16.12.2004
Binge-boozing Britain
Blair and his government tell us that we should all be very concerned about the excessive drinking habits of the British population, particularly at Christmas. Mark Fischer reckons they are trying to police more than our alcohol intake
Portman Group’s chief executive, Jean Coussins, underlined the cautionary message in case this crude morality tale had failed: “Alcohol affects your judgement. You might go out as the sensible Ms Jeckyll but quickly turn into the infamous Ms Hyde after a heavy drinking session. Like the young woman in our advert, you could end up in the gutter making a show of yourself and putting yourself, and others, at risk” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4056085.stm).
Of course, for many young people an important reason for alcohol consumption is precisely to bring out the ‘Jeckyll’ in them - to be more confident, self-assured and pushy, particularly with the opposite sex. True, the vision of a legless pisshead regurgitating a kebab is not very sexy, but then the vast majority of drinkers do not end their evenings this way. However, finger-wagging initiatives such as that of the Portman Group are typical of the way that over the past period the establishment has identified the alcohol consumption of large sections of the population - in particular working class youth - as an important social problem that must be policed, regulated and subject to prescriptive intervention by the state.
Communists should reject these initiatives. That is not enough, however. We are hardly indifferent to the moral and cultural level of our class - as revealed by the way in which tens of thousands of us choose to unwind in the meagre amount of leisure time allowed us in contemporary capitalist society. Descriptions in works of fiction such as The ragged-trousered philanthropists, L’As-samoir or Love on the dole of the squalid degeneration of working people fuelled by alcohol addiction derive their enduring artistic power from the sad fact that they depict a real aspect of proletarian life. Many of us know of working class families thrown into despair by alcoholism.
Yet the government’s nanny-state, soft-focus, authoritarian initiatives in this field actually negate the very thing that could engender a civilised attitude to the use of all recreational drugs, alcohol included. That is, the conscious control of society by the vast majority of people living in it.
War
The government has been accused of sending out mixed messages on the level of alcohol consumption. Its promise to effectively abolish licensing hours has been attacked by some as standing in contradiction to its professed aim of clamping down on binge Britain. The Civic Trust, for example, ticks off the government because “The alcohol-fuelled, late-night economy is already causing significant problems for local communities in relation to crime and disorder, noise and nuisance. At night many town and city centres have become highly threatening and uncivilised environments, dominated by throngs of drunk and disorderly people who deter others from seeking a quiet night out and create problems for long-suffering residents” (http://www.ias.org.uk/licensing/reform_communities.pdf).
In fact, the 2002 queen’s speech promised that, when it comes, the legislation to “abolish fixed opening hours” will be complemented by the introduction of “a range of conditions to reduce anti-social behaviour”. It is important to remember that licensing hours were actually introduced in the first place as a measure of social control rather than public health, a means of policing the working class. Seen in this light, the government’s supposed liberalisation is actually a shift within the repressive interference of the state from the ‘supply’ to the ‘demand’ side of the problem.
Historical context is important here. Prior to the early part of the 20th century, government legislation in the sphere of alcohol was limited and mostly associated with attempts to combat public health problems caused by the provision of cheap spirits. The impulse to deal with this social problem was brilliantly propagandised in the 1740s by the caricaturist Hogarth with his famous ‘Gin Lane’ representations of squalor and disease, contrasted with the prosperity and ruddy health of ‘Beer Lane’. It was against this background that in 1751 the government introduced a heavy tax on spirits, along with strict controls on the number of outlets. This move is credited with causing the historical shift of the ‘national tipple’ from gin to beer.
The later growth of state interference in the provision of alcohol, however, had less to do with concerns over health; more to do with the imperative to discipline the proletariat, particularly during war.
For instance, the 1869 Wine and Beerhouse Act restored the power of the local magistrates over the licensing of premises. Given the fact that many of these middle class reactionaries were enthusiastic supporters of the temperance movement - an anti-working class campaign of social control launched in 1835 - the results were predictable. For example, between 1904 and 1914 1,000 licenses disappeared in Birmingham, a city where the magistrates were apparently especially zealous against the demon drink and its effects on the labouring classes.
It is worthwhile here identifying the clear anti-working class nature of the temperance movement. The organisation of the factory system in the 19th century created a mass industrial proletariat. There was an urgent need to impose on this new, raw and volatile class two forms of social regulation. First, an ‘external policeman’ through rigid industrial discipline with an insistence on punctuality and sobriety. Second, an ‘internal policeman’ in the form of an ideological model of the ‘honest working man’ - deferential, patriotic, god-fearing, family-orientated and sober.
It was not easy. In Britain, the campaign against lateness, drunkenness and the various forms of political and moral ‘laxity’ among workers was energetically conducted through ideological channels - from the pulpit and through the various christian temperance organisations.
These patronising bourgeois philanthropic initiatives found their counterpart in socialistically inclined societies like the Socialist Prohibition Fellowship - organisations that underlined the continuing influence of methodism rather than Marxism in the workers’ movement in Britain. For such groups, surveying the profound harm caused in working class communities by alcohol abuse, it seemed a matter of common sense that the first precondition of a working class embrace of socialism was that it forsake the booze. Absurd idealism, of course - although some members of these rather odd groups found themselves at the founding congress of the CPGB in 1920 and included such notables as Willie Gallagher and Bob Stewart. The central message of the abstentionist trends was a reactionary one, however.
Responding to their German equivalents in 1891, Karl Kautsky wrote vividly of the need for the working class to maintain its sphere of collective life free from surveillance and interference of the state: “The sole bulwark of the proletariat’s political freedom … is the tavern … the only place where the lower classes can congregate and discuss their common problems. Without the tavern the German proletariat has not only no social, but also no political life … Should the temperance movement succeed … in persuading the mass of German workers to avoid the tavern, and, outside the workplace, to concentrate on that family portrayed to them in such glowing terms … the cohesion of the proletariat would be broken; it would be reduced to a mass of atoms, disconnected and consequently incapable of resistance” (quoted in E Rosenhaft Beating the fascists? Cambridge 1983, p12).
In Britain, we have the same intertwined history of pubs and radical politics - a fact that underlines the reactionary nature of socialist temperance groups, whatever their subjective intentions.
However, ideological temperance campaigns - whether they originated from above or below - had a limited effect. In fact, it was the massive eruption of direct state control into all spheres of society associated with the outbreak of World War I that had the most profound implications for the way alcohol consumption would henceforth be policed.
Just days after hostilities broke out, Lloyd George’s government passed the first Defence of the Realm Act. This made it an offence - punishable by severe fines and up to six months imprisonment - to deal with a sailor or soldier “with intent to make him drunk”. A few weeks later came the Intoxicating Liquor (Temporary Restrictions) Act, which allowed for the closure of particular pubs thought to be undermining the war effort in some way. Under the provisions of the last Defence of the Realm Act (May 19 1915), a central control board was established for the purpose of imposing liquor licensing in all areas where ‘excessive’ drinking could be held to be impeding the war effort.
Publicans were enjoined to ensure that essential workers did not “idle away” their time in the pub when they should have been engaged on war production … and restricted opening and closing times were introduced to give legislative force to this new attempt to regiment working class leisure (despite the patriotism engendered by the war, these restrictive measures were deeply unpopular and saw waves of protests). These measures had been extended by the end to the war to all the main centres of British population, covering 38 million people out of a total population of 41 million.
Thus, the origins of Britain’s licensing hours as they stand today lie not in the concern for public health, but in the massive attempt of the bourgeois state to regiment society for imperialist war. As Lloyd George graphically put it, “Drink is doing more damage in the war than all the German submarines put together ... We are fighting Germany, Austria and drink, and the greatest of all these deadly foes is drink.”
Cafe culture?
Clearly, the contemporary form of establishment control over this aspect of working class social life is set to change with the government’s plans to abolish the licensing hours and to create what Hazel Blears, the home office minister, has optimistically dubbed a “continental cafe bar culture”.
There are two aspects to the government’s strategy. First, the identification of (often debatable) medical dangers associated with alcohol consumption. Second, direct policing measures.
From the medical angle, the January 26 conference announced by the Institute of Alcohol Studies is fairly typical. Alarmingly titled ‘Alcohol-related harm - a growing crisis, time for action!’ (cutely timed for the aftermath of the Christmas and New Year excesses, of course), the advertising blurb for this worthy event informs us that:
- “It is now considered” that one in 20 people in the UK are alcohol-dependent.
- A similar number are at serious risk of alcoholic liver disease.
- The government estimates the costs of alcohol as up to £1.7 billion in health, £7.3 billion in crime and public disorder and £6.4 billion in the workplace
- Liver deaths in young and middle-aged people have risen sevenfold since the 1970s.
- Increases in young people’s alcohol consumption suggest that these trends will continue.
Naturally, the interpretation put on these and similar statistics is contentious. For instance, according to the institute, the British ‘binge-drink’ more than any other European country, with 40% of all drinking sessions for men consisting of such boozing. Our nearest rival in this respect is Sweden with a corresponding figure of 33%. But then, it all depends on what you characterise as a ‘binge’, doesn’t it? The UK definition sets it at anything more than six units of alcohol on a single occasion - “to put that in perspective”, Jamie Douglass wryly notes, “that’s two pints of Stella” (www.spiked-online.com). You don’t have to be Dylan Thomas to characterise that as a pretty quiet night out.
Set against other statistics, the supposed British propensity for ‘binging’ is seen in some degree of context. According to a study by the prime minister’s strategy unit, Luxembourg heads the league table for drinkers in the EU, with Britain pitching up in a very moderate 12th place (www.number10.gov.uk/files/pdf/econ.pdf). So, the bald, panic-inducing statistics that the government parades in front of us actually hide more complex cultural patterns. That is, when and how often people drink during the week rather than simply the volume. Similarly, we should be very sceptical when establishment figures preface some dire prediction with the phrase, “based on current trends”.
Thus, to extrapolate some linear growth from young people’s current levels of alcohol consumption is nonsense. The youth market for recreational drugs must be one of the most volatile and is highly susceptible to shifts in perception and fashion. Even if we accept the government’s case for the alcohol tsunami looming over our society, it is simply not logical to draw from the patterns we see now the conclusion that in 20 years or so today’s young boozers will look and smell like Barney, the beer-sodden loser of The Simpsons.
However, as in other areas of social policy concerned with individual lifestyle and public health, the government’s essentially authoritarian agenda is cloaked in this style of voodoo analysis. During the summer of 2004, the police served nearly 2,000 on-the-spot fines for disorderly behaviour associated with drink and another 4,000 people had their alcohol confiscated. The weekend gatherings of thousands of proletarian youth in many city centre ‘drinking factories’ are increasingly identified as major policing problems, with our poor, beleaguered boys in blue portrayed as unable to control the situation.
Characteristically, the government proposes to expand the scope of the repressive powers of the police to deal with this social problem. Amongst the suggestions from the ‘national alcohol harm-reduction strategy’ of the prime minister’s strategy unit cited above are measures such as “sting operations” against pubs, clubs and other outlets identified as selling drink to under 18s; the even greater use of exclusion orders and fixed-penalty fines for what the police identify as alcohol-related anti-social behaviour; pressure on the police to use more of their community wardens (“narks with a badge”, as graffiti in my area accurately characterises them) to patrol areas like taxi ranks at night; and more effort to take the cautionary message into schools (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3510560.stm).
Communists reject the criminalisation of wide swathes of our class, particularly youth, by these and similar measures. We have a generally permissive attitude to society’s right to access recreational drugs. However, it does not flow from this that we are indifferent to either the issues of health or broader cultural/political consequences that can arise from the abuse of alcohol or any other mass-consumption drug. Clearly, the manner in which large numbers of working people use such substances speaks of their profound alienation under today’s social conditions, not simply neutral choices about personal consumption.
Bolsheviks and booze
Some may see a paradox here. Communists demand unrestricted working class access to alcohol (and all recreational drugs) and fight those restrictive policing intrusions designed to counter what is dubbed Britain’s ‘booze culture’. At the same time, we actually want a sober, clear-headed and politically attentive working class. Before and during meetings of the Communist Party, for instance, alcohol is banned. From my own experience in the workers’ movement, I know the potentially disorientating and profoundly disorganising effects drink can have on workers gathered to discuss tactics and strategy during some dispute - for instance, I recall meetings during the miners’ Great Strike, the dockers’ and printers’ disputes in the 1980s that collapsed into bleary chaos and near fisticuffs fuelled by a liberal intake of booze during the proceedings.
Again, history teaches us some lessons. In the immediate aftermath of the October revolution, the Bolsheviks faced the problem of large sections of the proletariat going on the lash in celebration. The forces of counterrevolution consciously aided these drunken revelries. In Ten days that shook the world, John Reed reports the “wine pogrom” at the end of November 1917 that involved mass “looting of the wine cellars - beginning with the plundering of the Winter Palace vaults”.
For days, drunken soldiers lurched around the streets and, according to Reed, “In all this was evident the hand of the counter-revolutionists, who distributed among the regiments plans showing the location of the stores of liquor.”
Given the seriousness of the situation, the Bolsheviks responded energetically: “The Commissars of Smolny began by pleading and arguing, which did not stop the disorder, followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red Guards … Finally the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out companies of sailors with machine guns, who fired mercilessly upon the rioters, killing many; and by executive order the wine-cellars were invaded by committees with hatchets who smashed the bottles - or blew them up with dynamite.”
In a desperate move on December 6, the Petrograd Committee to Fight Pogroms issued an ‘obligatory ordinance’, point five of which prohibited “the distribution, sale or purchase of any kind of alcoholic liquor”.
Now the contemporary relevance of all the details of this rather dramatic historical experience is debatable. However, the essential point is clear. The counterrevolution fed off the befuddlement and confusion of the victorious proletariat, fuelling it where possible by generous helpings of booze. The Bolsheviks fought to ensure that the workers kept themselves alert to defend their revolution, that our class had a clear-sighted revolutionary sobriety.
Why? Precisely because the working class will not rule in the future in some mediated way, through alienated ‘proletarian property forms’. Socialism means the conscious democratic regulation of society by the workers themselves - the 20th century underlines the brutal truth that anything else is neither socialism nor a workers’ state of any sort. This profoundly democratic process starts in the here and now. The working class needs to fight for measures of working class control over aspects of its social life under capitalism that, in the words of Rosa Luxemburg, “press so hard on the outermost borders of the rule of capital that they appear as transitional forms to a proletarian dictatorship” (quoted in H Draper The dictatorship of the proletariat from Marx to Lenin p60).
There are two aspects to this in connection with alcohol and the working class under capitalism. First, we have to fight the encroachments on our democracy associated with the government’s campaign against the so-called ‘scourge’ of binge-drinking. This infantilises wide swathes of society and justifies intrusive state control and interference in the personal lives and the exercise of choice of masses of working people. It effectively atomises them and undermines their ability to act as independent agents on their own behalf.
Second, a successful working class fight for extreme democracy under today’s conditions would have the tendency to reduce the propensity for large numbers of our class to actually seek a recreational oblivion in booze. People often use and occasionally abuse alcohol as a chemical escape from alienating social conditions. The solution is clearly to change those social conditions under the leadership of the working class.
So, dear reader, still looking forward to a few drinks this Christmas? Good for you. Millions of us will be enthusiastic members of formation-drinking squads, composed of family members, friends and work colleagues, over the seasonal break. The vast majority will use the drug sensibly enough - all things considered - and are certainly not at the beginning of a process that will see them living on the streets and sucking ‘Tenants super’ through straw come the new year.
But, while we should treat the Blair government’s petty authoritarian meddling with contempt, we should also understand that the programme of the working class is not just about saying ‘no’. We must have positive answers for this aspect of workers’ lives as well.