Disconnection & Demonisation: COVID-19 shows why we need to stop commodifying all animals

For many thousands of people worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic is providing painful proof of the inadequacies and failings of a profit-based capitalist world economy. Blame for the emergence of the virus is being directed at the wildlife trade and wet markets located especially in China and Southeast Asia. This reflects a disconnect from the broader relations and practices that contribute to increased human-wildlife interactions and increased risks of viral transmission, and contributes to the demonization of practices deemed ‘other’. To avoid future, perhaps worse, risks to global health, the common foundations and interdependencies between animal uses need to be recognised. This in turn requires challenging the systemic exploitation of all animals commodified under the animal industrial complex - as food, entertainment, fashion, research, and companionship. This paper focuses on these two points: 1. The commodification of animals under current capitalism, and 2. The connections between animal uses. It aims to underscore the importance of an integrated understanding of all our practices as being both with and in nature, not apart from it, and encourage a holistic, as opposed to fragmented, approach to ending the exploitation of all animals. Safe, sustainable, and equitable societies will only be achieved through an integrated worldview that organizes nature based on the inherent value of life and not its expendability.