The Enduring Legacy of Welfarism: Lessons from History
How welfarism fails by masking systemic oppression with superficial reforms, delaying true progress and sustaining injustice.
Welfarism has consistently failed to address systemic injustices, by perpetuating the false belief that the exploitation of an individual is acceptable under certain circumstances.
In the case of human slavery, welfare reforms aimed at improving conditions merely masked the inherent cruelty of the institution, while prolonging its existence and delaying abolition. Similarly, animal welfare reforms focus on reducing harm — a symptom of injustice — without addressing the root cause of injustice (objectification) which results in exploitation and harm.
In both cases, welfarism reinforces the status quo, leaving oppressive systems intact and proving insufficient as a way of achieving justice.
Avoiding Discomfort to Preserve the Status Quo
Challenging entrenched norms has always provoked resistance, as it disrupts established systems, existing power structures, and challenges the comfort and convenience of the status quo.
This resistance is often rooted in a psychological desire to avoid discomfort or change, which also serves as a significant driver of welfarism in justice movements. Welfarism is essentially a fear-driven response to such resistance — an attempt to appease critics and protect societal or institutional reputation while sidestepping conflict, tension, dissonance, all of which true systemic change demands.
Ultimately, welfarism prioritizes human comfort (e.g., maintaining appearances and placation) over pursuing justice. By focusing on incremental reforms, it minimizes the discomfort of challenging entrenched norms and privileges, creating an illusion of progress while leaving the underlying systems of oppression unchallenged.
Welfare Reforms in Human Slavery
Welfare reforms in slavery occurred sporadically between the 17th and 19th centuries, often as a reaction to growing public criticism and the pressure of abolitionist movements. These reforms, rather than addressing the core injustice of slavery, focused on mitigating its worst abuses, by focusing on making slavery appear more “humane,” while leaving the institution of slavery intact and failing to address the injustice of treating human being as property.
Examples of welfare reform in human slavery include:
Improving Living Conditions: Laws or practices that mandated better food, housing, or working conditions for enslaved people without questioning their enslavement.
Regulating Punishment: Efforts to limit the use of extreme physical punishments or implement rules about "fair" treatment of enslaved individuals.
Christianization and Moral Duty: Slaveholders were often encouraged to view themselves as paternalistic caregivers, responsible for the "moral and spiritual well-being" of enslaved people, framing slavery as a "civilizing" or "benevolent" institution.
Economic Justifications: Some reforms, like limiting working hours, were pitched as benefiting both enslaved individuals and slaveholders by increasing productivity, further entrenching the economic rationale for slavery.
Proponents of Welfare Reforms in Human Slavery
Activists for Incremental Change: Some advocates endorsed reforms as a “strategic step toward abolition,” arguing that improving conditions for slaves could garner broader public support for abolition by reducing resistance, making the cause more palatable. Sound familiar imperfect vegans?
Slaveholders: Certain slaveholders embraced reforms to present slavery as a “benevolent” institution, arguing that better treatment of slaves would lead to “greater loyalty and productivity,” and “civilize” their role to justify continued exploitation.
Religious Leaders: Many religious figures advocated for welfare reforms, suggesting that improving conditions was a moral obligation that would align slavery with Christian values of compassion and duty.
Critics of Welfare Reforms in Human Slavery
Abolitionists: Advocates for freedom (e.g., Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison) firmly rejected welfare reforms, arguing that they legitimized slavery by implying it could be made “acceptable,” by attempting to make it appear “humane,” distracting from the goal of complete abolition.
Enslaved People (shocker): While many may have welcomed improvements to their daily lives, enslaved people recognized that welfare reforms did not address the core issue: their lack of freedom. As Frederick Douglass said, “No man can be truly happy when deprived of his liberty.”
Pro-Slavery Advocates: Many staunch defenders of slavery also opposed welfare reforms, fearing they would potentially lead to abolition; but they were in luck, as welfare failed to disrupt and ultimately reinforced the institution of slavery.
Impact of Welfare Reforms in Human Slavery
By portraying slavery as "reformable," welfare measures reinforced the arguments of those seeking to justify and sustain the institution. By focusing solely on mitigating the most extreme abuses, these reforms placated critics and normalized the social and economic acceptability of slavery.
Furthermore, many of these measures were poorly enforced or entirely ignored, resulting in little to no meaningful improvement for enslaved individuals. They were also frequently resisted or undermined by those who directly benefited from slavery.
Although framed by some as a pathway to progress, critics rightly argued that these reforms did not address the injustice of treating human beings as property. Instead, welfare reforms perpetuated the misconception that incremental improvements could substitute for abolition. True systemic change was achieved only through the complete abolition of slavery, not through improvements to its conditions.
Despite its failure, the legacy of this approach — viewing oppressed groups through a lens of “better conditions” rather than equality and justice — continues to shape discussions of oppression today.
How Welfarism Persists, Despite History
As mentioned, welfare reforms during human slavery created the illusion of progress while leaving objectification unchallenged. Similarly, modern welfare reforms — like improving prison conditions or raising wages in exploitative industries — may alleviate immediate harms but also fail to address the root cause of systemic issues (e.g., mass incarceration or worker exploitation). Animal welfare reforms follow the same flawed logic, focusing on minimizing harm while leaving the underlying objectification (the social norm) and subsequent exploitation of animals intact. In all these cases, welfarism perpetuates injustice by presenting superficial improvements as meaningful progress.
By focusing on harm reduction rather than abolition, these approaches implicitly accept exploitation as inevitable or acceptable, as long as it is regulated. For example, saying, “Let’s reduce harm to animals in factory farms” is akin to suggesting, “Let’s reduce harm to enslaved people by improving living conditions.” Similarly, “vegan apologists” reinforce resistance to systemic change by promoting incremental adoption as indicators of progress, diverting attention from the need for abolition.
Harm reduction reflects the perspective of those complicit in exploitation (e.g., consumers, industries) rather than centering the experiences of those being exploited. By framing harm reduction as progress, it upholds the idea that animal exploitation is negotiable as long as it serves human interests.
Attempting to make justice more palatable ignores the urgent imperative to end injustice entirely, treating exploitation as a privilege to be “managed” rather than a violation of autonomy.
Achieving Justice
In summary, oppressors have historically justified exploitation by appealing to convenience, economic gain, and cultural tradition, while reducing the oppressed to objects or resources.
Welfarism, both past and present, acts as a compromise to placate critics and avoid resistance. Instead of addressing the root injustice, it delays progress and reinforces oppressive systems, perpetuating the very inequities it attempts to mitigate.
History has how demonstrated how welfarism and incremental reform — is not an effective approach for achieving justice.
Animals, like all individuals, deserve justice and freedom, irrespective of human comfort or convenience. True progress demands the dismantling of the socialized objectification that enables their exploitation. Achieving justice requires a commitment to their liberation, rather than superficial marginal “improvements” that serve to make oppression seem tolerable.
Justice requires shifting from welfare to freedom.