No food or drinks in the library!

Mr. Gorbachev: tear down this wall!

MICHAEL SILICZ, STAFF

Mmmmmmmm . . . no one can mistake that delicious aroma! Getting out of bsed is tough enough, but luckily, there is a secret weapon — a deliciously tasty ally that helps make any morning a little bit easier. Quite simply, there is no better way to start your day off than with a nice, hot, steaming cup of — you guessed it — unfettered capitalism!

By now, most students have seen (if not smelled) the most recent edition to the Elizabeth Dafoe library. I’m of course referring to the delicious scent of a freshly brewed cup of Caffe Verona. If you haven’t yet seen the Starbucks yourself, you must simply see it to believe it. As soon as you walk into Dafoe, on your immediate left in the reference room will be a small area with posh leather couches, avant-garde décor and a transnational coffee corporation. Will Dafoe ever be the same?

While some students are excited to have another pit stop on campus that can satisfy their caffeine addictions, there are far many more who are taken aghast at the new Starbucks’ location. Most students see the Dafoe library as a sanctimonious house of learning that should be free from the grips of corporate sponsored branding.

I, however, am no such person. Rather, I see this as yet another successful story of glorious market forces entrenching further and further into every remaining sphere of our lives. It seems like it was only yesterday that people were furious that about ads above urinals in the bathroom. My, how far capitalism has come! The success of Starbucks infiltrating the heart of academia is something that needs to be applauded!

The Starbucks in Dafoe is of great benefit to everyone on campus. Besides creating delicious drinks, the new Starbucks generates a whole spur of positive benefits for the university. In addition to the jobs created, we all benefit from increased competition among campus chains that compete for our business. Before Starbucks, students had little choice for their coffee needs. There was Robins’ bland-tasting coffee, Tim Hortons’ coffee that cost you both money and time in line, and generic Aramark coffee that was probably brewed in an old ice cream pale. Now, with a Starbucks, those other chains will have to compete both in terms of quality and price. The net result is better service, cheaper prices and more choice. Who can argue with that?

But even better is the inevitable triumph of market forces themselves. With Dafoe down, who or what will stand in the way of corporate interests now? No one! It sure won’t be anyone at the university, as Starbucks has already struck at the heart of the campus.

But best of all, the new Starbucks creates more liberty and freedom for all of us at the U of M. No longer will we be forced to deal with monopolistic public-based firms and their decisions standing in the way of freedom and progress. Let me explain.

Everybody knows the signs all over campus libraries that scream “NO FOOD OR DRINKS IN THE LIBRARY.” Well, now that there’s an agent of capitalism on the inside, it looks like yet another authoritarian regime is about to fall to the mighty power of consumerism. No longer will we need to obey the oppressive rules of our Dafoe overlords. Just like when Ronald Regan demanded of his Soviet counterpart, “Mr. Gorbachev: tear down this wall,” I too demand of our obsolete library administration to “tear down those signs!” Because of Starbucks, soon we’ll be free to drink all the coffee we want anywhere on campus, even in the heart of the Dafoe library. Take that, Lenin!

Nothing stands in the way of capitalism and its progress. Benjamin Barber, one of the greatest political theorists of the post-Cold War era, wonders in his latest book, Consumed, why “when religion colonizes every sector of what should be our multidimensional lives, we call the result theocracy; and when politics colonizes every sector of what should be our multidimensional lives, we call the result tyranny. So why, it might be asked, when the marketplace — with its insistent ideology of consumption and its dogged orthodoxy of spending — colonizes every sector of what should be our multidimensional lives, do we call the result liberty?” Well, Mr. Barber, we call the result liberty because we’re free to choose what we want, even if those choices may not be in our own best interest. And while it is in my definite best interest to fight and keep my favourite study spot free from noisy, smelly and busy coffee chains, instead I’ll be waiting in line for some instant gratification from Starbucks!