Friday, April 8, 2011

Prohibition, Temperance, Bootlegging, Moonshine Dodging Taxes...A National Past Time

Prohibition, Temperance, Bootlegging, Moonshine
Dodging Taxes...A National Past Time

The arguments presented by the temperance movement seem perfectly reasonable at first glance. Most of them make vague social statements on how “King Alcohol” is destroying some aspect of their civilization. Though the parallels between now and then are extreme when it comes to the idea of drug use in the social strata. It is very tempting to be a sympathizer to the idea of Temperance, it is also just as easy to say that the idea of alcohol being banned is laughable. We easily forget that society, that our society, isn't just a snap shot of today that we conveniently supplicant into the stories of the past. We forget that our society has change and is changing. The winds of social pressures along with technological advances not to mention the changes in the political vanguard. Our rules change, our social structure changes and warps to new and different ideas and concepts.
The direct call for the prohibition of alcohol looks and sounds great. The end of drunkenness, the socially strange position that saloons take on would disappear. The spirits that so cloud and distort the mind of men and women alike would dry up and become a permanent part of the “Angels Share”. (The Angels Share, is the part of the alcohol that is soaked up by barrels when a distiller is aging brandy or rum, it runs about three percent of the volume.) The violence that comes from the hands of drunken man against his wife and family would end, the distracted actions of an alcoholic would fade from the fringes of society, the beggars hand would be cleaned with the tarnish of work. Boy, doesn't that sound great...?
Their arguments against “King Alcohol” and their depictions of the barkeep as a dastardly man trying to swindle the innocence of man from him at the end of a glass worked, and worked very well.
Everything was going great, the Temperance idea caught hold and Congress pressed by the power of social winds changed the Constitution. Wow. Could you imagine Congress being so persuaded by a single group of people...
Sadly, Temperance like its name was just a social fad, it would fade into the shadows just like the people who drank and produced alcohol. I believe that that Prohibitionist where correct in some of their social views and the points they bring up are valid. They wanted their streets and cities back from the dirt and filth that ran down the gutters. But they missed, they missed the main point of trouble shooting a problem. They found a symptom and focused on it, they missed the cause. The cause of their issues had somethings to do with the idea of alcohol, but they missed the point. It wasn't the consumption nor the production of it that was causing what they saw as society to fail. It was their society reaction to their new economy and migrations of people for it. (See the population distributions for that part of the century). It was the changing market place. If I was to place blame if I currently held the idea of Temperance it would be simply stated as a collective failure of the society to correctly adjust to market conditions and/or the individual seeking indulgence in the prospects of a socially economically locked society.
Tax Dodging...A National Past Time...
One aspect that the Temperance movement missed was the fact that back yard distillers/brewers where here at the beginning. These brewers where not just here to make a good time of it all, water at that time, and for centuries surrounding this time was lets just say, NOT SAFE TO DRINK. Safe water systems, and centralized control and standards for water are a new idea, like late 1910s and the first law concerning pollution and water wasn't passed till 1977. Brewers allowed for safe consumption of liquids. Even though it could be fun to indulge on.
The brewers of the early Americas did their trade to make extra money on the side by selling a service to his fellows. The Crown and the local government saw this trade as a legitimate source of revenue and thus sought to tax it. Faster then the tax man could move all the brewers equipment disappeared into the woods and was hidden from sight. Still the spirits and beer flowed, and flowed without duties paid. Along with the Revolutionary War, Rum was put of production due to the British embargo and blockade of molasses, so the Americans went after a new drink. Whiskey.
Alcohol is a part of this country's make up, we have been distilling in the back woods against the wishes of the taxman and government laws since the first Anglo European began to call this country home. This social aspect of alcohol was apparently lost to the minds of the Temperance movement. Like a hundred years earlier, the distillers just moved to the back woods and the spirits stilled flowed.

How this could be a Lesson....OMG!!!
The knee jerk reaction to a horrible social disease is to quickly call for its banishment and removal from society. That misses the point. Though it sounds great and one could almost sound like they could be from heaven preaching such things. But that doesn't answer the problem, it won't. The problem lies not with social fabric but more with an individual behavior in a market. Here, if something is horribly addictive and distorts the users mind, banning it would not stop the addiction nor the desire for it. How could it? The user would find another source. It is a pure capitalistic behavior and response to a market condition. So I say we answer the problems with social ills in much the same way they manifest, through markets and how we as individual react with the markets.

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