Clear, Simple and Wrong
H. L. Mencken said that For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. As we hit the final day of our biannual exercise of democracy, I thought I'd reflect on a situation when America picked the wrong answer: Prohibition.
America in the 19th century and into the 20th had a real problem with alcoholism. There were many more alcoholics back then, and more plain-old drunks as well. This was a problem for a lot of people, but especially women. Given the difficulties of divorce, the lack of a social safety net and the limited job opportunities for women, being married to an alcoholic could be disastrous. It was no bed of roses for a man, either, but women and children were disproportionately affected.
Then in the early years of the 20th century, we got cars. One of the advantages of a horse-drawn carriage is that it's actually quite difficult to make a horse run headlong into a tree, no matter how drunk the driver. In fact, I suspect many a drunk climbed into a carriage, said "home," passed out and came to at their house, the horse having gotten there by itself. Cars obviously don't do that. To make matters worse, the vehicles of the era were completely devoid of safety features, so even low-speed accidents could be fatal.
The clear and simple answer to these problems was to ban alcohol. No booze, no drunks, right?
The real solutions proved hard and non-intuitive, from easier divorce to welfare to jobs for women. They included treatment for alcoholism as a disease, dram shop laws, drunk-driving enforcement and safer cars. Finally, they included a reduced social acceptance of being drunk. Goodbye three-martini lunches, hello iced tea. Most all of this was enabled by government action.
America in the 19th century and into the 20th had a real problem with alcoholism. There were many more alcoholics back then, and more plain-old drunks as well. This was a problem for a lot of people, but especially women. Given the difficulties of divorce, the lack of a social safety net and the limited job opportunities for women, being married to an alcoholic could be disastrous. It was no bed of roses for a man, either, but women and children were disproportionately affected.
Then in the early years of the 20th century, we got cars. One of the advantages of a horse-drawn carriage is that it's actually quite difficult to make a horse run headlong into a tree, no matter how drunk the driver. In fact, I suspect many a drunk climbed into a carriage, said "home," passed out and came to at their house, the horse having gotten there by itself. Cars obviously don't do that. To make matters worse, the vehicles of the era were completely devoid of safety features, so even low-speed accidents could be fatal.
The clear and simple answer to these problems was to ban alcohol. No booze, no drunks, right?
The real solutions proved hard and non-intuitive, from easier divorce to welfare to jobs for women. They included treatment for alcoholism as a disease, dram shop laws, drunk-driving enforcement and safer cars. Finally, they included a reduced social acceptance of being drunk. Goodbye three-martini lunches, hello iced tea. Most all of this was enabled by government action.