Abolish restaurants

[Djehuti]

ABOLISH RESTAURANTS
a worker's critique of the food service industry



FOREWORD


"When one comes to think of it, it is strange that thousands of people in a great modern city should spend their waking hours swabbing dishes in hot dens underground. The question I am raising is why this life goes on--what purpose it serves, and who wants it to continue..."
--George Orwell

Your back hurts from standing up for 6, 10 or 14 hours in a row. You reek of seafood and steak spices. You've been running back and forth all night. You're hot. Your clothes are sticking to you with sweat. All sorts of strange thoughts come into your head.

You catch bits and pieces of customers' conversations, while having constantly interrupted ones with your co-workers. "Oh isn't it nice, this restaurant gives money to that save-the-wolves charity." "I can't believe she slept with him. What a slut!" "Yeah, the carpenters are giving us problems. They want more money." "So he says to me, 'I think my escargots are bad,' and I say 'What do you expect? They're snails' AHAHAHAHAHAHAH."

No time to worry about relationship problems, or whether you fed your cat this morning, or how you're going to make rent this month, a new order is up.

The same song is playing again. You're pouring the same cup of coffee for the two-top in the window--the same young couple out on a second date. You give them the same bland customer service smile, and turn and walk by the same tacky decorations and stand in the same place looking out at the dining room floor. Behind you, the busser is scraping the same recycled butter off a customer's plate back into a plastic butter container. This is more than deja-vu.

It's election time. A waitress has three different tables at once. The customers at each table are wearing buttons supporting three different political parties. As she goes to each table she praises that party's candidates and program. The customers at each table are happy and tip her well. The waitress herself probably won't even vote.

One night the dishwasher doesn't show up. The dishes start to pile up. Then one of the cooks tries to run the dishwasher and he finds that it doesn't work. The door is dented and the wires cut. No one hears from that dishwasher again.

That's it! The last demanding customer. The last asshole manager. The last fight with a co-worker. The last smelly plate of mussels. The last time your burn or cut yourself because you're rushing. The last time you swear you're giving notice tomorrow, and find yourself swearing the same thing two weeks later.

A restaurant is a miserable place.

All the restaurants that have had flowery write-ups in the newspaper, that serve only organic, wheat-free, vegan food, that cultivate a hip atmosphere with suggestive drawings, still have cooks, waiters and dishwashers who are stressed, depressed, bored and looking for something else.

----

Read the whole text at:
http://www.polkagris.nu/ar/aronline/index.html or
http://www.prole.info/ar/index.html



PDF-versions and an only text-version of the text can be found at:
http://www.prole.info/


---

The old thread:
http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...=ST&f=6&t=56455 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=6&t=56455)

[JKP]

I briefly skimmed over it, but I couldn't see why a restaurant is so special that it needs to be abolished versus another workplace (like a factory) which has similar conditions.

Assembly line food preparation coupled with robotic servants is the long term communist solution.

[Lamanov]

It's excellent.

The Serbian translations are mine.


Originally posted by JKP+--> (JKP)I briefly skimmed over it, but I couldn't see why a restaurant is so special that it needs to be abolished versus another workplace (like a factory) which has similar conditions.[/b]

Next time don't "skimm over"...

See here:


Originally posted by [email protected]
Restaurants aren't strategic. They aren't the hub of value-creation in the capitalist economy. They are just one battlefield in an international class war that we're all a part of whether we like it or not.


AR
Our fight isn't against the act of chopping vegetables or washing dishes or pouring beer or even serving food to other people. It is with the way all these acts are brought together in a restaurant, separated from other acts, become part of the economy, and are used to expand capital. The starting and ending point of this process is a society of capitalists and people forced to work for them. We want an end to this. We want to destroy the production process, as something outside and against us. We're fighting for a world where our productive activity fulfills a need and is an expression of our lives, not forced on us in exchange for a wage--a world where we produce for each other directly and not in order to sell to each other. The struggle of restaurant workers is ultimately for a world without restaurants or workers.

[Whitten]

Not this again. Theres no need to abolish resturants, just like there's no point abolishing other means of production. The Product is good its the owners that need to be abolished.


We want to destroy the production process

That wont serve anyones interest. Its completly utopian.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by Whitten quotes+--> (Whitten quotes)We want to destroy the production process[/b]


Originally posted by Full [email protected]
We want to destroy the production process, as something outside and against us.


Whitten
That wont serve anyones interest. Its completly utopian.

I suggest you warm up your chair and studdy, hard. Start with Marx. Best of luck.

[StartToday]

My dad works at a restaurant and he absolutely loves his job.

[JKP]

Originally posted by DJ-TC+February 17, 2007 04:07 am--> (DJ-TC @ February 17, 2007 04:07 am) It's excellent.

The Serbian translations are mine.


Originally posted by JKP+--> (JKP)I briefly skimmed over it, but I couldn't see why a restaurant is so special that it needs to be abolished versus another workplace (like a factory) which has similar conditions.[/b]

Next time don't "skimm over"...

See here:


[email protected]
Restaurants aren't strategic. They aren't the hub of value-creation in the capitalist economy. They are just one battlefield in an international class war that we're all a part of whether we like it or not.


AR
Our fight isn't against the act of chopping vegetables or washing dishes or pouring beer or even serving food to other people. It is with the way all these acts are brought together in a restaurant, separated from other acts, become part of the economy, and are used to expand capital. The starting and ending point of this process is a society of capitalists and people forced to work for them. We want an end to this. We want to destroy the production process, as something outside and against us. We're fighting for a world where our productive activity fulfills a need and is an expression of our lives, not forced on us in exchange for a wage--a world where we produce for each other directly and not in order to sell to each other. The struggle of restaurant workers is ultimately for a world without restaurants or workers. [/b]
That's not news to anyone. I'm asking why we need to abolish restaurants?



I suggest you warm up your chair and studdy, hard. Start with Marx. Best of luck.

I'm quite sure he spoke about taking over the means of production, and not doing something reactionary like dismantling them.

[Hit The North]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 12:31 pm
Assembly line food preparation coupled with robotic servants is the long term communist solution.
I hope that's not in your manifesto, comrade :rolleyes:

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 02:41 pm
That's not news to anyone. I'm asking why we need to abolish restaurants?

Because they are miserable?

Dude chose restaurants because labor division, stress and automation are most obvious in them, of almost all the workplaces. And, of course, he chose them because he works in a restaurant.

Labor in service industry cannot be made creative and playfull in any significant way. If workers are to be emancipated the whole production process in the service industry must be replaced with something completely different. Something which will not create stress, automation, humiliation, and waste.


I'm quite sure he spoke about taking over the means of production, and not doing something reactionary like dismantling them.

I know that, but he doesn't see that simply running the damn process as a collective isn't good enough. It only brings worse conditions in play.

The point is in destroying the production process as alienation, everywhere, not just in restaurants. We must abolish service as commodity. That's what "abolishing restaurants" really means.

[Whitten]

Originally posted by DJ-[email protected] 17, 2007 03:04 pm
I know that, but he doesn't see that simply running the damn process as a collective isn't good enough. It only brings worse conditions in play.

The point is in destroying the production process as alienation, everywhere, not just in restaurants. We must abolish service as commodity. That's what "abolishing restaurants" really means.
Abolishing labour as a commodity doesn't mean abolishing labour, or destroying the means of production. It means collectivisng them according to the principles "from each..." (you know how it goes).

[Eleutherios]

Well still, people are going to need to provide services for others. People in communist societies are going to want to eat out sometimes, and somehow people who are good at cooking are going to have to make sure there is good food at these places. Perhaps something could be arranged for a restaurant without waiters, but a restaurant without cooks is not something we're going to see a lot of anytime soon. Abolishing restaurants is just crazy, and abolishing all services even crazier. I want there to be mechanics, doctors, cooks, bus drivers, snow plowers, plumbers and barbers who can provide services for me much better than I could ever do them myself.

[The Anarchist Prince]

I work in a restaurant. I'm only 17, and can safely say I wouldn't work in one once over 21. It's a decent place, I get paid well, can dictate my shifts, and pretty much run the hiring's of new dishwashers. I get free food, and drinks. Unlimited. There is air conditioning in the kitchen during the summer. I realize this is one restaurant, but most everyone enjoys working there to a degree, despite their failed college escapades. Restaurants aren't going to be phased out anytime soon though.

[Djehuti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 05:17 pm
[QUOTE=DJ-TC,February 17, 2007 03:04 pm]
Abolishing labour as a commodity doesn't mean abolishing labour, or destroying the means of production. It means collectivisng them according to the principles "from each..." (you know how it goes).
We don't need to destroy all means of production. But they can not always function in the same ways that they do today. Communism has completly different goals than capitalism and thus we will design our production in a different fashion. Technology is seldom completly neutral as some people imagine.

The Capitalist Use of Machinery: Marx Versus the Objectivists
By: Raniero Panzieri

http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/panzieri.html

[Djehuti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 03:41 pm

I'm quite sure he spoke about taking over the means of production, and not doing something reactionary like dismantling them.

Ofcource we need to change the process of production just like we change the rest of society. Communism will be nothing like capitalism. Do you really imagine that it is enough to change the ownership of the companies? That would be just another form of capitalism. There will not be any companies at all under communism and the work places will successivly be changed and remodeled (capitalism does that to, workplaces today look very different from work places 100 or even 50 years ago). Lenin thought it enought to simply import the most advanced industrial technology and design from the big european companies, but such thought derives from a kind of capitalist mindset. People always have a hard time thinking beyond what is and what was, but that is just what we have to do.




Restaurants for exempel is a something pure capitalist, it has not existed previously in history and it wont exist after capitalism. We will still need food and we will still make food (and we will still make food for others), but not in companies and not in resturants.

[The Grapes of Wrath]

Dude, if you abolish restaurants ... where will the rest of us go on dates! Even (especially) a "concert and a bag of pot date" must eat!

Not only that, where do you employ all of those engaged in restauranting?

Besides, I don't want to cook all the fuckin' time ... I can't cook worth shit.

TGOW

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

It's a fascinating idea, but I'm not entirely sold on it. Obviously it has been a way of earning money in a sort of unnatural way, but at the same time there are some people who just can't cook worth a damn, or need a quick bite to eat out of town, or want to enjoy different surroundings. I think instead of destroying the industry there need to be massive overhauls as far as conditions, health, hours and the fact that I will never be able to eat at the Four Seasons. Once the damned profit idea is banished this will be much easier.

My best friend works at a restaurant. The surroundings are nice, the work easy, the atmosphere laid back, and his co-workers fun. Yet he has terrible hours (late nights, even on school days) and the managers has broken countless labour laws. My friend keeps contesting this but he gets ignored.

[Whitten]

Restaurants for exempel is a something pure capitalist, it has not existed previously in history and it wont exist after capitalism.

Thats completly incorrect, food serving inn, pubs and taverns have been a big part of European culture dating way way back into the feudal times. They were main socializing places for village and town communities and a part of peasent and proletarian culture.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I appreciate the service and goods offered at restaurants as much if not more than the service served by the people who made this computer I'm using. I don't see how material conditions can alter this desire. I'm willing and able to spend my salary on restaurants and I don't understand how equality can possibly render my salary too low for the service of a restaurant staff, no matter how just or egalitarian their salary is.

[JKP]

That's not news to anyone. I'm asking why we need to abolish restaurants?


Because they are miserable?

As is every other capitalist workplace.


Labor in service industry cannot be made creative and playfull in any significant way. .

Looks like someone read a certain article by Bob Black.

So what you're really trying to say is abolish the service industry then?

Think about that for a moment.


If workers are to be emancipated the whole production process in the service industry must be replaced with something completely different. Something which will not create stress, automation, humiliation, and waste.

Hence automation.


The point is in destroying the production process as alienation, everywhere, not just in restaurants. We must abolish service as commodity. That's what "abolishing restaurants" really means.

We're here to abolish all commodities.



Restaurants for exempel is a something pure capitalist, it has not existed previously in history and it wont exist after capitalism.

Lots of things have not existed before capitalism. Like computers and modern medical technology.

With the exception of some primitivists, no one wants to abolish that.


We will still need food and we will still make food (and we will still make food for others), but not in companies and not in resturants.

Why can't I eat in a restaurant?

[Lamanov]

First of all, I never touched Bob Black scripts. I like going to the original stuff.

Second, you're missing the point and trying to trick your way out. You should stop and think: when you say abolishing commodities, that means restructuring whole production process and labor division. There will still be places for service, food and atmnosphere combined, but they will not resemble modern restaurants in the sphere of production process. It's change will reflect on its external appearence and functioning. How? I dare not to speculate.

You're only thinking in context of a method of change, but not of the relationship itself.

[JKP]

Originally posted by DJ-[email protected] 17, 2007 05:54 pm
First of all, I never touched Bob Black scripts. I like going to the original stuff.

Second, you're missing the point and trying to trick your way out. You should stop and think: when you say abolishing commodities, that means restructuring whole production process and labor division. There will still be places for service, food and atmnosphere combined, but they will not resemble modern restaurants in the sphere of production process. It's change will reflect on its external appearence and functioning. How? I dare not to speculate.

You're only thinking in context of a method of change, but not of the relationship itself.

Second, you're missing the point and trying to trick your way out. You should stop and think: when you say abolishing commodities, that means restructuring whole production process and labor division. There will still be places for service, food and atmnosphere combined, but they will not resemble modern restaurants in the sphere of production process. It's change will reflect on its external appearence and functioning. How? I dare not to speculate.

Surely you can give us an example of how you think things might work?

[EwokUtopia]

As a former dish monkey, I agree....worst bloody job concievable, especially because my bosses were right wing assholes who wanted to suck Mike Harris's cock (any Ontarians here?). Hah, I was nearly fired once for showing up in a sickle and hammer t-shirt. My bosses told me I was going to offend the veterans and the Albanian chef (very anti-Hoxha) attempted to kill me. I was also briefly fired when my friend came in and stole the (free) jam they had at the table because the bosses pissed him off by not letting him get a kids meal. They also exploited one of the bosses mentally challenged sister by bringing her in to work without pay because she had the mentality of a 10 year old and didnt know any better.

It sucked flaming donkey balls. Worst part was it was my first job.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by DJ-[email protected] 17, 2007 10:54 pm
First of all, I never touched Bob Black scripts. I like going to the original stuff.

Second, you're missing the point and trying to trick your way out. You should stop and think: when you say abolishing commodities, that means restructuring whole production process and labor division. There will still be places for service, food and atmnosphere combined, but they will not resemble modern restaurants in the sphere of production process. It's change will reflect on its external appearence and functioning. How? I dare not to speculate.

You're only thinking in context of a method of change, but not of the relationship itself.
Then what the fuck is the point of this thread.

Restaurants won't exist in communism!

...actually we'll still have establishments where people can go, purchase food, and eat. But it will be different from contemporary restaurants.

:lol:

Shut the fuck up.

[manic expression]

From what I can gather, working in a restaurant sucks primarily because of lousy pay (oftentimes under minimum wage), completely ungrateful customers and the fact that it is pretty hard-working.

Well, the solution is to do away with the crappiness. A socialist society would not see bad pay for servicepeople, a**hole customers would be far less tolerated and the work would not be as demanding.

I've never worked as a waiter, so if anyone has worked as a waiter/waitress, feel free to add any other parts of the job that would need to be changed/abolished.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I think that a lot of people don't understand that ass-holes customers won't really exist in communism. At least not how it is in capitalism. The purpose of the service industry in capitalism is to cater to the customer's every demand, since the sole objective is satisfying them and making money. Not so in communism. This needs to be understood.

[Guerrilla22]

if you abolish restaraunts then working class people, often whom are trying to support a family will be out of a job. Let's work on abolishing capitalism as a whole, that's the real problem.

[Janus]

Last discussion on this document + topic (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=56455&hl=abolish+restaurants)

[Djehuti]

Originally posted by JKP+February 18, 2007 12:21 am--> (JKP @ February 18, 2007 12:21 am) As is every other capitalist workplace.

[/b]
Exactly, and that includes restaurants does it not? The restaurants in this text is an example no more, no less. The reasoning in the text can be applied to almost every other work place as well.



Guerrilla22
f you abolish restaraunts then working class people, often whom are trying to support a family will be out of a job. Let's work on abolishing capitalism as a whole, that's the real problem.

Ofcource. And the text also points this out. The text has never claimed that we should just abolish restaurants and then leave the rest as it is, that would be plain stupid.
It does not hurt to read a text before making critizism. ;)

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by JKP+--> (JKP)Surely you can give us an example of how you think things might work?[/b]

No.

But if it helps people will probably still call them 'restaurants'.


Dr. Rosenpenis
Then what the fuck is the point of this thread.
Restaurants won't exist in communism!
...actually we'll still have establishments where people can go, purchase food, and eat. But it will be different from contemporary restaurants.

Purchasing in communism?

Oh, well, when you put your solipsist imagination in motion I guess you could reach reality where people purchase stuff in society that abolished commodity production.

Wait! Did you only imagine me saying "purchase" [lie] or you actually see it in your solo reality?

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

You just made a post that didn't refute anything at all. There is really little intrinsic different between a "purchase" and the "act of obtaining an egalitarian share of the products of one's society". Or however the fuck you think the allocation of goods should be in communism.

Solipsism has no place in this discussion. I made it overwhelmingly clear in that thread that I am not a solipsist. You have no point to make in this thread. Get out of my face, ****.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by Dr. [email protected] 18, 2007 06:13 pm
You just made a post that didn't refute anything at all. There is really little intrinsic different between a "purchase" and the "act of obtaining an egalitarian share of the products of one's society". Or however the fuck you think the allocation of goods should be in communism.

Purchase is an act of exchange. Through it you alienate use values by giving equivalent values. Exchange stems from the fact that products are produced as their use value to the producer is equivalent only to its exchange value. Production process that creates such products - commodities - necessarily alienates labor and reproduces labor power - wage labor.

Difference: huge, obvious and crucially essential.


Solipsism has no place in this discussion. I made it overwhelmingly clear in that thread that I am not a solipsist.

Of course you did, what else could you have done...

[Vanguard1917]

Because they are miserable?

Not for people like to eat, drink, smoke (while you still can), chat, and generally have a good time.

They are miserable places only for puritan miserablists - people who specialise in condemning activities that people get pleasure from. Just like 19th century Victorian era Protestant puritans.


I couldn't see why a restaurant is so special that it needs to be abolished versus another workplace (like a factory) which has similar conditions.

Good point. Restaurants (along with pubs and bars) are special cases for these puritan miserablists because they are places where people go largely to enjoy themselves.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I work in a resturant...

If you want a culinary experience, food that would otherwise be difficult to serve at home, you go to a resturant.

Fast-food chains is a whole 'nother business.

Cleaning dishes is not very hard. It goes into a machine, you know. It is one of the easiest jobs in a resturant. Often it is a pause from the normally strenious jobs in the kitchen. I will have to say; Thank God for the dishwashing!

[Amusing Scrotum]

I'll add a disclaimer here: I've not read the text yet, so I apologise if it answers some of the points I'm going to raise. That being said, I'm going to bookmark this text because, for me anyway, it's interesting on both a personal level and a wider theoretical level.

Firstly, it's interesting on a personal level because I do work in a restaurant. And, judging by some of the responses in this thread, a lot of people seem to think that restaurant work is the pits -- but I quite enjoy it, to be honest.

Sure, the pays shit, the understaffing by management is a pain in the arse ... and so on. But the work, in and of itself, is something I enjoy.

That may sound strange to some people, but that's just the way I feel. I like it when I break down the bar and leave it in pristine condition -- the steel shining and the fridges full. I felt really good when I worked as a waiter and did 20 tables in the space of 2 hours without a single complaint. And I really like it when a customer appreciates you going out of your way for them -- whether that entails taking their drinks upstairs for them or just helping them select a decent wine.

Basically, it fills me with a sense of personal achievement.

I&#39;m not going to invent a cure for cancer, nor am I going to leave a lasting mark on this world. I know my potential, and it ain&#39;t great. But, to quote Douglas Coughlin, I do know how to pour whisky and run my mouth off. <_<

So, given that, and given that I&#39;ll hopefully see a communist society in my lifetime, this text does interest me on a personal level. After all, how will the serving of food and drinks be organised in a communist society? Hopefully, the text in question will answer that.

And that leads onto the wider theoretical question: the organisation of the service industry under communism.

Been as I don&#39;t want to provoke some semantical debate by using the term service industry, let me just say that by this I mean the basic stuff done by the service industry. That is, I kinda&#39; understand the point of abolishing restaurants as a business, but I still want to know how people think restaurants will operate under communism.

As I said, how will the serving of food and drinks be organised in a communist society? Again, hopefully the text will answer that question.

I realise that what I&#39;ve said above may seem like complete pish to most of you. But, I suppose you could call it my foreword to my response on the text -- which, with any luck, I&#39;ll find time to read soon.


Originally posted by DJ&#045;TC
Labor in service industry cannot be made creative and playfull in any significant way.

Fuey. Is this not "creative (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ydQPZPpCzlk)"? And how&#39;s this for "playfull (http://youtube.com/watch?v=K2WqDF-_3L8)"?

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by Amusing Scrotum+February 18, 2007 09:33 pm--> (Amusing Scrotum &#064; February 18, 2007 09:33 pm) Hopefully, the text in question will answer that. [/b]

Actually, it&#39;s only a critique of existing life in service industry. It says nothing about possible constructions it may take in communist society.


Amusing [email protected] 18, 2007 09:33 pm
Fuey. Is this not "creative (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ydQPZPpCzlk)"? And how&#39;s this for "playfull (http://youtube.com/watch?v=K2WqDF-_3L8)"?

Ehm. Kay. Not only bartending, but dee-jaying, cooking etc., can be quite fun... allot of times, it is... but that&#39;s not the point now, is it?

Service industry, in existing frames, does not come down to that alone. Right? Anyway, do read the text, it&#39;s really good.


We need to understand how it [service industry] might be reorganized (from the bottom upwards) in the totality of all changes that society will undergo.

This includes not only changes in service and production, taking over of workplaces and reorganizing them, but how those changes will reflect the wider will of the population as a whole. It will also have allot to do with the whole urban restructuring our existing life space according to new constructions and needs of life.

If we use our imagination and combine it with transcendece of essential elements of capitalist society (that&#39;s all we can use in this case) we might imagine a somewhat clear picture of how life and service industry will coexist and maintain each other.

Be assured, I personally do not see a world without places for atmnosphere, food, drinks, music, and foremost - socialization, meeting people, hanging out, but I&#39;m sure they will not resemble existing restaurants in precisely two things: sphere of production process and external composition.

[JKP]

Originally posted by Djehuti+February 18, 2007 03:26 am--> (Djehuti &#064; February 18, 2007 03:26 am)
[email protected] 18, 2007 12:21 am
As is every other capitalist workplace.


Exactly, and that includes restaurants does it not? The restaurants in this text is an example no more, no less. The reasoning in the text can be applied to almost every other work place as well.

[/b]


So what you&#39;re really trying to say is abolish everything then.

Good luck with that&#33;

[Pandii]

Guerrilla22: Let&#39;s work on abolishing capitalism as a whole, that&#39;s the real problem.
Me: Agreed.

[OkaCrisis]

I&#39;ve been working in kitchens for 7 years, since I was 15 years old. I&#39;ve done it all: dishwashing, chef, sus-chef, garde-manger, line cook, bartender, waitress, buffet style, serving, intensive cleaning and maintenance, etc, etc, etc.

Points to consider: I like to cook, and I&#39;m damn good at it. Some people don&#39;t, and aren&#39;t.

Cooking for 100-200+ people in a day can be done by a reletively small team- there is no reason for every person to individually cook for themselves (or for only a couple of people), when doing it en masse can be so much more efficient.

There is no reason that in a communist society people like me will not want to cook for people. I guarantee you that we will be able to &#39;trade&#39; our skills for any good that we could imagine acquiring.

Kitchen work is my favourite kind of work (I&#39;ve worked in an office, a coffee shop, cashiering, cleaning and maintenance work, countless survey and phone jobs...) and if I was only paid adequately for it (ideally, not "paid" at all for it), I would never consider doing anything else.

But it should be noted that I have worked in many different kitchens in my time, and they vary greatly in terms of exploitativeness, legitimacy, and working conditions. Some are the worst places to work in the world, literally sweatshop conditions; dangerous, dirty, not enough time/materials/people/equipment to do the job... But when it&#39;s done right, kitchens really are the only places I&#39;ve ever honestly enjoyed working.

And let me tell you, people are alwaysgoing to enjoy eating.

[Amusing Scrotum]

The following is something that struck me right away, and something that is relevant to some of the mistakes made by people in this thread.


Originally posted by prole.info+--> (prole.info)The first restaurants began to appear in Paris in the 1760&#39;s...[/b]

I tried to think of "restaurants" prior to this point; that is, I tried to mentally visualise what the places where people gathered to eat looked like. And the first thing that came into my head, was a picture of the grand banquets of feudal lords.

They were, in a certain sense, the "restaurants" of feudalism.

The restaurants of capitalism are the TGI&#39;s, the McDonald&#39;s, and so on. And when, say, DJ-TC says he wants to "abolish restaurants", I&#39;m guessing he means that he wants to abolish the current restaurant in the way that capitalism abolished the feudal "restaurant".

Thinking about it like that made his points a lot clearer. So hopefully, the explanation above will clear up some of the confusion in this thread. (Unless, of course, I&#39;ve totally missed the mark here -- which is a possibility.)

The rest of the section entitled "WHAT IS A RESTAURANT?" expands upon what I&#39;ve said above. Giving more details on how the "restaurant" became the restaurant, if you know what I mean.
_ _ _ _ _

Another point to make on the text and this thread: the writer sees restaurants as something other than places to eat. To him or her, they represent somewhere to drink and eat in the capitalist epoch. And that seems to have caused some confusion in this thread.

"The struggle between restaurant workers and restaurant management is just as much a part of restaurants as the food, wine, tables, chairs, or check presenters." -- from ABOLISH RESTAURANTS.
_ _ _ _ _


Originally posted by prole.info+--> (prole.info)This last function of tipping can be lessened in restaurants where tips are pooled.[/b]

I do think, personally, that when restaurant workers become seriously organised, this will become the norm. As the writer correctly points out "[tipping] re-enforces the hierarchy in the restaurant". That is, you&#39;ll often see a waiter shout at a chef, but you&#39;ll rarely see a chef shout at a waiter.

When someone&#39;s after a good tip, they can become a right ****.


[email protected]
We&#39;ll tell the customers we&#39;re out of something if we&#39;re too busy to get it for them. We&#39;ll recommend the food that is the most expensive or the easiest to prepare.

To be honest, there&#39;s no better feeling than when you bullshit someone into buying something else because you can&#39;t be arsed to get what they want from the stores.

Oh, sir, you don&#39;t want wine X; wine Y is much better. In fact, it&#39;s spectacular.

Never mind the tincy wincy detail that you think wine is rank&#33; <_<


prole.info
They can be ... drunken assholes

Another thing that I think will be demanded by organised restaurant workers: bouncers.

Chain restaurants, in particular, tend to be located in a cities drinking area. The area where you&#39;ll find the Weatherspoons and so on. And given how people can become when they have a few, it&#39;s completely unreasonable to expect restaurant workers top deal with their crap.

Anyone&#39;s who&#39;s been working when 10 drunken arses come in and make a nuisance of themselves knows just how vulnerable you feel when they&#39;re there. It&#39;s a really horrible feeling.
_ _ _ _ _

The section "WORK GROUPS" is really good, by the way.
_ _ _ _ _

Very good piece that, well worth the time spent reading it.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by Amusing [email protected] 19, 2007 06:47 am
And when, say, DJ-TC says he wants to "abolish restaurants", I&#39;m guessing he means that he wants to abolish the current restaurant in the way that capitalism abolished the feudal "restaurant".

Thinking about it like that made his points a lot clearer. So hopefully, the explanation above will clear up some of the confusion in this thread. (Unless, of course, I&#39;ve totally missed the mark here -- which is a possibility.)

No, you&#39;re right, you got it.

Anyway, this is why I allways insist on actually reading something in question.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

This thread is totally ridiculous. DJ-TC, I applaud you in totally dodging my actual arguments by bringing up entirely irrelevant topics and debating semantics. This topic is about making pointless guesses about what the fucking service industry will be like after communism is established. Or for simply pointing out the obvious fact that the service sector will change in the future.

[Lamanov]

You should applaud me for addressing your statement about &#39;purchasing&#39; in communist society.

Besides that one, you made no other &#39;arguments&#39;.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

The argument is "What&#39;s the point of this thread if nobody is proposing that restaurants become obsolete?" Answer: to make baseless guesses. You just forgot because you side-tracked yourself with pointless semantics and irrelevancies.

[red_orchestra]

Not all restaurants are bad places to work&#33; Work is work.... managers are managers - not all are bad.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Being a cook or waiter can be difficult, like all jobs in capiitalism.
The working hours are not very flexible, in fact a lot of cooks work from 11 in the morning to 11 pm, often without ever eating food. Then they go home, sleep, and the next day go to work 8 am&#33;

Many cooks lose their social life because they want to be a cook.

Like mentioned the wage is crap, but such is life in many professions under capitalism.

And naturally you ultimately serve the owner.

Maybe in a communist society we will not see such inhumane working hours. And us cooks wouldn&#39;t have to think about getting a crap wage, and we wouldn&#39;t be working for an owner.

That would certainly be nice.

I still think it will be a demanding profession. Not just to the extreme degree that it is today.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Dr. Rosenpenis
The argument is "What&#39;s the point of this thread if nobody is proposing that restaurants become obsolete?"

The "point of this thread", as it were, is to inform people of a reasonably decent text about restaurant work. If you bother to read the text, you&#39;ll understand how silly all the debate in this thread has been.

Basically, "point of this thread" is to promote a text that critiques the restaurant industry -- and not to debate the title of the text whilst ignoring the content.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:31 am
I briefly skimmed over it, but I couldn&#39;t see why a restaurant is so special that it needs to be abolished versus another workplace (like a factory) which has similar conditions.

Assembly line food preparation coupled with robotic servants is the long term communist solution.
I&#39;ve worked both on assembly lines and at restuarants. serving people was much harder I found, more back breaking. and I&#39;ve done heavy industry work. it&#39;s often not necessarily the nature of food service as it is the fact that there is a narrower margin of profit in a smaller &#39;family owned&#39; kind of place, so they work you pretty hard.

I don&#39;t think they should be abolished but radically changed. customer service bollix should be considered bourgeois.

I like your solution though&#33;

good article as well.

[krakatoan]

Most of the service sector is useless.
Maimum reduction of this sector is desireable.
You don&#39;t need janitors, maids, or baggage boys at supermarkets. We can divide this work and/or do it ourselves.
Then, all the former workers of the third sector, can turn into the first (agriculture) or the second (industry). This way, production would not be reduced at all (maybe increased), but working hours will. This way we can have a lot of leisure time, which is trhe most valuabe thing.
Yes, we will clean up by ourselves, and maby there wont be luxury cars cruising around, but I know I would change a lot of what I have for more leisure time.

This is my utopian vision.

Then quakityquak quak quak

[I&#39;d Rather Be Drinking]

I&#39;m glad some people who work in restaurants have had a chance to read my text. It was directed mainly to them. Thanks to Djehuti and DJ-TC for ably defending it and to Amusing Scrotum for asking people to actually read it before critiquing it.

Just to make a few things clear: it is a critique of restaurants as a critique of modern capitalist daily life. Restaurants are in fact less strategic than lots of other areas of the economy (such as transportation or manufacturing) but I happen to have spent the last 5 years of my life working in restaurants so I write about them. Restaurants should be abolished, like all other capitalist work places.

Restaurants are not a neutral transhistorical form. Restaurants are very specific to capitalism. It is charicteristic of bourgeois thought to view aspects of capitalism as eternal and natural for human society. Restaurants are particularly naturalized. Presumably if it were about construction workers and were entitled "Abolish construction contracting companies" this point would be more obvious. Restaurants are a way of feeding people that arises under capitalism. The real restaurant boom took place in the 19th century, coinciding with the creation of the modern working class, modern industrial capitalists and when commodity production became generalized--that is, when capital really siezed hold of the production process. Before this (i.e. under feudalism) capital existed mainly in circulation, merchant&#39;s capital. There was some commodity production, some food produced for sale (often for travelers and merchants, or very specialized, like pubs in England or wineries in France). Capitalist forms grew and developed under feudalism. The point is that when you have fully developed capitalism the way people are fed is largely through restaurants. If you a society without commodity production, without wage workers forced to work for capitalists the modern restaurant as we know it would disappear. This doesn&#39;t mean people wouldn&#39;t eat away from their homes (although the definition of home and public and private would likely change quite a bit as well). Following Marx, I don&#39;t want to lay out a utopian plan for how communist society will solve every need. Communism is most important as the present movement, not as the future society it will create.

One thing though is that a lot of the people responding to the comicbook seem to be unapolagetically defending certain aspects of capitalism. "Abolishing restaurants means putting people into unemployment." This is simple social-democratic bullshit. Communism is against work, and not in a flaky bob black "everything should be fun all the time" kind of way. Work today means the specialized activity of wage labor. And many so-called communists here seem to want to keep that. Communism means destroying the category "work" which surrounds productive activity. It means opening up all different categories to each other. It doesn&#39;t mean that everyone will have to learn every skill. As Marx writes:

"...in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."

I won&#39;t go all the way with Bakunin and say that all plans for the future are counter-revolutionary, but still, if you want to think about a communist society, the above quote from Marx seems to me to be an absolutely crucial point, and, in my opinion, one that draws a clear line between communists from social-democratic reformists. Food will be prepared under communism, it may be served to other people. There will be no cooks or waiters.

[Cheung Mo]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 02:33 am
As a former dish monkey, I agree....worst bloody job concievable, especially because my bosses were right wing assholes who wanted to suck Mike Harris&#39;s cock (any Ontarians here?). Hah, I was nearly fired once for showing up in a sickle and hammer t-shirt. My bosses told me I was going to offend the veterans and the Albanian chef (very anti-Hoxha) attempted to kill me. I was also briefly fired when my friend came in and stole the (free) jam they had at the table because the bosses pissed him off by not letting him get a kids meal. They also exploited one of the bosses mentally challenged sister by bringing her in to work without pay because she had the mentality of a 10 year old and didnt know any better.

It sucked flaming donkey balls. Worst part was it was my first job.
Oh believe me...Once shit starts going down in Ontario, the "Common Sense" Revolutionaries are going to be first to feel their asses in the fire.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

the "Common Sense" Revolutionaries

Who are the "Common Sense" Revolutionaries as you call them?

[OkaCrisis]

The Ontario Tories (Progressive Conservative Party) under Mike Harris in the mid-nineties declared their "Common Sense Revolution" as a series of new policies that cut billions of dollars from the province&#39;s social programs and education expenditures in order to produce a surplus which was intended to go towards huge income tax reductions for the middle and upper classes. It encountered mass opposition and resistance, especially from teachers, who were, among many other groups, specifically targetted by the speding cuts.

Wiki has a good article for background information on the Ontario "CSR": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense_Revolution

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Thanks :)

[Severian]

Originally posted by I&#39;d Rather Be [email protected] 24, 2007 04:25 am
Restaurants are not a neutral transhistorical form. Restaurants are very specific to capitalism. It is charicteristic of bourgeois thought to view aspects of capitalism as eternal and natural for human society. Restaurants are particularly naturalized. Presumably if it were about construction workers and were entitled "Abolish construction contracting companies" this point would be more obvious.
If you said "abolish construction contracting companies" probably most construction workers would perceive this as a call to abolish their jobs and put them out of work. A demand to abolish a workplace really doesn&#39;t make any sense as a way of communicating opposition to capitalist exploitation - most people in the world aren&#39;t going to understand it any differently than most people in this thread. Take control of a workplace, more like.

Now, the specific thing about restaurants, as opposed to other workplaces? They have a particular relationship to the family structure and to unpaid labor done inside the family, mostly by women.

Restaurants replace a form of work otherwise done, without pay, inside the family: cooking, washing dishes, etc. Their spread, the growing possibility of more and more of the population to use them more and more often - is a product, in part, of women&#39;s growing unwillingness to function as unpaid servants. And their growing economic independence.

Society in transition to communism will try to organize more and better restaurants or communal dining facilities or whatever you want to call them. As part of working towards the replacement of unpaid labor within the family unit with socially organized labor.

So "abolish restaurants" doesn&#39;t really point in the right direction - either as a call for struggle within capitalist society, or as an indication of how people will try to transform society, after a revolution/ during a transition to communism.

[I&#39;d Rather Be Drinking]

To reply to severian:

I completely agree with you that women&#39;s struggles can be seen as a direct precurser to the expansion of restaurants, or fast food at least. I&#39;m not making a call for the good ole days before restaurants.

I would not agree with you most restaurant workers would simply see the phrase "abolish restaurants" as an attack on their jobs. I think it just might strike a chord with many an angry restaurant worker, that&#39;s why I chose the title. But in any case, if someone were to actually read the comicbook, then the title is pretty clearly explained.

"Take control of the workplace", could communicate a lot of different things. By organizing and forcing changes on the boss, the workers could be said to be "taking control of the workplace". The problem with this is that it would logically be seen as advocating the self-management of a capitalist firm, a tendency that I think is very strong among people who call themselves "anarchists" and "communists" and needs to be harshly critiqued. In any case, I do not see my role as putting forward simple demands on behalf of other people.

As far as the question of "restaurants" vs. "dining halls" or some such thing. I don&#39;t want to get into a semantic argument. I think "restaurants" is a good word to describe how food is prepared for others under capitalism because the word came about to describe this. I am obviously not against serving food to others or cooking for others. At any rate, I think it is important to emphasize that communism is not simply taking over capitalist workplaces.

[Severian]

Originally posted by I&#39;d Rather Be [email protected] 25, 2007 12:23 am
"Take control of the workplace", could communicate a lot of different things. By organizing and forcing changes on the boss, the workers could be said to be "taking control of the workplace".
It&#39;s ambiguous, yes. But I gotta say that "organizing and forcing changes on the boss" is a form of the real-life class struggle. It&#39;s a step forward, and points the way to more struggle. Not sure that&#39;s the case with a slogan like "Abolish restaurants."

[I&#39;d Rather Be Drinking]

I&#39;m all for real life class struggle.

I just don&#39;t want to be interpreted as advocating worker run restaurants (that is: self-managed capitalism)--which is advocated by lots of people who call themselves anarchists or communists.

[LebaneseCommunistParty]

Originally posted by Dr. [email protected] 18, 2007 03:50 am
I think that a lot of people don&#39;t understand that ass-holes customers won&#39;t really exist in communism. At least not how it is in capitalism. The purpose of the service industry in capitalism is to cater to the customer&#39;s every demand, since the sole objective is satisfying them and making money. Not so in communism. This needs to be understood.
I agree. In any state, i think people should provide services to other people depending on their skills. But the hierarchical attitude of the customer would change as the customer is also providing a different kind of service for others. But "&#39;the customer is always right"&#39;is a very capitalistic statement if you think about it and this notion would not exist anymore.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 10:31 am
ABOLISH RESTAURANTS
a worker&#39;s critique of the food service industry



FOREWORD


"When one comes to think of it, it is strange that thousands of people in a great modern city should spend their waking hours swabbing dishes in hot dens underground. The question I am raising is why this life goes on--what purpose it serves, and who wants it to continue..."
--George Orwell

Your back hurts from standing up for 6, 10 or 14 hours in a row. You reek of seafood and steak spices. You&#39;ve been running back and forth all night. You&#39;re hot. Your clothes are sticking to you with sweat. All sorts of strange thoughts come into your head.

You catch bits and pieces of customers&#39; conversations, while having constantly interrupted ones with your co-workers. "Oh isn&#39;t it nice, this restaurant gives money to that save-the-wolves charity." "I can&#39;t believe she slept with him. What a slut&#33;" "Yeah, the carpenters are giving us problems. They want more money." "So he says to me, &#39;I think my escargots are bad,&#39; and I say &#39;What do you expect? They&#39;re snails&#39; AHAHAHAHAHAHAH."

No time to worry about relationship problems, or whether you fed your cat this morning, or how you&#39;re going to make rent this month, a new order is up.

The same song is playing again. You&#39;re pouring the same cup of coffee for the two-top in the window--the same young couple out on a second date. You give them the same bland customer service smile, and turn and walk by the same tacky decorations and stand in the same place looking out at the dining room floor. Behind you, the busser is scraping the same recycled butter off a customer&#39;s plate back into a plastic butter container. This is more than deja-vu.

It&#39;s election time. A waitress has three different tables at once. The customers at each table are wearing buttons supporting three different political parties. As she goes to each table she praises that party&#39;s candidates and program. The customers at each table are happy and tip her well. The waitress herself probably won&#39;t even vote.

One night the dishwasher doesn&#39;t show up. The dishes start to pile up. Then one of the cooks tries to run the dishwasher and he finds that it doesn&#39;t work. The door is dented and the wires cut. No one hears from that dishwasher again.

That&#39;s it&#33; The last demanding customer. The last asshole manager. The last fight with a co-worker. The last smelly plate of mussels. The last time your burn or cut yourself because you&#39;re rushing. The last time you swear you&#39;re giving notice tomorrow, and find yourself swearing the same thing two weeks later.

A restaurant is a miserable place.

All the restaurants that have had flowery write-ups in the newspaper, that serve only organic, wheat-free, vegan food, that cultivate a hip atmosphere with suggestive drawings, still have cooks, waiters and dishwashers who are stressed, depressed, bored and looking for something else.

----

Read the whole text at:
http://www.polkagris.nu/ar/aronline/index.html or
http://www.prole.info/ar/index.html



PDF-versions and an only text-version of the text can be found at:
http://www.prole.info/


---

The old thread:
http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...=ST&f=6&t=56455 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=6&t=56455)

Robot waiters. Problem solved. :P