Smashing the Liquor Machine

What Hacker News says

1. gxqozOct 2021
   I'm reading this interesting book on the global history of prohibition that challenges a lot of traditional narratives. [1] One novel thing in the air at the time was the rise of social science and scientific thinking. Before the early 20th century, there wasn't much hard data on how alcohol led to bad health and safety outcomes. Some of this research probably went too far (equating all alcohol to poison). But new awareness of the real dangers (and lack of evidence for many folk remedies of alcohol like warming you up) had a big impact in convincing people and governments to get on the temperance bandwagon.

   [1] Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition - https://www.amazon.com/Smashing-Liquor-Machine-History-Prohi.... Especially Chapter 14.

   Show morethread
2. hackerlightOct 2022
   This argument was used against alcohol in the early 1900s, according to Smashing the Liquor Machine.

   According to them, US alcohol prohibition was lobbied for, in some part, by the left, because they saw it as exploitation. We saw how that turned out.

   The same thing happened in Russia, where the Bolsheviks banned alcohol for a period, under the same justification.

   If a policy is known to lead to bad outcomes, it is not a moral policy, no matter the theory behind it.

   The left has started to realize this. That's why they now advocate for decriminalization, public health campaigns, and mental health support.

   Show morethread
3. hackerlightAug 2022
   I hope that parts (not all) of the political left that focus on this "exploitation by profitable property developers" narrative soon realize that this is a harmful framing of the situation.

   The left underwent a transformation in the early 1900s, when they first wanted to ban alcohol sales because they viewed the situation as greedy alcohol producers exploiting vulnerable alcoholics. It was part of the activism behind the prohibition movement in the US, according to Smashing the Liquor Machine, and it was the policy of the Bolsheviks early on to ban vodka for the same reasons. The narrative was a social justice one.

   Eventually they correctly realized that prohibition did more harm than good to vulnerable people, and the social justice stance nowadays (which I agree with) is to decriminalize.

   Building affordable market housing is not parasitical. If developers are making abnormal profits, then sure, look at ways to regulate (or deregulate, if barriers are the reason for monopoly profits) and improve competition. But do not prevent building market rate housing. You can even build public housing in addition to market rate housing, if you want to. As long as you're not putting up barriers to construction.

   Show morethread