Ezra Klein: Pro-Bucks

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March 28, 2005

Pro-Bucks

Unlike Brad Plumer, I'm going to evince no shame in declaring myself objectively pro-Starbucks -- I love the place. And you know what? I don't even drink coffee. Yep -- shout it from the mountain, this decaffeinated blogger thinks independents are overrated and everyone should enjoy a local emanation of the Seattle-based giant. Starbucks offers all workers, whether full or part-time, paid vacation and sick leave, stock options, a 401(k) plan, and health benefits. The health plan is available with a mere 20-hours a week -- most places demand 40 -- and the company pays 75% of the costs, more than the federal government pays in its plans. Domestic partners are included in the coverage, and in fact were allowed in a year before unmarried heterosexual partners were brought into the fold. The plan also includes dental, vision, and mental care. My friends who work there love the job and consider themselves overpaid. My friends who work at independent shops generally dislike their work and find their compensation paltry. There's no doubt about who gets the better deal.

Moreover, drive through LA some time, particularly the less desirable neighborhoods. Check out the dilapidated street signs, the dirty looking strip malls and restaurants, and the general unpleasantness of the urban architecture, both indoors and out. Then step into the Starbucks there. Burgundy walls, paintings, Ray Charles on the speakers, everything's clean...it's like entering a sanctuary. Any company able to offer haven to groups generally left out of architectural affluence, by which I mean sequestered in unpleasant areas and forced to patronize unlikable stores, should be embraced by liberals. Any company willing to do it while treating their workers in a truly admirable way, especially compared to most of the independents who comprise their ideologically favored competition, should be lauded. Not so much that you shouldn't choose Pete's over them at every opportunity, or support their worker's efforts at unionization, but lauded nonetheless.

March 28, 2005 | Permalink

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Comments

Thanks for saying that. It's always worth remembering that big isn't necessarily bad, and that local isn't automatically good.

Posted by: nolo | Mar 28, 2005 2:11:31 PM

I'm also a reformed caffeine freak, but I sometimes find a reason to visit Starbucks for al the reasons you cited. I'm NOT a reformed chocoholic however, and therefore I caution that their new chocolate drink is pretty awful - it tastes like Hersey's syrup mixed with water.

And who can fault the wireless net links in every shop?

There is no doubt that Starbucks has behaved like a monopolist in buying out any and all competition, but they ARE perhaps the best corporate citizen one can point to today in their treatment of employees and contribution to their communities.

I do miss my morning hit of 'decaf' from Starbucks - containing more caffeine that perhaps 75% of non-Starbucks regular joe.

And hey, their bear claws are awesome.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Mar 28, 2005 2:34:23 PM

Thanks for that. Some people forget that us Starbucks "partners" were not all imported from Seattle - we live the same towns as everyone else, pay our taxes, send our kids to school, etc.

Some of those stores you mention in LA are undoubtedly from the Magic Johnson/Starbucks partnership, which intentionally places Starbucks locations in "less desirable" areas in order to provide jobs, a nice place to be, and to increase the visibility and rent value of commercial property in the area.

Posted by: Stephen | Mar 28, 2005 3:19:12 PM

I don't like coffee and I don't like Starbucks.

I just prefer someplace a little more authentic or cheaper.

Posted by: Boethius | Mar 28, 2005 3:46:09 PM

Yes, I agree and may I also speak up for Home Depot and Costco, both of whom provide a living wage and decent benefits. I didn't realize that Starbucks has shops in marginalized neighborhoods. Wonderful. I really hate it when I hear Democrats bashing "corporations". Corporations are merely accounting and legal entities which provide goods and services and jobs. They are neither moral nor immoral, although they reflect the values of the people who run them. They need to be appropriately regulated. It is equally possible to overregulate them as it is to underregulate them and healthy debate about what constitutes an appropriate level of regulation is a good thing. I guess that I'm a "new Democrat" because I don't hate corporations.

However, the "drinking chocolate" is vile at Starbucks and the coffee isn't that great either. Ah, but the maple nut scones....

Posted by: J Bean | Mar 28, 2005 3:52:05 PM

Iced skim chai for me, please. And a seat near a power outlet, so I can plug my laptop in and set a spell.

Posted by: Thlayli | Mar 28, 2005 4:29:17 PM

"It's always worth remembering that big isn't necessarily bad, and that local isn't automatically good."

It's also worth noting that, in discussing the neighborhoods in which Starbucks is a "sanctuary," Ezra still called the areas "dilapidated," "dirty," and "undesirable." And they already have a Starbucks! A community so described could do with fewer sanctuaries and more efforts to make the whole place better. I wonder if Ezra can clarify if these Starbucks are brand new and thus haven't had a chance to affect the neighborhood around them, but I for one wouldn't stop in a bad neighborhood just because there is a Starbucks in it.

You can love Starbucks, but you're loving a corporation, and it doesn't love you back. Please don't confuse this for anti-corporatism; I'd be jobless without corporations. I'm just saying, corporations have their place, and so do locally owned businesses. The two are not always competing directly, even if they are selling the same things at similar prices. There is room for both.

Posted by: diddy | Mar 28, 2005 4:40:50 PM

Nice to see my employer getting some blogger love!

Posted by: fiat lux | Mar 28, 2005 4:41:33 PM

How interesting that the sole Republican in the thread doesn't like the Bucks while the progressives do. My biases! They're...meeellllllltttiiinngggg

Posted by: Ezra | Mar 28, 2005 4:44:58 PM

I agree that starbucks employment practices (some of them) are laudatory, and that as a whole the company is a good thing. The benefits at 20 hours a week is perfect for a number of artists and musicians I know.

But I don't think it's a coincidence that you don't drink coffee and you don't like Starbucks. The line between a perfect French Roast and charcoal water is a fine one, and the Starbucks roasters trample it all too frequently. Plus, they you have to pay for wifi! How can a blogger countenance such a thing?

Posted by: djw | Mar 28, 2005 5:54:53 PM

(above comment written at top pot donuts in Seattle, much better pastries and coffee than the Starbucks a block away, free wifi, and better music. Red House Painters at the moment. Last time I was here, a meeting of Starbucks "team leaders" or some such thing was taking place at the table next to me.)

Posted by: djw | Mar 28, 2005 5:56:41 PM

I'm a tea drinker, so I hang out at Westwood's Boba Loca, which offers a fine selection of loose-leaf teas and free wifi. Charging for internet is abhorrent and will end up being, I think, the lifeline for independent coffee shops. So long as Bucks keeps charging, I'll keep going where it's free.

Posted by: Ezra | Mar 28, 2005 6:10:17 PM

Ezra

Have you noticed how non-political threads often seems to get the most comments on political blogs.

Maybe once a week (Fridays?) you should give us a discussion on music/books/films/TV or sport, food, houses etc.

Posted by: Boethius | Mar 28, 2005 6:40:01 PM

I'm old enough to remember the 1970s and 80s (plus a few earlier decades). Let me tell you youngsters that Starbucks damned near single handedly created the national "coffee culture" we now take for granted. Prior to Starbucks expanding from their Seattle base anybody who visited Europe and then returned to the U.S. was appalled by what passed for domestic brewed coffee. If you didn't live in a major city that had a "Little Italy" neighborhood or some other similar ethnic enclave (or maybe a major university shopping district) you had to settle for tasteless, acidic, light brown colored water. Then Starbucks went national...and (only then) a whole bunch of local entrepreneurs all of a sudden realized that good coffee could be sold to the general public.

Now it's all the rage to focus on the mean old Starbucks corporation and how they dominate the market.

Unfortunately generation after generation of young people continue to think that the world started at the point they became aware of it. My generation did it and now you are doing it.

I am unapologetic in my support for Starbucks. I know what it was like before this company came to town...and I'm damned glad they showed up. They introduced America to good coffee and transformed everything about coffee. They are an enlightened corporation. They made me a latte drinking liberal and I say pick on somebody else.

Now go out there and support your local coffee shop.

Posted by: Georg Heimdal | Mar 28, 2005 7:38:01 PM

Better coffee is a very good thing. I worked in Germany for about a year and that first cup of thin, acid coffee on the airplane coming home was a horrible experience.

Right now Janeane is pissing me off by rambling on about "corporatism" and knocking my beloved Uncle Bill. She's making me feel Libertarian, but then again she voted for Nader in 2000, didn't she?

Posted by: J Bean | Mar 28, 2005 9:39:18 PM

Ezra,

It's "Peet's".

Growing up in Vancouver, I can tell you that Starbucks used to have excellent coffee, many years ago. (I'm sure it was even better back before they expanded outside Seattle.) Unfortunately, their desire for total market domination exceeded their ability to maintain quality control.

Peets has managed to maintain a controlled expansion without lowering their standards. I hope they can continue to grow at a manageable pace, because the world is a better place when there are more places to get a decent cup of coffee.

And not everyone is blessed enough to live within walking distance of D'Amico or Gimme Coffee.

Posted by: Thad | Mar 28, 2005 10:13:04 PM

To clarify, Starbucks makes drinkable if unremarkable espresso. It's the drip that's ranges from disastrously burnt to mediocre.

Posted by: djw | Mar 29, 2005 1:07:01 AM

Georg Heimdal: oh lord, I remember those days. Asking for a cup of decaf coffee meant a packet of instant Sanka and some hot water. In fact, instant coffee was for every-day use, not just for camping or stocking the bomb shelter. And if it wasn't instant, it was the special-occasion percolated coffee that tasted boiled to death. Yuck. And hee! I am so old.

My usual coffee place is Bonavita Coffee & Tea in Mill Valley, California, but my neighbors gave me a Starbucks gift card at Christmas. Starbucks has a little kiosk inside a nearby grocery store, and frankly, I don't mind patronizing it one bitty bit. I see the "Friends Don't Let Friends Go To Starbucks" bumper stickers occasionally, and I think, "Ooh, but friends DO treat friends to free coffee, especially when the free-coffee-gettin' friend is chronically unencumbered by extra cash".

Posted by: larkspur | Mar 29, 2005 4:21:44 AM

Only one problem, and the deep dark secret that nobody wants to talk about: the coffee sucks. I don't mean sucks in the weak diner coffee sense - it's not THAT bad - but in most urban locations you can EASILY find a better cup of coffee than Starbucks.

Posted by: Larry M | Mar 29, 2005 6:44:41 AM

I suppose I should have read the whole thread before posting - guess it's not such a secret afterall. Yes, I'm talking about the drip, not the Expresso. And "burnt" describes the taste exactly.

Posted by: Larry M | Mar 29, 2005 6:49:06 AM

"I'm just saying, corporations have their place, and so do locally owned businesses. The two are not always competing directly, even if they are selling the same things at similar prices. There is room for both."

That's absolutely true. And sometimes the corporation creates a market that the locals can then exploit as well. As someone mentioned upthread, the coffeeshop culture really didn't exist in most of the U.S. until Starbucks started marketing it. This marketing, in turn, has allowed local outfits to benefit. I've seen it here in lovely Cleveland, Ohio, where coffee shops have been proliferating.

Posted by: nolo | Mar 29, 2005 10:55:14 AM

Jesus Christ, some of the comments here make me want to puke..... Like the man said, you buy your joe at Starbuck's and you can know that the help is treated humanely. But of course that's small beans compared to the local shop, where -- thanks to the low low overhead of minimum wage -- we can pass the savings on to you, as precious free bandwidth.

Posted by: sglover | Mar 31, 2005 12:12:09 PM

In Boston there was the Coffee Connection, a small chain which sold out to Starbucks. We were promised that Starbucks would continue to offer their blends, but then it turned out that people who drink coffee (as opposed to coffee drinks) spend less money.

*Sigh*

I looked into getting a job at a Starbucks once. They make you take some sort of psychological profile test which I found intrusive and demeaning.

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