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This is fundamentally a question about illegalism. And there are two questions nestled in here: why do you personally choose to work wage labor instead of crime, and why should people submit to wage labor instead of committing crimes?
When the term “wage slavery” entered the vernacular, it was contemporary with American chattel slavery. It wasn't socialists, or Marxists, etc. that used it. It was slavery abolitionists. Two prominent examples are Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe. While Africans and African descendants were being whipped and killed, some of those who escaped would turn around and compare their previous condition as chattel slaves to their new condition as wage slaves. Thus, it's not a new term, it isn't something invented by academics, socialists, anarchists, or modern anti-capitalists. It was originally a statement that wage relationships are literal slavery. I want everyone to keep this fact in mind, to help frame where I am going with this.

Further, when I say “choose” in the title I don't mean it in the pseudo-choice “voluntaryist” sense, as if either crime or wage slavery are free, peaceful, or voluntary arrangements. But I do mean it in an absurdist or existentialist sense, in that you can in fact wake up one day and decide to go to work at Subway or choose to rob Subway. Alternately, you can choose to lay in bed for days at a time, or hang yourself by a rope in your closet. This does not deny the material conditions that influence one decision over the next (e.g. the consequences of working at Subway versus the consequences of robbing Subway), but rather affirms what Jean-Paul Sartre called “radical freedom.” You don't have to submit, although there may be consequences for not submitting.

I actually don't expect the few illegalists here to answer, and I might even discourage it. I don't want anyone to implicate themselves in a crime. I want you to keep going strong. I'm interested in hearing why people have chosen to submit to wage slavery versus crime. To go back to the first framing point: there were slaves who submitted to slavery, and there were slaves who started insurrections, fought masters, got beaten, got killed, or ran away and escaped. Why are you in the first category (the wage slave who submits) and not the second category (the slave refuses to submit)? If we truly believe that wage slavery is slavery, why are so few anarchists willing to reject wage slavery in full, throw it off, and lay down their own lives (or at least take the high risks of crime) instead of enduring slavery?

In an earlier comment on a different topic I said that I didn't trust anarchists who had not been arrested. This was unpopular. Probably because most anarchists (especially the American Reddit demographic) are not criminals, are not illegalists, and have not been arrested. However, I don't mean this to be a personal attack. The purpose of direct action/illegalist/insurrectionist groups is criminal. You have to be able to trust those people. And a good way of knowing if someone can be trusted, of knowing if someone can handle the inevitable interrogation and criminal justice ringer, is if they've caved under pressure or resisted in the past. If someone has been arrested and they didn't snitch, that's a good sign you can trust them. Further, if someone has been arrested and they did snitch, you've weeded them out. This does not even need to be a political/social/anarchist crime. It reflects upon how well someone is able to cope with arrest and provides an indication of their trustworthiness and dependability.

This is not “who is a better anarchist.” It's a practical tactic for forming illegalist, insurrectionist, and direct action groups with people you can trust.
(I wont go into people who are arrested and become informants, unfortunately you just may not know. And so there are some limitations here. But, in most cases, if someone is arrested and snitches you will find out during the legal discovery process or the street grapevine.)
There was one response that said I “glorify crime,” “romanticize crime,” or something to that effect. Friends, if you've read any illegalist literature, it all glorifies and romanticizes crime. The act of crime in and of itself, be it illegalist (e.g. for your own financial gain to avoid wage slavery) or insurrectionist (illegal, but for political/anti-political and without lucrative purpose), is supposed to be liberating. In fact, every time someone posts a picture of a riot, a burnt police car, calls an arrested anarchist a hero, etc. they're glorifying crime. Look at Bonanno's "Armed Joy" - does this not glorify crime?

Now, there is no glory and nothing romantic about prison. Prison sucks. There is nothing glorious about a lynched slave. But this does not mean that crime itself is neither glorious nor romantic, nor liberating, nor joyful, nor beautiful. We don't blame the anarchist criminal here for being a victim. We blame the prisons. We blame the lynchers. The anarchist criminal is not at fault. The state, the prisons, and the police are. As a minor footnote, in anarchist revolutions past and present (Spain and Rojava), “martyrs” were/are glorified and elevated. In Spain, militias were named after anarchists killed in heroic attacks on fascists. In Rojava, there are murals painted and walls plastered with the pictures of revolutionaries who died fighting Daesh.

There's nothing great about getting killed, either. But this does not mean that getting killed – or going to prison, or getting arrested – is not the inevitable consequence a heroic revolutionary act. In fact, it's something you have to accept as a revolutionary, an illegalist. It's something everyone who fought in Spain, or who are currently fighting in Rojava, have accepted. Thus it is both an inevitable and necessary act of individual and collective revolutionary struggle. We should treat the anarchist martyr, the illegalist, or the prisoner, the same way we we would treat the failed runaway slave, or the failed slave revolt leaders, who are ultimately caught and killed by slave hunters. They were brave, they tried, they didn't make it, but maybe someone else will. Who condemns the runaway slave for trying to escape?

Why, then, is there so much opposition to crime from anarchists? Not necessarily in word (although also, unfortunately, a lot in word), but in deed. And why do so few anarchists seem to be criminals (at least in the USA)? What is holding you back, exactly? Why isn't illegalism a real trend – and not only a trend, but the most prominent trend – for anarchists?

Outside the internet, I have always kept quiet about my reasons to refuse to consume meat, eat sushi, wear leather shoes or eat jello. I have never wanted to be the "militant vegan" - people would offer me bacon doughnuts or meat lovers pizza and I would smile and say "no thank you" - fuck - I would even lie saying "I'm already full" as my reason in order to avoid any conversation about the realities of animal exploitation with friends, strangers and people from work.

Attempting to approach the subject rationally, scientifically, with real data from public sources like the FDA or a large University still devolved into the meat eaters yelling pseudoscience ("plants scream when you eat them") and anti-intellectualism ("yeah, but bacon! AM I RIGHT GUYS? HAHAHA") - which taught me very, very quickly that I should hide, hide, hide and fucking run and hide.

But the truth is, I think we may be approaching a point of no-return: in which no one -meat eater or vegan- will be able to run nor hide.
The oceans are becoming polluted and acidic while the sum of humanity feeds upon the delicate eco-system within. If the oceans collapse - we may risk losing the largest oxygen producer on the planet: phytoplankton, which contribute between 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere
Around 1.4 billion cows emit methane which, pound for pound, has an impact on global warming 25 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.

80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are for use on livestock and poultry, not humans. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a antibiotic resistant bacteria which I have personally seen outbreak at my town's hospital. How long before a super resistant strain evolves from extreme exposure to antibiotics in livestock? If life uh... finds a way- then I don't want to be anywhere near the evolution of a new bacteria.

Population expansion: As worldwide population increases, we could begin to see wars fought solely over fresh water. If we look at California we might be seeing our first glimpse at a disturbing future. First we must recognize a few scientific realities:
1 - 10x more people can be fed on one unit of land with a vegan diet than the current omnivore diet.
2 - 47% of water in California goes to animal agriculture.
3 - Climate change, and specifically the trapping of heat in the atmosphere through carbon and methane is real.
1960- 3 Billion humans. 1990- 5.2 Billion humans. 2014- 7 Billion humans.

So if trends continue, could we see a drought and famine stricken India invade Bangladesh to get to the Brahmaputra River? Will Thailand, Burma and Cambodia attempt gorilla warfare with China over the disappearing Mekong River when their populations start starving? Will more nations follow suit as population growth next to the inefficiency of meat eating unintentionally promote famines?

The more I study the more it becomes clear that humanity is running the most dangerous experiments in the history of the world: How much carbon and methane can we pump into our atmosphere before the life support systems on our planet fail? How much antibiotics can we pump into for-food animals before a dangerous microbe evolves from them? How much can the 196 perfectly regulated countries of the world fish the 140 million square miles of ocean before a key link in the oceans eco-systems upsets the balance and we see phytoplankton die offs? How much rainforest do we need to destroy to produce soybeans to feed for-food animals before we see a dust bowl disaster a la the 1930's?

I do not think we are at a point of no return. But we must guard ourselves in the knowledge that the point of no return won't be some super loud event like seeing a massive asteroid in the sky. It will be sitting in the office on some idle Tuesday, sipping coffee, and typing up some fictional report for a fictional corporation - while the ecosystem - the real life out there silently tips over the breaking point. We won't get a text alert. No memo.

It will be as silent as the last Dodo bird dying. When is that point of no return: 100 years from now? 50? 10? I have no clue. But I think we are all in the same boat. And if we don't all agree that the current is taking us away from shore - there will be a point in which - no matter how hard we try to paddle - there will be no possibility of making it back to shore.

So - are we coming to the end of the Neutral Vegan? Am I insane? Are the vegan redditors that say "It's just a diet! I eat plants my boyfriend eats meat" unmistaken? Or are we on an express elevator to hell - in which silence toward and the acceptance of meat in society will lead to the demise of our species. Will mother nature go door to door doing surveys of who promoted the imbalance and give sanction to all the vegans or kill humanity in entirety?

Will we be laying in bed dying naturally of old age 50 years from now while the tempest of a dust storm blows outside the house, whispering that the luxury of death by old age will not be given to the children gathered around our bed?
Or maybe those silent vegans like me can start calmly, patiently talking about the importance of veganism. With patience, a cool-headed approach, and small doses of reality... maybe we can change course.