Communist Restaurants

[A.R.Amistad]

I think this is a great basis for what will exist in a socialist society. Community owned restaurants are a great alternative to capitalist ones, and are compatible and essential to a socialist community in the future. This won't only apply to restaurants! We'll have community owned music halls, theaters, clothing stores, barber shops, etc. etc. etc. you name, you can make it community owned!




Reinventing restaurants (and rural communities)

Sun, 01/17/2010 - 14:11 — Casey Francis Reimagine Rural | By Mike Knutson | January 13, 2010
http://reimaginerural.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/cafe-on-the-route-225x300.jpg (http://reimaginerural.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/cafe-on-the-route.jpg)There’s no doubt that good restaurants are important to rural communities. They make rural communities more attractive places to live. They often serve as “informal meeting places where community is built” (e.g., third places). And they often improve the local economy by giving people a place to spend their money locally.
My guess is that Reuben Wentz must appreciate the importance of a good restaurant. The 93-year-old retired farmer recently gave $500,000 to his hometown of Napoleon, North Dakota (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,_North_Dakota)(pop. 857) to create a new community-owned restaurant.
The restaurant replaces the old, deteriorating building that housed the community’s previous community-owned restaurant. It sounds like they’ve got a good thing going with the restaurant. Its features include:


6,000 square feet
New, brightly lit kitchen
TV monitors
Wireless mikes for presentations

It’s also home to the Logan County Economic Development Offices, which set up the foundation that manages the restaurant. I bet many of Napoleon’s neighboring communities are envious.

It’s important to attract people

It sounds like the community is excited about the restaurant. The Bismarck Tribune (http://www.bismarcktribune.com/)quotes foundation board member Jennifer Schumacher:
“It was such a moment of joy. I thought - I think we all thought - this is such a turning point for Napoleon,” she said. Without much debt to service, the new venture should succeed, she said.
“We have a new drug store, young people are moving in and wind towers are going up. With such a beautiful restaurant here in Napoleon, we can do it,” Schumacher said. (source: Lauren Donovan, “Napoleon benefactor builds restaurant for community” (http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/article_55ea6978-dec4-11de-bae5-001cc4c03286.html) Bismark Tribune, 12-2-09)
That’s economic development

Any community seeking to attract young people (Gen Y (http://reimaginerural.com/5-ways-rural-communities-can-get-ready-for-gen-y/)) has to evaluate the availability of local food services. It’s something they look for when choosing a community to call home.
With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about how the Napoleon might leverage this restaurant effort for further economic development. Two thoughts have emerged:
First, what can be done to foster a true “third place” atmosphere, making it a place where people of all ages and backgrounds meet for conversation? We know that conversation between people of varying backgrounds in third places can lead to greater community trust (e.g. bridging social capital (http://www.dass.missouri.edu/agecon/mccel/materials/flora.pdf)). But third places don’t magically emerge. They take thoughtful consideration and effort.
Second, could the community-owned restaurant be leveraged to create a local foods initiati (http://reimaginerural.com/tag/local-foods/)ve? Perhaps, they could make a commitment to buying locally raised foods. The kitchen could also be a “shared use kitchen” (http://www.thresholdtomaine.org/Shared%20Use%20Kitchen.htm) that helps entrepreneurs develop new food products.
Both of those ideas will take more effort and possibly more financial capital. They may or may not be right for Napoleon. But rural communities need to think like this to maximize their economic development efforts.
Small towns also need people like Reuben Wentz who are willing to invest in their community’s future.


http://www.cfra.org/ruralmonitor/2010/01/17/reinventing-restaurants-and-rural-communities

[spaßmaschine]

I don't see what's communist about the restaurant you linked to above. Though the "community" (whatever that means!) may be more involved, it is still fundamentally a capitalist enterprise. In a communist society, enterprises as such will no longer exist, and those "businesses" (for lack of a better word) which haven't been abolished, will exist in a form that may be almost unrecognisable to what we have today, due to the massive transformation that occurs when you take away the logic of value and replace it with a logic of need. For a detailed look at how the logic of capital influences/defines every tiny aspect of restaurants today, see the comic "Abolish Restaurants" at prole.info

[A.R.Amistad]

I prefer Trotsky's idea on the subject

Leon Trotsky

But one may answer: It took thousands of years to create the slave-owning art and only hundreds of years for the bourgeois art. Why, then, could not proletarian art be created in tens of years? The technical bases of life are not at all the same at present and therefore the tempo is also different. This objection, which at first sight seems convincing, in reality misses the crux of the question. Undoubtedly, in the development of the new society, the time will come when economics, cultural life and art will receive the greatest impulse forward. At the present time we can only create fancies about their tempo. In a society which will have thrown off the pinching and stultifying worry about one’s daily bread, in which community restaurants will prepare good, wholesome and tasteful food for all to choose, in which communal laundries will wash clean everyone’s good linen, in which children, all the children, will be well-fed and strong and gay, and in which they will absorb the fundamental elements of science and art as they absorb albumen and air and the warmth of the sun, in a society in which electricity and the radio will not be the crafts they are today, but will come from inexhaustible sources of superpower at the call of a central button, in which there will be no “useless mouths,” in which the liberated egotism of mana mighty force! – will be directed wholly towards the understanding, the transformation and the betterment of the universe – in such a society the dynamic development of culture will be incomparable with anything that went on in the past. But all this will come only after a climb, prolonged and difficult, which is still ahead of us. And we are speaking only about the period of the climb.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1923/art/tia23c.htm

[Foldered]

Interesting concept. I prefer movements like Food Not Bombs to something like this, but it's still interesting, and a good venue.

[A.R.Amistad]

I think the two can go together. I'm involved with CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) which is essentially socialist style agricultural movement, and these community owned restaurants put a lot of emphasis on using local food, supporting the community and preparing wholesome food. I think these things would be great for socialist society, just like Trotsky predicted.

[Endomorphian]

Sounds like mutualism in action moreso than communism. /Cheap advert.

[Invincible Summer]

This is the closest thing in my town: http://www.vodkabar.ca/index.php

[A.R.Amistad]

This is the closest thing in my town: http://www.vodkabar.ca/index.php (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.vodkabar.ca/index.php)

Holy shit! I have the same exact thing almost! We have a Pizza Pub thats known for its quality beers (I can't remember the name) and it has a room called "The Red Room" with pictures of Lenin, Marx, Engels and the Bolshevik Revolution.

[Jerolin]

This is the closest thing in my town:


The aesthetics of that place are extremely cool.

[A.R.Amistad]

Hey guys, the idea here are community owned venues, not restaurants that sell "The Trotsky Burger." :D

[mykittyhasaboner]

Hey guys, the idea here are community owned venues, not restaurants that sell "The Trotsky Burger." :D

In essence they are the same thing. "Community" or even worker controlled restaurants (or any enterprise) that exist in isolation operate with the same fundamental logic that other all other capitalists use.

What does "community" owned mean anyways?


I think the two can go together. I'm involved with CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) which is essentially socialist style agricultural movement, and these community owned restaurants put a lot of emphasis on using local food, supporting the community and preparing wholesome food. I think these things would be great for socialist society, just like Trotsky predicted.So basically Trotsky "predicted" that petit-bourgeois 'communal-ism' and emphasis on "local" production would be great for a 'socialist' society? I don't think this is correct.

[A.R.Amistad]

I really don't understand the anti-community owned tendency going on here, could someone please sum up their animosity?

[mykittyhasaboner]

I really don't understand the anti-community owned tendency going on here, could someone please sum up their animosity?

What are you on about? "Community" owned is vague and doesn't describe the actual nature of ownership. A "community" can be whatever you want it to be, it doesn't necessarily mean workers. Even if workers actually owned and 'self-managed' the restaurant it doesn't provide a basis for "what would exist in a socialist society" as you claim. Restaurants as we know it and as they exist all over the world are fundamentally capitalist enterprises (regardless if they are managed by 'workers' or managed by capitalists), and if there is to be any change in the social character of eating establishments it involves more than putting some restaurant under "community" ownership--whatever that even means.

What is the difference between someone who buys a meal from a self-managing group of 'workers' (who, if they actually own the enterprise, have ceased to be proletarians) and someone buying a meal from a capitalist who employs regular wage workers? I don't think petit-bourgeois "community" ownership of one restaurant has anything to do with providing a basis for socialist ownership.

[Agnapostate]

I went to BJ's (the restaurant/microbrewery), and I swear that the posters adorning the walls looked like Soviet agricultural propaganda. :lol:

[Robocommie]

This is not a restaurant, but here in my town we have an old historic movie theatre from the 1950s. Years back it was restored and it belongs to the township, and it's entirely staffed by volunteers. They're always playing movies, oftentimes old classic films or foreign films that would normally never get shown out here in the Midwest, and it's always very cheap - $1 for a ticket, and $1 each for snacks.

Obviously they still charge money, but everyone can afford it, and the atmosphere there is always very friendly and open. It's awesome, I'd love to see more things like that set up under socialism.

[soyonstout]

On the question of co-ops, "self-management" by workers, and why they don't really challenge or change capitalism, I'd recommend a recent debate held in the British anarchist journal Freedom called "Bailouts, Cooperatives, or Class Struggle?" libcom.org/library/bailouts-co-operatives-or-class-struggle-debate

Also, the Economist recently had an article about how co-ops have the same problems that regular businesses do in the capitalist marketplace. This was posted on libcom as well. Too tired to find the economist link: libcom.org/library/co-operatives-all-together

-soyons tout

[A.R.Amistad]

I think everyone is totally missing the point of this post. I know that co-ops by themselves don't challenge capitalism, I'm just putting out the idea that co-ops could replace small businesses under communism.

[mykittyhasaboner]

I think everyone is totally missing the point of this post. I know that co-ops by themselves don't challenge capitalism, I'm just putting out the idea that co-ops could replace small businesses under communism.

I guess that depends on how you would define a 'co-op'. Would you care to elaborate? If we've missed any point it's because you haven't really made one. All you've said is along the lines of "lets make everything community owned" and claimed that it's the basis for socialism.

The example you gave certainly wouldn't be replacing anything. A small enterprise in a communist society would not be funded by a generous retired farmer. Nor would any kind of this "buying local" sentiment make any sense in a society absent of the economic laws of monopoly capitalism.

[Robocommie]

Now wait wait wait. A question regarding the recent Anarchist comment on cooperatives - if a nationalized economy as seen in the Soviet Union is state capitalism, and inimical to everything that socialism stands for, and a mutualist economy where businesses are owned by the workers is "workers capitalism" and inimical to everything that socialism stands for, then just what the hell is left? What is socialism according to this view?

[Robocommie]

I guess that depends on how you would define a 'co-op'. Would you care to elaborate? If we've missed any point it's because you haven't really made one. All you've said is along the lines of "lets make everything community owned" and claimed that it's the basis for socialism.

The example you gave certainly wouldn't be replacing anything. A small enterprise in a communist society would not be funded by a generous retired farmer. Nor would any kind of this "buying local" sentiment make any sense in a society absent of the economic laws of monopoly capitalism.

I don't think it does much good to ride him so hard, man. His idea isn't an awful one, and while it may not be as wide in scope as a socialist or communist society would necessitate, I think his heart is at least in the right place by thinking communally. And as for the "buying local" sentiment, it reminds me of the old phrase, think globally, act locally.

[mykittyhasaboner]

I don't think it does much good to ride him so hard, man. His idea isn't an awful one, and while it may not be as wide in scope as a socialist or communist society would necessitate, I think his heart is at least in the right place by thinking communally. And as for the "buying local" sentiment, it reminds me of the old phrase, think globally, act locally.

I don't think I'm "riding him hard," I'm challenging his position.

[A.R.Amistad]

I guess that depends on how you would define a 'co-op'. Would you care to elaborate? If we've missed any point it's because you haven't really made one. All you've said is along the lines of "lets make everything community owned" and claimed that it's the basis for socialism.

The example you gave certainly wouldn't be replacing anything. A small enterprise in a communist society would not be funded by a generous retired farmer. Nor would any kind of this "buying local" sentiment make any sense in a society absent of the economic laws of monopoly capitalism.

Exactly my point, I did not say that co-ops are the basis for anything, I was saying that it would be a good idea to hve this sort of thing under a communist system as comrade Robocommie said with his theatre example. I don't see setting up a co-op as a revolutionary act, I'm just saying that if someone wanted to start a restaurant under socialism they could do it this way.

[A.R.Amistad]

I think everyone on here is discussing their own thing. I'm talking about the fa distant future when everyone thinks I'm talking about the here and now. Maybe I shouldn't have posted the article and just described my idea for a socialist form of "entrepenuership" (for lack of a better word, I know its hackneyed)


In essence they are the same thing. "Community" or even worker controlled restaurants (or any enterprise) that exist in isolation operate with the same fundamental logic that other all other capitalists use.

see, we aren't talking about the same thing. You are thinking I'm advocating revolution based on co-ops. I'm talking about co-ops in a communist system, so they would therefore be totally connected. Only under capitalism are such co-ops isolated.

[Robocommie]

I don't think I'm "riding him hard," I'm challenging his position.

Sure but you don't need to be so aggressive and snide about it, ease up a little. Civility never hurt anyone.

[soyonstout]

Sorry Amistad I think I wasn't sure at first what was meant, and now that I look back you didn't say that co-ops would be the basis for anything. I think I perhaps just wanted to have it said that before the bourgeois states are destroyed and the world market along with them, trying to use co-ops can become very dicey.


Now wait wait wait. A question regarding the recent Anarchist comment on cooperatives - if a nationalized economy as seen in the Soviet Union is state capitalism, and inimical to everything that socialism stands for, and a mutualist economy where businesses are owned by the workers is "workers capitalism" and inimical to everything that socialism stands for, then just what the hell is left? What is socialism according to this view?

What is left is production based on need determined democratically by all the producers around the whole world. Marx & Engels always insisted (and it stands to reason) that socialism can only really exist in a world where the world market is destroyed--there can be no question of socialism in one country. Thus, the nationalization of production is in no way socialism because socialism must be international--in fact there can be no question of making socialism in countries where the workers have overthrown the bourgeoisie until workers are victorious in many (perhaps most) advanced countries. Certainly there are measures workers could take that might help the workers, but ultimately, if that country has to trade on the world market, it will have to be competitive (i.e. lower wages, force people to work long hours, produce as cheaply as possible, etc.)--thus the primary goal should be the extension of the revolution.

The state cannot be identified with the revolution even when the bourgeoisie are overthrown: firstly because the state is national and again is dealing with bourgeois nations, making treaties, trading products produced by workers trying to be competitive, etc., secondly because whatever type of administrative body arises after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the state will not just be the workers until the whole non-exploiting population internationally have become workers, at which point the state ceases to exist.

Worker-managed enterprises also does not get rid of the world market. Workers in a co-op are selling their products on the capitalist marketplace and if they don't want to go out of business they will have to pay themselves as little as the capitalists pay their own workers, otherwise no-one but ethical people with lots of extra money would buy their products and they would basically just be living a life subsidized by middle-class guilt--something that is certainly not possible for most workers.

I don't know if I was being referred to above, but I'm not an anarchist. I would say that socialism is the destruction of production based on accumulation and its replacement with production for need, totally and at every step regulated by the producers, for the sake of enriching the life of the producer and enriching his productive activity--as such it can only be international, directly democratic, and ruthlessly aimed at the elimination of all that is onerous about labor under capitalism.