Pets or meat

This chapter examines the geopolitical economic utility of the dog in China during the Chairmanship of Mao Tsetung (1949–1976) and how this pivoted unexpectedly with the neoliberal initiatives that Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping (1978–1992) enacted. In so doing, it troubles the Marxian analytical divide between exchange (pet) and use value (meat). By drawing on the dyadic coevolutionary connection between canine and human, the distinction between exchange and use is seen to be grounded in an uninterrogated relational (reproductive) economy of death, wherein the constitution and meaning of life is rendered arbitrary and fungible.