ABSTRACT
The alcohol studies field may be visualised as a great marketplace or flea market, where people from the different tribes of social and health sciences gather to display their wares, to barter, exchange and profit. When the blue-ribbon US Committee of 50 to Investigate the Liquor Problem published its reports at the turn of the twentieth century, they were organised under three headings: Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem; Legislative Aspects of the Liquor Problem; and Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem. The economists have been particularly helpful in explaining and illuminating the assumptions which other disciplines have brought to bear upon alcohol studies. The economists’ assumption of rationality presumes that consumers will behave so as to maximise their overall pleasure in terms of their own personal calculus. In experimental situations involving ‘happy hours’, the habitual heavy drinker proves responsive to price. In this era, alcohol consumption rose nearly everywhere.
