purpose? The power of grassroots action lies not only in winning specific changes, but in expanding the horizon of what people believe is possible.
That’s not to say we abandon system reforms, as these are vital. We can still aim for strategic wins that are milestones on the way to freedom. Whether it’s stopping new factory farms being built, working to end factory farming, or making public meals plant-based as the norm, each step can ease harm now, change the context and make the next big ask even easier.
The industry playbook
History shows that when harmful industries feel threatened, they rarely confront movements head-on. They adapt, rebrand and reframe to protect their interests, while weakening those who challenge them.
When pressure from the environmental movement and the public grew, Big Oil struck back, subtly and strategically. The concept of the ‘carbon footprint’ was promoted by BP’s PR firm Ogilvy & Mather in the early 2000s. The campaign reframed ‘climate change’ (another carefully chosen PR phrase) from a systemic crisis to personal responsibility, strategically shifting blame from corporations to individuals.
The same industry strategy now targets the animal movement. As public concern for animals has grown, Big Agribusiness has adapted by changing its story more than its practices. It calls itself a ‘leader in animal welfare’, sells ‘free-range’ and ‘high-welfare’ products, and brands factory farming as ‘sustainable’. It use its PR machine to mock plant-based foods as ‘unhealthy’ and ‘extreme’, preaches ‘balance’, and centres ‘personal choice’ to deflect industry scrutiny.
It’s the same playbook: shift blame, neutralise critique, co-opt movement language.
PR executive Ronald Duchin outlined this strategy back in 1991 in a speech to the US ‘meat’ industry. As James LaVeck documented in his article Invasion of the Movement Snatchers, Duchin advised corporations to:
Marginalise ‘radicals’ by branding them as ‘extremists’ – so others stop listening to them. Ever wondered where the labels ‘militant vegan’ or ‘animal rights extremist’ came from? Industry PR…
Convert ‘idealists’ into ‘realists’ – convince them that staying true to their values will block progress.
Distract ‘opportunists’ with small wins – so they stop pushing for real change.
Two decades ago, LaVeck warned that the animal movement was being drawn into this trap. He foresaw what would happen if advocates began endorsing ‘kinder’ products instead of questioning animal use itself:
“When we switch from asking people to eliminate or reduce their consumption of animal products, to publicly endorsing ‘humane’ animal products, are we not, in effect, calling off our own boycott?”
By celebrating new ‘higher welfare’ labels or corporate pledges, is our movement unintentionally helping Big Agribusiness appear progressive – even as the number of animals it confines and kills continues to grow? When our advocacy no longer questions the system itself or centres animal freedom, do we risk reinforcing the very story the industry is pushing?
Keeping freedom in sight
It’s easy to see how our movement got here. The scale of suffering feels urgent and overwhelming. Reducing it is vital. But easing suffering is not the same as ending exploitation.
Human slavery abolitionists understood this. They fought for ‘wedge’ reforms that made slavery harder to defend, while never losing sight of freedom as the main goal. They didn’t measure success by whether enslaved people had slightly better lives, but by whether they were closer to being free.
This can be our movement’s lesson also. We can fight to improve other animals’ lives today while still staying focused on their future freedom.
Welfare and abolition are not enemies – they can be steps on the same road. But to reach our intended destination, freedom should always be at the centre of our movement’s story.
If we frame the problem only as an issue of welfare, we invite ‘kinder’ exploitation as the solution. If we frame it as a denial of freedom, we can open the door to greater change.
Shifting the window of possibility
You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘meet people where they’re at’. It has wisdom – but also limitations. As communication strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio says:
“[We are not here] to take the temperature … we are here to change the temperature… And that is something that the right wing understood decades and decades and decades ago, they consistently introduce ideas and policies that are wildly unpopular, and they make them popular, or at least popular enough that they force them into law.”
The political right has been strategic in making unpopular ideas seem like common sense by using the same method over and over: repeat a clear story, line up media and think tanks to echo it, pilot it, then lock it into law and expand.
Privatisation was sold by the political right as ‘choice’ and ‘efficiency’, even though it moved public services into corporate hands and weakened worker unions. ‘Right to Buy’ looked like a win for council tenants, when it was really a move to cut social housing. Inheritance tax was reframed as ‘death tax’, making taxes on wealthy estates harder to defend.
Fortunately, the same playbook can be used for freedom too, as history has shown us. Abolitionists were dismissed as radicals for demanding an end to slavery. Suffragettes were ridiculed for believing women should have the right to vote and a voice in public life. LGBTQ+ advocates were told to wait for equality until society was ‘ready’. Yet each movement refused to retreat or soften their demands. They repeated a clear story with moral conviction, they organised around it, reshaped what the world believed was possible, and then changed the law.
Welfare reforms are crucial for reducing suffering in the short-term, but they do not shift the Overton window – the boundary of what society considers acceptable. That boundary only moves when people push beyond what is comfortable.
Movements that win do not mirror public opinion. They expand moral imagination. They show people what freedom looks like – before most believe it’s even possible.
Hope is courage
It’s easy to feel that freedom lies far in the future and that the best hope for our lifetime is to try to reduce harm. But hope is more than a feeling – it’s a choice. It’s the decision to act as though change is possible, and within reach.
Whether our work focuses on incremental reform or systemic transformation, what can unite us is the belief that a different world can be built.
Because if we don’t believe we can win animal freedom, we will never build the movement that can achieve it.
Movements are ecosystems. They need many roles working in tandem: reformers, radicals, pragmatists and dreamers.
But balance is everything. If most voices say “slow down”, the movement stalls. If we lose our vision of freedom, we lose our soul.
At Project Phoenix, our place in the ecosystem is clear. We’re here to say “let’s be bold”, and to build grassroots power for animal freedom – not as a distant dream, but as an achievable reality.
Reducing suffering for those trapped in the system is vital. But our movement’s story does not end there. At its heart is freedom – a world where no one can be owned, confined or killed. A world where freedom belongs to everyone, no matter who we are or what we look like. That is the world our movement is pushing for, and the future we are all here to build.
If you’d like to join the Animal Freedom Network, or volunteer to help strengthen and grow it, we’d love to hear from you.
Since James LaVeck's article, "Invasion of the Movement Snatchers", first appeared in the now-defunct Satya magazine in 2006, we've watched many large NGOs commodify themselves as a brand for consumers. They're now in the business of keeping themselves in business.
Any "acceptable" reduction of suffering from a human perspective likely falls far short of what animals want. And if such a reduction is unacceptable when applied to dogs/cats or ourselves, common sense says it is in reality also unacceptable for all sentient individuals.
To live vegan is an ethical, altruistic action taken for the sake of true compassion, freedom, and justice. This has been severely diminished by meat industry rhetoric so that veganism will be perceived as only an "optional personal lifestyle choice".
The significant difference between the abolition of human slavery in the U.S. and the abolition of nonhuman animal slavery is that human survivors can tell their own stories. Therefore, when we appoint ourselves to speak on behalf of animals, let's not betray them by working for anything less than total liberation. They are either free from exploitation or they're not.
James LaVeck's profound essays at Tribe of Heart are worth studying. He had opportunity to sell out, grow financially, and become corporatized--but refused to do it. The movement will always need truly independent activists who remain an uncompromising voice for animals. While others enjoy celebrity and hefty paychecks, he chooses the much harder, quieter path. His defiant resistance, and that of others such as his partner documentary filmmaker Jenny Stein, helps keep the heart of the movement alive in its bleakest hours. We all have it in us to similarly do the right thing, if we put animals first and not human ego or desires.
Today it's rare grassroots groups that do remarkable work on a shoestring budget. They often have no merchandise shop, no celebrity friends, and no marketing but word of mouth, but they're making the last stand to protect animals and Earth. It's not a scarcity of financial resources that hinders activists but a lack of imagination and moral grit.
As long as a handful of those who work for animal freedom continue to defend "No Animal Use" with simple clarity, the quest for total liberation can be passed undiluted to the next generation of activists until it is achieved. This is what we owe animals and our own humanity.
Excellent commentary, thank you! Sharing.