Anarchist Coffee Shops | Anarchism and Me (Part 1)
I’m writing this article in response to Emerican Johnson’s video, How would anarchism actually work in real life? (Part 1) on his channel NonCompete, so if you haven’t watched that video, go ahead and watch it before reading further.
One of the core tenets of anarchism is direct democracy. Another is the abolition of profit. The goal of anarchism is to create a money-less society where everyone has an equal role in shaping the systems that govern their lives.
The exact mechanics of anarchism will differ depending on where you are, what resources are available, and who else is living there with you. The truth is, we won’t know what an anarchist society will look like until we gather information from everyone about what they want their society to look like.
Emerican Johnson invites us to imagine and share our visions with each other. If enough people do, we can start figuring out how to achieve and implement our ideal society based on anarchist principles.
All right. Here goes nothing.
Coffee Shops
Currently, I work in a coffee shop, so I’ve thought a lot about the value of these institutions, and whether or not they would have value in a system that did not include a profit motive.
I think they would. Under capitalism, coffee shops serve as a great place to meet people, make appointments, hang out, relax, and enjoy delicious food and coffee. There’s no reason to believe that these experiences would not still be sought after under anarchism.
So how do we get people to do the work required in a coffee shop if no one is getting paid to do it? After all, isn’t it kind of thankless and monotonous to make hundreds upon hundreds of pumpkin spice lattes for customers who feel entitled to your labour? Of course!
My quick solution: remove the counters. Under capitalism, counters serve as a way to reinforce the distinction between consumer and worker. In an anarchist coffee shop, this distinction would be practically useless.
People can pour their own coffee and make their own drinks! We do this all the time at charitable luncheons, and people rarely take more than they need. Some people will even make snack plates for their friends and family! In an anarchist society, perhaps some citizens who are passionate about making lattes will choose to serve other citizens for a few hours at a time! “Oh wow! I better make sure I go in the next time Jane is working! She makes the best vanilla nonfat extra foamy cappuccini-weenies!”
It all works out, because most people are not assholes. Humans are actually pretty nice to each other in contexts where we’re allowed to be nice to each other without impeding our own ability to survive.
The consumer-workers who use the coffee shop can talk to each other to decide what resources they want to order from manufacturing and delivery worker groups. It may be useful to use some form of direct democracy to make these decisions, or, alternatively, the consumer-workers may elect someone to complete orders in a timely manner. It could even be a duty by rotation.
The reason the distinction between worker and consumer can be all but completely dissolved in the context of a coffee shop is that the work done in a coffee shop does not require a high level of skill. Just about anybody can pour a coffee, and if you can’t pour your own coffee, you can probably find someone who will help you.
Note that I said a high level of skill is not required to be a barista. Still, some baristas do have a high level of skill. After all, there is such a thing as the Barista World Championship. These highly skilled baristas would get to choose their own hours of work. After all, since there are no counters, they aren’t preventing anyone from getting their coffee by not being there. When they are there, they will receive a lot of gratitude from the people they choose to serve their super special latte drinks, rather than needing to deal with the entitled attitudes of the people they are forced to serve.
I’ve described a coffee shop here because it is the work environment I’m most familiar with, but in theory, any non-essential retail outlet or restaurant could benefit from dissolving the distinction between customer and worker. In effect, most retail and food service institutions could become specialized community centres: free stuff, good friends, and no counters.
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Thank you for reading Part 1 of my article series, Anarchism and Me, in which I theorize how many of the services and institutions I use under capitalism might be translated to an anarchist society. Write a comment about how you think your workplace might function if we implemented direct democracy and got rid of money. Or if you have a video or a blog post related to this topic, please share it here!
