As regular readers of this blog know, I have decided to boycott my local Starbucks. The manager there recently warned me when I made a joke about "Viagra" being included in an order for coffee.....If I can't make jokes or sarcastic comments without being threatened, then I cannot possibly relax in a place. It is stifling and oppressive. File this under: "the tyranny of the corporation"......
There is, of course, a broader context here--the coldness of anglo-saxon culture, and the puritanism of the USA. The broader phenomenon has been noted by psychologists (Dacher Kellner) and students of emotion (e.g., Aneta Pavlienko).
The overall result: repression, stifling of the basic ingredients of life.
How can anyone stand to live here?
Oh yes, the manager said it had something to do with "sexual harassment". I don't want to go into that now, but let's just say that she did not accuse me of harassing anyone. My crime was possibly being misunderstood as engaged in s.h. Well, I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I don't believe her. She just wanted to stay in control. She wanted me to know who was boss. And, it's got nothing to do with protecting women from harassment.
Moreover, I am inclined to doubt, on general principles (the purposes for which capitalist firms exist) whether Starbucks actual policy isn't more about branding and company image than about protecting rights.
Why? Because I endorse a metaphysical principle that derives from Ancient Greek Philosophy. It goes something like this. If you care about justice only in one part of your coffee shop, and not in others, then you don't really care about justice. And, no Capitalist firm cares about justice when it comes to distributing the social surplus which is produced every day. In other words, so long as the so-called "baristas' (obnoxiously pretentious word that!) do not own and run the coffee shops, then you ain't got justice for them; and if you ain't got justice, then huffing and puffing about protecting women is not enough.
Objection: Might not an employee benefit from the policy, even with all its flaws? Maybe, but when you consider the broader picture of the exercise of arbitrary power by my local manager, and the arbitrary power of the corporation itself, when you consider that the case (or cases) of benefit are part of that hydra-headed monster, then it looks very different. It is not obvious to me that what we have here is (say) unqualified good, as opposed to a mix of very nasty things with a little bit of benefit.....
(If a might heroic corporation delivers me from an evil monster today, but then devours me tomorrow, should I really be grateful?)
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