Did the animals themselves contribute to their lives of misery and slavery?

I think only in the sense that they followed the dictatorship of Napoleon. At some point one hoped that the animals would rise up against his tyranny. Unfortunately this does not happen within the story. The animals chose fear and acceptance as the easier way to go. In this sense they contribute to their own misery.

It is unfair to blame the animals entirely. To a certain extent ,yes, their unquestioning loyalty was their greatest weakness. Boxer's strength and influence could have been used to defy the pigs' corrupt system including Benjamin's wit but they chose to succumb to Napoleon's tyranny just like the rest of the animals. Their gullibility is used as an advantage by the pigs and ultimately Napoleon has them under his reign.On the other hand , the pigs outwitted the rest of the animals right from the beginning. In the midst of celebrating their victory, the rest of the animals are oblivious of what the pigs are planning, it appears as if they naturally saw themselves rising as leaders but the truth of the matter is they saw the opportunity and took steps to ellavate themseves to leadership and the rest of the animals had no foresight of this. We are born with varying degrees of intelligence and the pigs fortunately were the chosen few. Some people are natural leader and some are there to be led, that is a fact of life and we cannot all be leaders.

It is unfair to blame the animals entirely. To a certain extent ,yes, their unquestioning loyalty was their greatest weakness. Boxer's strength and influence could have been used to defy the pigs' corrupt system including Benjamin's wit but they chose to succumb to Napoleon's tyranny just like the rest of the animals. Their gullibility is used as an advantage by the pigs and ultimately Napoleon has them under his reign.On the other hand , the pigs outwitted the rest of the animals right from the beginning. In the midst of celebrating their victory, the rest of the animals are oblivious of what the pigs are planning, it appears as if they naturally saw themselves rising as leaders but the truth of the matter is they saw the opportunity and took steps to ellavate themseves to leadership and the rest of the animals had no foresight of this. We are born with varying degrees of intelligence and the pigs fortunately were the chosen few. Some people are natural leaders and some are there to be led, that is a fact of life and we cannot all be leaders.

Yes