Commodity status of animals
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The commodity status of animals refers to the legal status as property of most non-human animals, particularly farmed animals, working animals and animals in sport, and their use as objects of trade.[1][2][3][n 1] Free-roaming animals (ferae naturae) are (broadly) held in trust by the state; only if captured can be claimed as personal property.[6]
Animals regarded as commodities may be bought, sold, given away, bequeathed, killed, and used as commodity producers: producers of meat, eggs, milk, fur, wool, skin and offspring, among other things.[7][8] The exchange value of the animal does not depend on quality of life.[9]
In commodity markets, animals and animal products are classified as soft commodities, along with goods such as coffee and sugar, because they are grown, as opposed to hard commodities, such as gold and copper, which are mined.[10][n 2]
History and law
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Animals, when owned, are classified as personal property (movable property not attached to real property/real estate.[n 3] The word cattle derives from the Old French word chatel, or personal property.[13]
The English jurist William Blackstone (1723–1780) wrote of domesticated animals, in Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769):
In such as are of a nature tame and domestic (as horses, kine [cows], sheep, poultry, and the like), a man may have as absolute a property as in any inanimate beings ... because these continue perpetually in his occupation, and will not stray from his house or person, unless by accident or fraudulent entitlement, in either of which cases the owner does not lose his property ..."[14]
That wild animals belong in common to everyone, or to the state, and can become personal property only if captured, is known as the "animals ferae naturae" doctrine.[6] Blackstone wrote of wild animals that they are either "not the objects of property at all, or else fall under our other division, namely, that of qualified, limited, or special property, which is such as is not in its nature permanent, but may sometimes subsist, and at other times not subsist."[15]
Sentience
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Writing about wild animals being imported into France in the 18th century, historian Louise Robbins writes that a "cultural biography of things" would show animals "sliding in and out of commodity status and taking on different values for different people" as they make their way from their homes to the streets of Paris.[16] Sociologist Rhoda Wilkie has used the term "sentient commodity" to describe this view of how the conception of animals as commodities can shift depending on whether a human being forms a relationship with them.[17] Geographers Rosemary-Claire Collard and Jessica Dempsey use the term "lively commodities."[2]
Political scientist Sami Torssonen argues that animal welfare has itself been commodified since the 1990s because of public concern for animals. "Scientifically-certified welfare products," which Torssonen calls "sellfare," are "producible and salable at various points in the commodity chain," subject to competition like any other commodity.[18]
See also
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Notes
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References
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Further reading
- External links
- "United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database", UN ComTrade (live animals; meat and edible offal; fish; dairy products; products of animal origin)
- Books, papers
- Pedersen, Helena; Staescu, Vasile. "Conclusion: Future Directions for Critical Animal Studies," in Nik Taylor, Richard Twine (eds.), The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre, London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 262–276.
- Francione, Gary. Animals, Property and the Law, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995.
- Richards, John F. The World Hunt: An Environmental History of the Commodification of Animals, University of California Press, 2014.
- Steiner, Gary. Animals and the Limits of Postmodernism, New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
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- ↑ Rhoda Wilkie, "Animals as Sentient Commodities", in Linda Kalof (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Oxford University Press (forthcoming; Wilkie's article, August 2015). doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199927142.013.16
Rhoda Wilkie, "Sentient Commodities: The Ambiguous Status of Livestock," Livestock/Deadstock: Working with Farm Animals from Birth to Slaughter, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2010, pp. 115–128; 176–177.
Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker, "The Problem with Commodifying Animals," in Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker (ed.), Strangers to Nature: Animal Lives and Human Ethics, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012, pp. 157–175.
That companion animals are commodities, Lori Gruen, Ethics and Animals, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 156.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rosemary-Claire Collard, Jessica Dempsey, "Life for Sale? The Politics of Lively Commodities", Environment and Planning, 45(11), November 2013. doi:10.1068/a45692
- ↑ "United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database", UN ComTrade.
"Health standards: commodity-based approach", OiE, World Organization for Animal Health.
- ↑ David N. Cassuto, "Owning What You Eat: The Discourse of Food," in J. Ronald Engel, Laura Westra, Klaus Bosselman (eds.), Democracy, Ecological Integrity and International Law, Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, p. 314; also see pp. 306–320.
- ↑ Samantha Hillyard, The Sociology of Rural Life, Berg, 2007, p. 70.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Joan E. Shaffner, An Introduction to Animals and the Law, Palgrace Macmillan, 2001, pp. 19–20.
- ↑ Rosemary-Claire Collard, Kathryn Gillespie, "Introduction," in Kathryn Gillespie, Rosemary-Claire Collard (eds.), Critical Animal Geographies, London: Routledge, 2015, p. 2.
- ↑ Francione 2004, p. 116.
- ↑ Cassuto 2009, p. 314.
- ↑ Patrick Maul, Investing in Commodities, Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag GmbH, 2011, p. 8, table c.
- ↑ Commodities Exchange Act, U.S. Code § 1a - Definitions, Cornell University Law School.
- ↑ Shaffner 2001, p. 20.
- ↑ Wilkie 2010, pp. 115–116; "Chattel", Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School.
- ↑ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume 1, Callaghan, 1884 [1765–1769], p. 389, cited in Wilkie 2010, p. 116.
- ↑ Blackstone 1884, p. 390.
- ↑ Louise E. Robbins, Elephant slaves and pampered parrots: Exotic animals and their meanings in eighteenth-century France, University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1998, p. 10.
- ↑ Wilkie 2010, p. 115ff.
- ↑ Sami Torssonen, "Sellfare: A History of Livestock Welfare Commodification as Governance", 71(1), Fall 2015.
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