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Article Excerpt
Contemporary theorizing on the development of alcohol-control systems has made great advances over both previous individual case studies and early cross-national comparisons of various attempts at achieving an equitable level of alcohol control in different national and temporal contexts. While providing greater insights and concrete public-policy prescriptions, recent scholarship on such alcohol-control systems has also provided a renewed focus on the role of the state in enacting particular regulatory restrictions and on the interplay of state-society relations in the development of such regulations. While the dynamics are quite similar, current models of resource distribution alluded to in much of the present literature are, as yet, inadequate for enhancing our collective understanding of various alcohol-control systems. As a step toward developing a model of state-society relations concerning the adoption of various national alcohol-control systems, what follows is an attempt to develop a zero-sum model of the interactions among three distinct potential beneficiaries of the alcohol trade: public health interests, government revenue, and private profit. Through the development of the following model, it is hoped that the complex interactions of both governmental and social actions and initiatives may be more fully understood, and that this framework may provide a potential typology for comparative analysis of alcohol-control systems. (1)
This article explores in greater detail the inter-workings of a triadic model, including ideal and de facto systems for the distribution of the benefits of the liquor trade, benefit flows to and from the three potential recipients, and means by which the triadic balance may be altered under different control regimes. First, however, it is necessary to define the terms and assumptions inherent in the triadic design and to examine each of the model's components in turn.
Assumptions
While the "liquor question" has been and is frequently addressed through various measures, including social control, law enforcement, and educational and health promotion campaigns, the following model addresses primarily what have come to be known as alcohol-control systems, or the development of those particular state structures that manage the production and distribution of alcohol (Makela et al., 1981). These systems are concerned with the economic aspects of the alcohol trade; yet while most economic analysis suggests particular "optimal" outcomes and stable Nash equilibria, the infusion of the alcohol issue with various value-laden sentiments--from the moralism of sobriety to the liberty of free-market capitalism--has resulted in a variety of radically different approaches to the control of alcohol. The triadic model presents both a typology and a model through which these alternate alcohol-control regimes may be compared through their differing distributions of a limited supply of positive benefits, thought of here as the perceptible advantages accruing to the cause of the following three potential recipients, or sectors:
--Public health and social order (H).
--Government revenue (R).
--Profits to individual entrepreneurs (P).
This system is based upon the dual assumptions that, first, the production and sale of alcohol is necessarily a net generator of monetary benefits to either the government or private entrepreneurs, and, second, these monetary benefits come at the direct expense of the health of the (stylized) general public that consumes the alcohol. Therefore the only way to increase the benefits to public health through alcohol-control systems--by reducing rates of consumption--comes at the direct expense of the monetary interests of the state or of entrepreneurs. In reality, the benefits to each recipient are nearly impossible to quantify, as potential returns to each actor are denominated in different terms (for example, benefits from taxes or rents to government revenue (R) or private profits (P) can easily be denominated in dollar terms, whereas a reduction in alcohol-related mortality (H) cannot). This difficulty of quantification may, at first glance, pose problems for the utility of the final product; but as we shall see, the fact that the relative benefit distributions can normally be ascertained means that the model can produce a useful typology for comparative endeavors.
These caveats aside, for the purposes of this model the benefits are construed as a zero-sum game among the three players, (H), (R) and (P)--meaning increased benefits to public health, for example, arise at the direct expense of benefits to government revenue and/or private profit; increased government revenue comes at the expense of public health and/or the pockets of entrepreneurs and profiteers; and increased benefits to private profit come at the expense of public health and/or government revenue. Figure 1 presents the triadic model in its most basic, non-dynamic form, presenting the three potential beneficiaries and the level of benefit accruing to each, indicated by the relative size of the corresponding cylinder representing each factor.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Model components
Given this brief introduction, it is now necessary to delve into each of sectors to which our benefits and resources may be distributed.
Public health and social order (H)
Most alcohol-control systems are based upon the axiom that alcohol consumed by the public without regulation of any type presents various and severe harms to the society in terms of decreasing quality of life, decreasing health indexes, including alcohol-related mortality, and increases in crime. All of these considerations detract from the general social order. The World Health Organization and countless public and private studies have documented the negative relationship between increased alcohol consumption and life expectancy, and a positive correlation with mortality rates, liver cirrhosis, suicide, homicide, traffic accidents, crime, and countless other social ills (Anderson, 1996, 1995; Harkin, 1995; Henderson et al., 1996; Hinds, 1999). Therefore the state is generally entrusted with the task of limiting these harms by curtailing alcohol consumption through a variety of means (Makela and Viikari, 1977). It is on this normative basis that the assumption is made that the state's top priority in alcohol-control policy should be the protection of public health and maintenance of social order, and therefore that the (H) sector be given the position of prominence at the pinnacle of the triadic pyramid.
Worthy of note is the fact that, opposed to the other two beneficiaries, benefits to public health cannot be easily denominated into monetary terms. Attempts at determining the loss to the overall economy from alcohol have been made by calculating the detriments to productivity through absenteeism, work-related injury, and potential losses to the workforce from premature death resulting in part from alcohol consumption (Knabe, 1985). Additionally, calculations take into consideration monetary losses in terms of theft, fires, and other crimes perpetrated by those in an intoxicated state. Such studies are only of peripheral interest to this analysis, as the results are far from exact and are subject to bias on many counts.
Furthermore, the (H) component, as opposed to the other two variables in this model, is usually denominated in negative terms and usually measured in terms of harms rather than benefits. Due to the...
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