Alcohol culture as part of the capitalist mode of production
Preface
Going sober at 37 hit me with both profound personal and highly political realisations, and this text is about the latter.
In this text I refer to ’alcohol culture’, which I define as a capitalist culture where the capitalist class use alcohol to organise the way the working class moves within both wage labour and leisure time.
If you feel like you’re not part of an alcohol culture, maybe you see it from the outside. If you feel like you are part of an alcohol culture, maybe you see it from the inside. Both perspectives are important.
Regardless, I’m not here to judge anyone, anywhere. I was just recently deeply embedded in alcohol culture, having lived in cities for the past eighteen years, and I thought alcohol culture was the most fun part of my life. Moving away from that made me rethink and reshape much of my personal life and political struggle.
It’s hard to escape a liquid culture that flows through so many veins of our lives. This analysis is not about individual choices or judging individuals; I’m simply trying to dive into a social, economical culture that might be a bigger part of capitalism’s mode of production and living than we – or at least I – have realised.
Keep on fighting, wherever you are, comrade
Michaela
I. Wage labour
As the capitalist mode of production (wage labour) spread across Sweden during the 1800s – violently enforced by the newly founded police institution – the working class laboured long hours at factories with minimal wage, often paid solely or partly in liquor. The working class was working, working drunk, getting off work, drunk again, fell asleep drunk, woke up drunk.
This was a working class living in severe poverty, enduring harsh working conditions. The excessive alcohol consumption was not only tolerated by, but more importantly actively facilitated and enabled by, the owning class and capitalists. The crucial question we as a working class must ask ourselves is: ”Why?” Why did the capitalist class pay the working class in hard liquor? Why did the capitalist class want the working class drunk both on and off duty?
To answer the first question, paying in money meant giving the working class more freedom to spend it however they wanted. Paying the worker in a fixed medium, whether it’s housing*, liquor or food, gives the capitalist greater predictability. When the worker didn’t have actual money to spend on whatever, the capitalist could predict the worker’s routes and routines. Money meant the working class could do other leisure activities, leave the premises, in rare instances even save some of the money. Paying in alcohol meant the worker would drink that alcohol, period. That’s predicability and stability provided for the capitalists and owning class.
*Like the Swedish workers statare, exploited under serf-like condition by the landowning elite, ”paid” with food and housing, a system abolished not until 1945.
To answer the second question, a drunk working class was a weakened and less resistant working class. An intoxicated, numb worker tolerates more exploitation simply because they’re zombieing through their wage labouring life. Of course, an alcohol-fuelled aggression can be a ”less nice experience” for a capitalist factory owner, but to put up an actual class struggle as a collective takes a lot of knowledge, organisation, and endurance.
That was what the Swedish working class did late 1800s and early 1900s. They said: ”Come on, let’s sober up, learn to read, organise, and fight these cops and capitalists!” So they founded a political party (The Social Democrats, which then of course split, and the communist revolutionaries founded the Left Party), a study association (ABF, Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund), a food cooperative (Kooperativa Förbundet, nowadays called Coop) and of course all the worker’s unions and the trade union confederation LO (Landsorganisationen i Sverige).
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Alcohol culture has been a significant part of Swedish society and working class life for centuries, and the power struggles for and against the working class’ alcohol consumption is complex.
The state have tried several ways to tackle alcoholism and alcohol related problems. First of, when giving local companies exclusive rights to sell liquor (the first in Falun as early as 1850); this state-regulated system became Systembolaget. Later, the state introduced the motbok, which legally regulated how much men and women were allowed to drink, a rationing system that was abolished in 1955.
The Saltsjöbaden Agreement in 1938 laid the foundation for what is now called the Swedish labour market model. Under this agreement, the trade union confederation and the employers’ organisations agreed that workers would no longer engage in strikes as a first resort; instead, the two parties would resolve conflicts through peaceful negotiation.
Following this, there was a period in which the (Social Democratic) state and the workers’ unions (LO) succeeded in winning several political struggles. The trade unions pushed for better working conditions and safety – alcohol consumption included, which was seen as a risk to the individual and the work team. One important example of greater worker’s rights is the Swedish Work Environment Act (Arbetsmiljölagen, 1977:1160), which improved working conditions, and made it clearer that alcohol consumption at work was a work environment issue that needed to be prevented. Later on, alcohol consumption at work was completely prohibited.
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I think it’s important to make some notes on this struggle. Who were the driving forces behind promoting sobriety amongst the working class in wage labour, and why? Was it the capitalist class, the working class (i.e., the unions), or the state?
The capitalist class doesn’t give a shit about workers’ health. They care about one thing: profit. They care about how to make as much profit as possible. If a drunk worker produces more profit, the capitalist likes a drunk worker. If a sober worker produces more profit, the capitalist likes a sober worker. This is why the capitalists so easily can shift their ”pretend-stands” and change their policies on different issues – they don’t care about health, workers’ rights, minorities, or any of that! They care about profit, and profit only. They would throw any worker under the bus, at any time. For the capitalist, workers are always disposable and replaceable.
The state, of course, cares about maintaining a healthy population, but it is still an organ serving a capitalist economic system – that is, it seeks to ensure economic growth through profits for the capitalist class. This is the marriage contract between the state and capital: the state takes care of the costs of reproducing labour. Reproduction is what happens in between wage labour; in other words, it is what the worker needs to survive between shifts, which the state ensures – in Sweden, often through the welfare system. The state recognises that workers need alcohol (and other numbing leisure activities – endless scrolling and TV binging amongst them) to endure the suffering of wage labour, but it regulates the consumption so that it does not spiral out of control.
Capital, on the other hand, ensures economic growth and profits, which in turn contribute to creating and maintaining the state-run welfare system. This is the basic Marxist theory: the state is part of the ideological superstructure, whereas the social relations between the working class and the capitalist class form the economic base. The superstructure and base shape, uphold, and reinforce one another.
The Swedish welfare system is fundamentally built on the capitalist and imperialist exploitation of the global working class. The fact that Sweden was able to build a fairly extensive welfare system depends, for instance, on IKEA’s and H&M’s exploitation of the global working class and the extraction of the surplus value created by their labour! By relocating production to countries in the Global South with low labour costs, H&M minimises expenses while selling its products at much higher prices in the Global North, thereby maximising profit. These profits are made possible through the systematic use of poverty wages and exploitative working conditions in the Global South. The wealth generated in this way flows back to the Global North, where it supports both capitalist accumulation and the welfare systems of nation-states. Of course, this sits uneasily with the Social Democrats and their polished narrative of how the welfare system (and the folkhemmet) came to be.
Lastly then, we have the working class and their representatives – the unions. It is the unions that have pushed for better working conditions, better living standards, workers’ rights, and workers’ health and benefits. This is also true when it comes to alcohol consumption at work and off work. Today, if a worker exhibits alcoholism or addiction, the employer must provide healthcare; they cannot fire the worker, even if they are “ineffective” due to alcoholism. Let’s give credit to the working class for making the Swedish Work Environment Act possible.
Returning to the initial question: “Why?” Why did capitalist class pay the working class in hard liquor? Why did capitalist class want the working class drunk both on and off duty? In short, the answer is control. Back then it meant more control for the capitalists. Their goal has always been to exploit the working class, so they can hunt surplus value, keep profits rising, and maintain company growth.
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Moving to today: how is alcohol now part of wage labour, and how is this still relevant for the working class? Before heading into the next chapters, I want to say something about After Work.
Even though we have – thanks to the struggles of the unionised working class – limited the alcohol consumption within working hours, it is still present and still relevant.
Alcohol consumption in Sweden, as in other capitalist countries, is a cultural norm and treated as common sense. This is not surprising: capitalism is an exploitative system that consumes the entire lives of the working class. To endure lifelong wage labour, workers need stimuli and numbing distractions – anything to take their minds off what is really the fuck going on. The capitalist rat race produces winners and losers in the market of capitalism: some appear to climb the “class ladder,” though never truly do, while others remain stuck or spiraling downwards. Alcohol-fuelled activities provide temporary relief from alienation, despair, and feeling like a (poor and struggling) failure.
Alcohol remains the main go-to element when employers organise celebrations for company profit growth, holidays, or individual employees. There are Christmas parties, retirement celebrations, kick-offs, etc. Note: These are unpaid. They are expected/semi-obligatory activities that revolve around partying and alcohol consumption for employees – but since they are not considered working hours, they remain unpaid, even though they are part of capitalist wage labour culture.
And then, of course, we have the most common activity outside work hours but still deeply tied to wage labour culture: After Work. This culture emerged right after the 1970s restrictions when alcohol consumption at work became unacceptable. Instead of drinking on the job, the habit shifted to after the workday. This cultural shift amongst workers was picked up by pubs, and popularised and branded as After Work, Happy Hour, etc.
One could argue, however, that socialising after work with colleagues is a perfect brewing ground for collectivity and political struggle against the employer and capitalist. Yet, in many of our experiences, this is rarely the case. After Work, after all, is generally non-political. Especially since it is customary for the boss to actually attend the After Work, these gatherings often blur the line between leisure and workplace hierarchy.
I want to end this chapter by stating that soberness simply means soberness. The radical badass Emma Goldman wrote: “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution!” I agree. I’ll return to the importance of social spheres for the working class.
II. Prediction and paths
Capitalism loves order. This is why it founded a formalised police force (as part of the state) in the 1700s and 1800s, beginning in UK, France, and US. In 1850 Sweden established its first formalised police force in Stockholm. Their initial mission was to force people into wage labour by criminalising those without regular means of support, through new vagrancy laws.
This is significant in relation to the analysis of wage labour (and alcohol consumption), since capitalism is so dependent on the obedience of the working class. Wage labour isn’t optional but obligatory (right? You can’t choose not to wage labour and still survive in capitalism, unless you’re a capitalist!). And this is why the police – holding a monopoly on violence – shaped and forced an entire class into it.
Again, to put it in Marxist terms: the police is part of the capitalist state and therefore part of the ideological superstructure that shapes, upholds, and reinforces the economic base. The state, institutions, and the police force – they’re all part of a structure that maintains the system of capitalist wage labour.
Capitalism loves control over its subjects, and part of that control comes from creating a predictable order that workers have no choice but to follow. As mentioned earlier, this is why the owning class paid the workers in housing, food, or liquor – because that created predictability for the capitalist. They knew the routes and life paths of the worker: where the worker slept, what the worker ate and drank, and who the worker met. This gave them greater control of the reproduction of the worker. They call this reproductive time ”free time”, but it’s more like unwinding after work and preparation for the next shift – you’re always in the claws of the capitalist wage labouring system!
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Nowadays, the working class is most often paid in money, but the capitalists have even more ways to make the workers’ life paths predictable! They push us around in algorithms, markets, and patterns of consumption.
The Western mode of capitalist living usually looks something like this: be born, go to school, get a job, party with friends, rent housing, marry a partner, have children, live in a nuclear family, chase promotions at work, take out a mortgage, renovate and consume, try to save money for retirement, go on all-inclusive vacations, retire, die. All of this unfolds while being held hostage by capitalist ideology and culture, bombarded with advertisements that constantly nudge us in certain directions: “Buy this, do this, live like this, want this, need this.”
This is what I mean by prediction, even predestination. The ’capitalist/imperialist mode of production’ pushes the working class along predictable life paths. And capitalism thrives on that, it’s designed that way. Because if capital can predict our consumption, desires, choices, and so-called “needs,” it knows exactly how to sell us that dream – and profit from it.
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How the fuck is this related you alcohol, you might wonder. Because part of that predictable path is how the working class is spatially organised – in cities or suburbs, at pubs and clubs, and in all other settings where alcohol is bought and consumed. For many workers, the main form of socialising revolves around alcohol, and that socialising is also heavily scripted when it comes to where and how this takes space – that is, how the working class is spatially organised.
As a working class, it’s important to have spaces and spheres where we can meet, conspire, share laughter and sadness, care for others, and be cared for. Pubs are precisely those kinds of social spaces where all of this takes place: a pub crawl with friends, After Work with colleagues, late night at a wine bar with a loved one, and so on. Of course, we should not abolish the content of what such spaces make possible; rather we should ask how to move that content elsewhere. What if we could create other spaces, spheres, and places outside the capitalist mode of living – to dream, organise, create, move, eat and drink, and love? What if, instead of going to the pub with your colleagues for an After Work, you went elsewhere and did something else. Where would you go, and what would you do?
To follow a path is easier than to break away from the script. It takes courage, energy, agency, and creativity to do things differently than expected – and sometimes that energy simply isn’t there because of capitalism’s wage labour rat race. But we don’t have to do this alone. The predictability and paths that alcohol culture creates within capitalism are something we can fight together as comrades.
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Speaking of, the Zapatista community has collectively banned alcohol due to its negative impacts on communal well-being. Their radical standpoint is simple: alcohol has harmful consequences for everyone, especially women suffering from for instance domestic violence linked to men’s alcohol-related aggression and problems. The Zapatistas also associate alcohol with colonial oppression, which runs directly counter to their anti-capitalist agenda that advocates for indigenous rights and autonomy.
Alcohol production is deeply embedded in the world imperialist system, with strong colonial roots – alcohol was one of the major commodities in the transatlantic slave trade and in the colonising projects carried out by Western nation-states across the Global South.
When it comes to food, the left is increasingly aware of the colonial legacies in production, transport, and consumption. We know to choose more locally produced, ecological, plant-based food for economic, political, and climate-related reasons. But with alcohol, this goes largely unnoticed. We just buy our Corona, Carlsberg, Baileys, and Jim Beam without much consideration of their climate and class imprint on the global working class, and on the environment and nature as a whole.
This is an important point to make regarding the imperialist and colonial mode of production. Drawing on Marxist theory, I argue that alcohol culture is a culture within capitalism and therefore part of the capitalist ideological superstructure. And the capitalist economic base is maintained and upheld by its ideological superstructure.
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End note: We need to stand in solidarity with all our comrades who struggle with alcoholism or other forms of substance addiction and abuse, in whatever ways they need us. We can simply be present, offering our empathy and support. Together, we can create a supportive environment built on the principles of mutual aid. Leave no one behind, and recognise everyone in their full humanity.
III. Play
Should we take away one of the great pleasures the working class has?! The party, the fun, the clubs and pubs, the chattering, the dancing?
Not at all – if anything, the working class should have more of that. Because capitalism, through wage labour, robs humans of our play and creativity, our desires and expressiveness.
As this text has tried to show: 1) alcohol production and consumption are rooted in imperialism and colonialism, 2) alcohol culture is deeply embedded in the capitalist mode of living and wage labour, and 3) alcohol culture within capitalism sets predictable paths for the working class to live and die.
Sober living is simply saying: let us step outside of that, take a side route, and see what happens.
We could explore new and different ways to really play, and experiment with our place in the world. We could be curious about alternative routes and find more ways to party, connect with others, and enjoy ourselves.
Some suggestions for a sober and playful anti-capitalist struggle:
Sober spaces/activities with no substances
Replace pubs with movement or nature
Make collective standpoints on alcohol, like the Zapatistas
Create sober solidarity with comrades that struggle with alcoholism or other addiction/abuse
Create your own anti-corporate and anti-capitalist restaurants, cafes, clubs, and pubs (and simultaneously rethink what these are)
Create new spaces for class solidarity, organisation, creativity, culture, and play – and dance!!!!!
What comes to your mind when you think of a route outside alcohol culture?
Let’s stay curious.
No cocktail, but Molotov!!!
Reading list:
Alex S. Vitale "The end of policing"
Mark Neocleous "A Critical Theory of Police Power: The Fabrication of the Social Order"
Jenny Damberg, Lisa Wiklund “Som hon drack – kvinnor, alkohol och frigörelse”
Torkil Lauesen “Riding the wave: Sweden’s integration into the world imperialist system”
