Take Back The Coffeehouses!
by Eric J. Tower
Sitting here tonight, I am writing to you from a Starbucks just down the street from my house, I cannot help but muse over how far the coffeehouse has come and its relation to many intellectuals since the beginning of the Enlightenment. Then I look about me and see the collection of anti-consumerism, punk, anti-globalization, anti-anti-ists discussing the horrors of the American corporate machine and I cannot help but laugh, I used to be one of those people.
I can remember sitting in various coffeehouses—in fact I can recall sitting in this very same Starbucks that I am sitting in right now. I can recall whispering to my anti-anti-ist friends the excuses we told ourselves to justify getting a cup of coffee. Similar excuses that I can hear coming from other anti-anti-ist now: "This is the only place to get coffee in the suburbs … We can buy here as long as we drink Fair Trade … God, this place is so sold-out yuppie." But enough digression, I can say now for certain that I never appreciated the value of Starbucks or even coffeehouses until I came to fully understand the world of capitalism as a capitalist, rather than an anti-anti-ist.
The history of coffeehouses begins in the Middle East in the 15th century; they called them "Kaveh Kanes," and from the beginning they were popular meeting places for merchants of the day. Arab traders tightly controlled the world market for nearly two hundred years until in the early 17th century Venetian traders introduced Europeans to the wondrous beverage. Demand for the beverage grew so rapidly that Church officials of the day grew suspicious of the "pagan’s brew" and asked Pope Clement VIII to declare it unfit for Christian consumption. After tasting the beverage, though, the Pope immediately was taken by the taste and aroma such that he could do nothing else but give it his papal blessings. Soon afterwards coffee became an intimate part of European life. By 1668 coffee drinking was beginning in the United States and by 1683 the first European coffeehouses opened in Venice, Italy.
By the early 18th century the coffeehouse culture was a craze in Paris, Venice and London. During this period there were nearly two thousand independent coffeehouses in the London area alone. Garraway’s and Jonathon’s, frequented mostly by London financiers, eventually became the London Stock Exchange. Lloyd’s was the precursor of the insurance brokerage firm Lloyd’s of London. It was here during the Enlightenment that coffeehouses came to be known in London as "Penny Universities." Coffeehouses were not just places where one went to consume a beverage or eat food; a coffeehouse was a place where one went to sip coffee, conduct business, discuss literature, poetry, politics, philosophy, and engage in gossip. In particular, Café Proscop opening in Paris in 1689, one of the oldest coffeehouses still operating in Europe, attracted regular philosophers as Rousseau and Voltaire.
The coffeehouse remained a regular meeting place for intellectuals and capitalists alike throughout the 19th century. Yet sometime in the 20th century capitalists abandoned the coffeehouses to the intellectuals as they abandoned philosophy to them. During the 20th century coffeehouses became synonymous with crazy intellectuals proclaiming the world's non-existence and capitalism's evil nature. Ironically, the places that gave birth to the capitalist world, by providing a place for merchants to meet, negotiate and think, became a haven for Communists, hippies and punks who had to excuse drinking every drop of the capitalists' Ambrosia. Coffee drinking is so brazenly a recreational enjoyment of life that such people could only enjoy it by excusing its enjoyment through constant evasion of the fact that the drink represents everything they hate.
In the end of the 20th century an entrepreneur in Seattle founded Starbucks Coffee and knowingly or unknowingly started a war with those intellectuals. In the past century intellectuals could evade the fact that they were consuming the capitalists' Ambrosia by pretending that it was all right because local people owned the coffeehouse or that the owner was one of them. But the man from Seattle has brought stiff competition into the market, and as a result obliterated a number of poorly-run anti-capitalist coffeehouses in my area, leaving the anti-anti-ists above no place to go but Starbucks where it is difficult to deny the fact that you are sitting in a capitalist’s coffeehouse, drinking a wondrously capitalist beverage.
The existence of Starbucks in the market is making it easier for us to take back the coffeehouses and secure them again as "Penny Universities" and places to spread a new renaissance! For my part I frequent three cafés where I engage many people in public debate about philosophy and art, and my newfound love of capitalism. I encourage others to do the same in their cities and towns. Coffeehouses are all great places that bring the world together for a chat, and we should take advantage of them! Discussion online is great for staying in touch with other Objectivists and sometimes meeting new people, but there is no substitute for the effect that an in-person conversation can have on the people around you. Besides, is there any better place to defend the unknown ideal than from a place that is itself a wonder of trade? Is there anything better to drink while defending the morality of business than the capitalists' Ambrosia, coffee?
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