CULTURE

How to Create a Vegan World Using The 25% Theory

How a small percentage of the population can create massive societal change

Image created by the author using Bing Copilot

As a vegan campaigner and animal rights activist for the best part of four decades, there have been many times when I’ve doubted whether we can really create a vegan society.

I know I’m not the only one to have these doubts. When you look at the vast and overwhelming amount of exploitation and killing of other sentient beings and the relatively tiny number of vegans, it can seem like we’ll never create real change.

Despite the ethical and scientific imperatives of abolishing animal agriculture, for the sake of the billions of animals who suffer and die every year for our ‘food’ choices, and for the sake of our own survival, society seems hellbent on destruction. It seems we’d rather die than give up bacon (and millions of us do, through cancer, heart disease, diabetes, strokes and more).

Yet there is hope.

For a long time, standard economic theory suggested that a population would only change its ways if 51% or more of the individuals within that population changed their ways. However, since 2018 there has been compelling evidence that it only takes 25% of a population to establish a consensus in…