NON-DRINKERS AS FREE-RIDERS:

First, teetotallers are free-riders. For generations alcohol consumption has sustained all manner of social and economic structures. The abstemious benefit from them but do not contribute. For instance, non-drinkers who go to social events are free-riding on the joviality of hard-working drinkers. What would happen to the social fabric if everyone stopped imbibing? Perhaps Joe Strummer of the Clash, an English rock band, was on to something when he apocryphally said that “non-smokers should be banned from buying any product a smoker created”.

Or consider the economics of the restaurant industry. Alcohol offers higher profit margins than food as it requires less labour to prepare. Indeed, using official American data, your columnist estimates that booze accounts for all the profits of the restaurant industry. Drinkers subsidise non-drinkers. Those who order sparkling water can feel sanctimonious in the short run. But if no one orders a bottle of Bordeaux, many restaurants will go under. In San Francisco, Sobriety Central, they are closing by the dozen.

Second, abstinence makes people lonelier. For centuries alcohol has served a social function. It helps people relax. Taking a drink also signals to others that you are happy to be slower and more vulnerable—that you have left your weapon at the door—which puts them at ease. A study from 2012 in Psychological Science found that alcohol increases social bonding. Robin Dunbar of Oxford University and colleagues find that frequenting a pub improves how engaged people feel with their community, in turn raising life satisfaction. It is not a stretch to say that alcohol has played a big evolutionary role in fostering human connection. . . .

The third factor in favour of booze relates to innovation. Today the world sees fewer breakthroughs. Hollywood sustains itself on remakes or sequels, not originals. A recent blog by Peter Ruppert, a consultant, finds the same trend for music: “the pace of genuine sonic innovation has slowed dramatically”. A paper published in 2020 by Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and colleagues concludes that new ideas are “harder to find”. Productivity growth across the world is weak. Something has gone terribly wrong in the way that Western societies generate new ideas. . . . In the 1960s, when productivity was soaring, everyone was drunk all the time.

This is Edward Slingerland’s argument in Drunk: How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way to civilization. Here’s my review of Slingerland’s excellent book.