By Noah Rothman
Monday, November 17, 2025
Michael Barone saw the still nascent ideological schism
roiling both major political parties today coming in the spring of 2023. He
foresaw the isolationist nationalism that is presently vying for primacy on the
right, and he forecast a socialist rebellion that would attempt to supplant
both liberalism and even progressivism on the left. The latter group he
offhandedly branded the vanguard of what he called “barista socialism.”
It was a useful pejorative — a sobriquet with teeth that
nevertheless succinctly described the cutting edge of the revolutionary
political left who bear little resemblance to the proletarian avatars Marx
himself believed would lead the revolution.
In the Marxian imagination, the tip of the socialist
upheaval’s spear was dispossessed by the factory labor system. He worked long
hours in dangerous conditions. She had limited access to formal education and
owned none of the tools of her trade. They were cogs in a ruthless machine.
Their substance depended entirely upon their employer, and the lack of
competition for their labor ensured that its “surplus value” would be exploited
to the fullest — at which point the expendable worker would be discarded.
The Marxian ideal never comported with the reality of the
revolutionary socialist movement, the highest ranks of which are historically
glutted with comfortable, well-educated theorists who can count on enough
material security to spend their time romanticizing about revolutionary
politics. In that sense, the world has been afflicted by “barista socialism”
for well over a century.
But what was once a practical metaphor evolved into
something far more literal in recent days as America’s self-described
socialists and their allies mount a full-court press on behalf of the
subjugated and oppressed who languish behind the counter at your local
Starbucks.
“Starbucks workers across the country are on an Unfair
Labor Practices strike, fighting for a fair contract,” New York City
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani wrote last week. He urged his followers to
boycott the ubiquitous coffee shop in support of a strike by roughly 1,000 of
Starbucks’ 240,000 or so baristas — a labor action that threatens to balloon
this week if the barista union’s demands are not met. “No contract,” he wrote,
“no coffee.”
Mamdani wasn’t alone. The incoming socialist mayor of
Seattle, Katie Wilson, joined striking Starbucks workers on a picket
line over the weekend, where she, too, endorsed a boycott. “Baristas make
Starbucks an extraordinarily wealthy company,” she
insisted. Senator Bernie
Sanders agreed. Any company that can afford to “pay $96 million to its CEO”
can provide its workers “a living wage and decent benefits,” he wrote. “It’s
ridiculous that baristas are STILL fighting for a living wage and fair labor
practices,” Seattle-area Representative Pramila
Jayapal inveighed.
With a cheering section like this, it’s no wonder the
Starbucks union anticipates the “largest, longest strike” in the company’s history.
Starbucks “is surviving off the dregs of its reputation,” one disgruntled
worker wrote in a USA Today op-ed. The author laments that his
$17-per-hour wage is insufficient to cover rent, basic necessities, and his
mother’s medical expenses in pricey Chicago. And he chafes even more knowing
that the company’s C-suite executives enjoy nine-figure pay packages and attend
multi-million-dollar conferences to which they sojourn on private jets.
The displeased employee insists he and his fellow
strikers only want to improve their conditions as well as the customer
experience. Some employees insist they don’t get enough working hours to
qualify for the company’s admittedly generous benefits — among them, a
compensation package worth $30 per hour, 18 weeks paid family leave, and 100
percent tuition for a four-year college degree. They want more hours, higher
pay, and more staff to reduce customer wait times. Starbucks management claims,
however, that the union’s proposals would “significantly alter Starbucks’
operations,” NBC News reported, “such as giving workers the ability to
shut down mobile ordering if a store has more than five orders in the queue.”
So, which is it? More staff and shorter wait times, or fewer workers making
better pay for doing less?
So far, the impasse has persisted. The small number of
unionized Starbucks workers relative to the firm’s total number of employees
suggests this conflict would likely go unnoticed but for the intervention of
America’s youngish socialist agitators. Their fight is illustrative of the
quality of the cause to which the socialist left is attracted, as well as the
supposed proletarian cadres that are among the most class-conscious factions in
American politics.
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