The modern , a massive network that includes grain producers, ranching operations, and , and chain restaurants, and the state, has deep roots in worl… - David Nibert

Today, based on the growing body of work by ethologists and biologists about the profound mindedness and emotional life of other animals, we can assume that, for the most part, the other animals' experience of capture, enslavement, use, and slaying was one of suffering and violence. While much of their treatment unquestionably was in the form of direct physical violence, the animals' systematic enslavement and oppression also resulted in their inability to meet their basic needs, the loss of self-determination, and the loss of opportunity to live in a natural way—an indirect form of violence known as "structural violence." Archeological findings of the remains of early enslaved other animals provide evidence of their suffering. Generally, examination of the remains of animals held captive thousands of years ago reveals bone pathologies resulting from physical trauma, poor diet, chronic arthritis, gum disease and high levels of stress.

Thus, the entangled and violent oppression of humans and other animals, which began when animals first were captured and enslaved, has expanded under contemporary capitalism into the monstrous animal industrial complex. This complex—a predictable, insidious outgrowth of the capitalist system with its penchant for continuous expansion—is so profoundly destructive as to be the contemporary equivalent of Attila the Hun. Like , the animal industrial complex is in constant pursuit of water and land to raise animals whose bodies are its source of material wealth.

The capitalist system was and is not a benevolent social force created to best serve the needs of humans through the "marketplace," contrary to the propagandizing that has inundated at least the citizens in the West for a century and a half and that continues in educational systems and mass media today. Indeed, it would be impossible for an egalitarian, beneficial political-economic system to emerge from thousands of years of hypermasculine, violent, oppressive, and war-torn reality. In truth, capitalism, which morphed from the highly oppressive systems of "economic development" of the Eurasian past, simply represents a more sophisticated form of social relations in which the accumulation of wealth continues to result from exploitation, predation and violence.