ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the politics of alcohol, in terms of consumption and taxation, and how these have changed over the course of the process of state formation. Alcohol consumption became a signifier of aristocratic status, and membership of court society. This led to a radical change in the meaning of alcohol, from a substance largely used for social integration, to one used to a much greater extent as a form of cultural capital, and to establish distinction from outsider groups. Through the process of functional democratisation, lower status groups became able to imitate the lifestyle models of the elite, and so the patterns of alcohol consumption, distinctive of aristocrats began to filter downwards socially. The effect of this however was to generalise a mode of consumption, that was a form of permanent liminality, to society as a whole. Just as with the politics of consumption, the politics of the taxation of alcohol is characterised by a process of democratisation. An increasing capacity to levy tax on alcohol facilitated the centralisation of the state. A parallel equalisation between social groups in this process, meant that alcohol policy had to be an accommodation between the interests of different groups to a greater and greater extent.
