Coffee Zombie-Economy

Adam Kotsko makes me wonder whether I am indeed a zombie, the vanguard of late capitalism, or perhaps an individual product in the constitution of post-capitalism. Regardless, I like my French Roast espresso, half milk, natural cane sugar. I make it myself, so zombified am I.

"...the increased number of coffee shops will produce an increased demand for coffee. There are several vacant storefronts in the neighborhood that could easily be converted into coffee shops -- the "general store" that's been closed since I moved here, along with the "big and tall" store that is currently in the process of closing. These businesses belong to the "old economy." When they are converted to coffee shops, our neighborhood will become a major hub in the "new economy" -- producing not discrete commodities, but rather time itself in the form of sleeplessness. This will create a feedback loop prompting the coffee shops to stay open 24 hours; local residents will flock to them desperately, sensing that a headache of world-historical proportions awaits them if they allow caffeine withdrawal the slightest foothold.

Certainly we all laughed at The Onion's invocation of Starbucks' "sinister phase two" -- meaning that it struck a chord in our political unconscious. Yet it is only now that we are beginning to understand that Starbucks is not the primary agent in this "phase two" of coffee culture -- indeed, is just as much caught in the flow of events as anyone else. As our bodies adjust to the historic shift of coffee from a breakfast beverage to an all-purpose social and professional lubricant, biology and economics begin to work together to produce a condition that can only be described as the wholesale zombification of the populations of the advanced capitalist countries."