Repair cafés in the Netherlands: Capitalist abstinence as a challenge to a linear capitalist economy

Abstract

Repair cafés have become a common phenomenon in the Netherlands and some other European countries. In repair cafés, owners of broken objects and volunteer-repairers meet to try to salvage broken appliances. While their economic effect is negligible, repair cafés are a small step towards attaining a circular economy because they motivate their visitors to lead more sustainable lives. By extending the life-cycle of objects, by refusing payment and by criticizing producers who frustrate repair by impractical design, customers and volunteers challenge the capitalist mode of production.