(For email readers, here's a link to post and comment: http://darktortoise.blogspot.com/2004/10/starbucks-ceo-to-retire.html#comments)
Six thousand new shops means some 25,000 new jobs for baristas, that is more employment for people who could otherwise be on welfare. On top of that, it's sucked endless money out of the "rich" people who have become addicted and funnelled much of it to those same newly employed individuals and middle class investors around the world - and those rich people have liked it. Why would anyone rooting for the little guy have a problem with that?
Also, while a press release, consider the following, a single example of corporate outreach to "the little guy." Perhaps a snap judgement to find Starbucks and Orin Smith objectionable, applying knee-jerk labels to them, reducing them to mere symbols, then discarding them out of hand is perhaps exactly what others find unacceptable when it's done the other way?
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, D.C., NEW YORK and BOSTON; July 29, 2002 -
Starbucks Coffee Company (Nasdaq:
SBUX), the Ford Foundation, Oxfam America and CEPCO (Oaxacan State Coffee
Producers Network), announced today their collaboration in a unique pilot
project to help small-scale Mexican coffee producers expand their access to the
global marketplace and increase the availability of high quality Fair Trade
certified coffee. This collaboration aims to enhance the livelihood and
capabilities of small-scale coffee farmers and simultaneously improve the
experience of coffee drinkers. "Producing high quality coffee, consistently and
in sufficient quantity to meet the requirements of the specialty coffee industry
is key to the survival of small farmer organizations in Central America and
Mexico," said Orin Smith, president and CEO of Starbucks.
Don't get me wrong, Ian has a right to his opinion, but I don't think the criticism holds up under scrutiny.
3 comments:
Perhaps you would rather I write the equivalent of a world systems text than a quick reply. Very time consuming. Functionalist arguments are easy to make because they are based on generalizations, and to dispell them requires a complex argument usually accompanied with a lengthy bibliography.
The only real flaw in my argument is that I was unaware of Starbucks participating in the Fair-Trade movement. The more minor flaw is that I made comments without citations coupled with a healthy dosage of sarcasm that was loosely interpreted as a functionalist response, but actually wasn't.
Perhaps it is true that Mr. Smith worked very hard. However, I doubt his work was as physically strenuous as the work of all those baristas or bean farmers. One usually doesn't get carpal tunnel syndrome from sitting on a Board of Directors the same way one does from making hundreds of espressos every day. Really, it's not that upper class people don't work hard, it's that hard work has differential success, depending largely upon what economic level you began at.
Second, the barista/welfare dualism is an ignorant argument based in functionalist thought. "If they're not working this minimum wage job, they'll just be another drain on us (wealthy people)." Yet the baristas might as well be on welfare, because it's not like they are going to be making enough money at this job to move up the socioeconomic ladder, as I will address below. Also, it's not like they will be on welfare in the future, because welfare is being phased out anyway.
Third, Mr. Smith's success was not diminished to merely selfish and harmful actions. Instead, I was pointing out that there is another side to this story that lurks beneath the success of retirement after four years. I did not apply any knee-jerk labels to him or to corporations. This sort of response to my criticism reflects the psychology-based tendency to focus on the individual level while downplaying the structural and cultural levels (which are much less obvious to people making more than $30K/year anyway).
Fourth, by "the little guy" I am assuming you mean people who are not of the upper-middle classes? You mean those who are structurally and culturally distanced from the political processes and upward mobility themes of U.S. society? You mean the people who live paycheck to paycheck, not because they want to, but because they are subject to "glass ceilings"? Has anyone else noticed (dad I'm speaking to you here) that businesses tend to lay off people who have been there the longest and/or get paid the most? Businesses, especially corporations, have realized a key to making money is to keep the workers at low pay. New workers get paid less, plus they probably don't have carpel tunnel yet. I root for "the little guy" because I am one. I complain about this fashionable addiction sucking money out of the wealthy, because that money could be used (among many other things, for standardized welfare) to pay for carpel tunnel surgery for the baristas who make them their addicting drink!
Finally, the vast majority of people working service jobs do not make enough money to a) choose where they want to live, or b) work at any job they wish. I leave you now with a statistic (2003) about housing in Anchorage, AK to drive home just how impossible it is to survive on one's own while working at a service job. The low end monthly rent for a one-bedroom home in Anchorage is $668 (Mine is $680). The hourly wage needed to afford this rent at 40 hours/week is $12.85. Nearly all service jobs pay less than $10/hour (I make $9.25 and cap out at $10). A person making minimum wage in Anchorage would need to work 72 hours/week just to afford a one bedroom apartment, which would probably be in a bad part of town. So enjoy your spacious house, your luxurious automobiles, your health insurance, and your latte. And don't forget to tip your barista!
Ian
PS Check out http://www.nlihc.org/oor2003/ to view the housing situation for your state!
After thinking it over some more, I figured out a few more reasons why I don't applaud Mr. Smith.
1) The 6,000 new shops are probably making at least one hundred espressos each day. That means each day at least 600,000 non-biodegradable plastic lids and cardboard cups are thrown away after only one use. The cups are transported via gasoline-powered motors in plastic bags, which are then thrown away. Plus there's the trash from individual straws, stirrers, sweetener and creamer packets, milk containers, and metal N2O cartridges. This waste doesn't just disappear!
2) So obviously people need jobs. But the ~25,000 job openings being filled do nearly nothing positive for society as a whole and do several negative things. One other thing they do is help fulfill the capitalist (American) goal of endless material consumption by creating 6,000 more outlets for people to get it "to go". I'm guessing at least half to two-thirds of these stores aren't sit-down coffeehouses where people can sit and conversate. Keep us productive; funnel money upwards through continual earn<=>spend transactions. Caffeine and sugar drink fill-stations are not nutritious to the human body and mind. These two reasons alone breach the limits of sustainable living. This is a value of profit and a general destruction of community.
3) Not just anyone can be a barista. Sure, anyone can apply, but the market image of a barista precludes most minorities* and age groups, often the poorer peoples. Haven't you noticed most baristas fit certain "counter-culture" subgroups? You often see bubbly highschool girls, skinny gay/metrosexual males, artists with dyed hair, piercings, and/or underground music tastes... You rarely see people over 35, people who speak English as a second language, veterans, or home-owning, post graduate middle-upper class males. What sort of media images is this generating? What sort of stereotypes does it perpetuate?
*What is a minority anyway? I think minority status has multiple levels. The usual interpretation is to count people's race and ethnicity. I suggest that minority status can also be understood as a lack of representation, in political arenas and the popular media, for example.
4) Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) are disrupting the normal commodity chain in countries growing the coffee beans, thereby driving the country, and thus its workers, into greater poverty and debt. SAPs disrupt the government and economics of a country by converting diverse markets into cash crops exported before processing. Instead of farmers being able to grow the crops and buy/sell them locally, SAPs allow industrialized countries to interrupt this process after the first link, and conduct the rest of the processing/retail within their own economy. This is neo-colonialism, and it's one reason why terrorists hate this country so much.
(This is not to say that people who buy Starbucks are supporting terrorists or terrorism directly, BUT they are indirectly contributing to the American upper-class' attempt at global market domination, which is one issue terrorists are protesting.)
5) As we realized through physics and chaos theory, for every action there are multiple reaction ripples through space/time. This applies on a societal level as well, with an added dimension: a socio-economic hierarchy. In a market based bureaucracy the power and freedom granted by the status position of a successful CEO is enormous. Thus, decisions made by individual CEOs will have a far greater influence on society and the environment than about 75% of the United States population. But this power has little responsibility to the effects of its industry. If morality or social responsibility were even being considered, Mr. Smith would at least use some of his money to make his product more recyclable. No, the government shouldn't force him to do it, he should take it upon himself to behave differently.
So yeah, that's what I think about that. But it's two sides to a coin.
Ian
I think that the points Ian makes are quite accurate. His analysis of the majority of people working service jobs is, unfortunately, becoming more of 'the norm' across the country. And, unless something radical happens (such as a grass roots youth movement) to change that reality, it's only going to get worse. That's the 'great thing' about capitalism. The system takes and takes and takes until somebody pushes back just as hard. Just like the Labor movement did.
I think it's a travesty that more of the history of the Labor movement isn't covered in our education system. Instead it's marginalized by media references and ties to the Teamsters in the 60s and 70s and Jimmy Hoffa. What's the reality of the Labor movement? It gave us the 40 hour work week that 'used' to be considered as the standard work week. Where has capitalism gotten us now? Back then, employers (as they do now) quote the bottom line and the need to make profit as justification for longer hours. These tend to be 'exempt' employees, meaning they're exempt from working overtime. Non-exempt workers don't get the 'benefit' of having to work these long hours because of corporate concerns around health-care benefits. So they have to work two, sometimes three, jobs just to get by. Exempt or non-exempt, the corporations are making a killing and their board of directors are happy with their profits. And the workers go home continually exhausted. The exempt employees tend to continue to justify the actions of the company their working for because they have no choice but to coddle to their masters: try looking for a job that pays the same benefits as the one you're working at now (including 401K contribution matching) when you're over 40. The younger folks know all this already... at least the ones with any sense. And it's not boding well for a happy American future in the next 20 years.
I keep hearing about the 'Conservative tide' that's rising in America. Like that's a good thing. Who are the conservative role models, the people you look to for inspiration? Trent Lott? Tom DeLay? Bill O'Reilly? Corporate icons like Ken Lay? If these are the men that the upper middle class is looking up to, and hope to emulate, then we're really screwed as a country.
Ray
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed; those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?"
- Thomas Jefferson
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