A cafe that prided itself on being anti-capitalist is closing down after just one year of operating after it failed to make any money.
The Anarchist, located in Toronto, Canada, describes itself as an “anti-capitalist, anti-colonial cafe, shop and radical community space on stolen land.” Which I guess wasn’t the USP that owner Gabriel Sims-Fewer thought it would be because he just shared this message on the cafe’s IG page:
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It’s been an amazing experience, connecting with so many great community members, sparking desperately needed debate, raising the blood pressure of Conservatives (that includes you, ‘anarcho-capitalists’ and ‘Libertarians’), fulfilling the dream of most service workers by not having to tolerate the presence of professional class-traitors (pigs and military), and experimenting with living and working in ways that don’t enthusiastically embrace the pure misanthropy of Capitalism.
Unfortunately, the lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources left me unable to weather the quiet winter season, or to grow in the ways needed to be sustainable longer-term.
Like any business, this ‘anti-capitalist cafe’ was trying to turn a profit in order to survive, so it sounds like a kind of capitalism squared situation where the guy was trying to capitalise on being anti-capitalist. In fact, the cafe had already come under criticism for going against its own values; ‘charging $5 for a coffee that costs 30 cents to make’. Although they did also have a pay-what-you-can drip coffee that anyone could order, so that’s nice.
At the end of the day though, the owner will feel that the swift demise of the cafe proves his point about capitalism. He’s up against Starbucks, Tim Hortons, and all the rest. It’s everyone’s fault except his own! Still, I’m not sure how a privately-owned business could be considered ‘anti-capitalist’ in the first place, or any business that’s trying to turn a profit for that matter. Just a marketing gimmick that (predicably?) failed, it seems. You live and you learn.
For the feminist vegan cafe that charged male customers 18% ‘man tax’, click HERE. That went out of business too.
