The exposition which I have just given of the etiology of alcoholism points out the principal causes of it, and proves that they are to be found in the last instance almost wholly in the present constitution of society. It is possible that some one will interpose the objection that this cannot be the case, that there must be, besides pathological causes, individual causes, since it happens that among persons living in the same environment some become alcoholics and others do not.
This last fact is incontestable, but it is partly to be explained by the fact that, while there are persons who live in environments that are very similar, there are no two individuals whose surroundings are exactly the same. Take, for example, two workmen. The one may have passed his youth in circles where they drink little or no alcohol, and where it is pointed out to him that abstinence is very salutary, while the other sees only examples of intemperance. It may be that here is the explanation of the fact that the first has remained temperate, while the second has not, although the two live in surroundings almost alike.
But suppose that the environment is and has always been exactly the same for a group of persons, we shall see then that the tendency toward alcoholism is not the same for each individual. No one will be able to dispute the fact, however, that it is the environment [[371]]that is the cause of the abuse of alcohol. Individual differences bring it about that one man is more drawn to the use of alcohol than another, but circumstances explain why the first has become alcoholic. These differences can never explain why, at a certain period, the abuse of alcohol has, or has not, become an almost universal phenomenon.
The proofs are plain. In examining, for example, a period like that in which capitalism took its rise in England, as it is described by Engels in his “Condition of the Working Class”, a period, that is to say, in which the working class found itself in very disadvantageous material and moral conditions, we see that the workers, with rare exceptions, were consumers of alcohol, and largely abused it. Since that time conditions have improved. The moral and material plane having been raised, those whose tendency toward alcohol was less strong and who had more marked innate moral qualities, ceased misusing alcohol. As conditions improve still further those who are weaker follow little by little the same road to temperance. This process may be observed going on among unorganized workmen, with whom the tendency to drink is generally great. As soon as they begin to organize, and in measure as their organization is developed, we see that first the most intelligent, etc., among them become temperate, and that little by little these are followed by the others.
It is a biological fact that men always and everywhere present qualitative differences. But this constant factor does not give an explanation of the changes which society undergoes, and is not, therefore, of great importance to sociology, which, while taking it into account, has for its task the explanation of the changes in question. And it is just those changes in the use of alcoholic beverages which have taken place during the course of the centuries, which show that the social environment is the principal cause of alcoholism.
In ancient times alcoholism was unknown. It is true that among the Israelites, for example, the abuse of alcohol at times occurred, but the fact that no importance was attached to it proves that alcoholism properly speaking did not exist.[213] Nor was it to be met with among the ancient Greeks. At every meal, and at their reunions they drank wine diluted; it is unnecessary to say that these “symposia” were not looked down upon by the Greeks, but on the contrary were highly regarded. “Greek opinion found nothing improper in intoxication, only a certain self-control in drunkenness was held to [[372]]be indispensable. Gross and violent conduct was, like the drinking of unmixed wine, a custom of the barbarians, and unworthy of a Greek.”[214] Nor was ancient Rome any more acquainted with alcoholism, though among the Romans, coarse in comparison with the Greeks and demoralized by their immense wealth, the abuse of alcohol was often met with. But it was only the very small group of the rich who were addicted to it. When the barbarians annihilated the ancient world they were not capable of assimilating the civilization of the peoples whom they had just subjugated, while they adopted their pleasures, a thing which did not require so high a state of development. This is the cause of the great abuse of alcohol among the Germans.[215] The uncertainty of existence, and the miserable conditions during the migrations of these peoples were favorable to this abuse.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the abuse of alcohol had reached a high degree of development among the rich. The cause of this was the birth of capitalism, by which great wealth was accumulated in the hands of a few without their having occasion to place a great part of it as new capital. To this fact was joined a low degree of culture, and it thus came about that the wealthy of the period spent enormous sums for eating and drinking.[216]
The discovery in the middle of the sixteenth century of the distillation of spirits from grain brought about a considerable cheapening in the price of strong drink, which thus came within the reach of the poor. (Arab physicians had long before discovered how to extract brandy from wine, but this in the beginning was only used medicinally.) The great poverty occasioned by the Thirty Years’ War increased the use of liquor enormously, and the birth of the industrial proletariat contributed equally to the same result. Mention is made for the first time of the regular use of liquor to increase the amount of work done, in 1550 among the Hungarian miners, the first category of workmen who lived under conditions almost identical with those of the modern industrial proletariat. With the continually increasing development of capitalism King Alcohol began his triumphal march, which has continued without any great obstacle to the present day. Alcoholism has its deeper causes in the material [[373]]intellectual and moral poverty created by the economic system now in force. It is with reason that Professor Gruber has said: “We cannot shut our eyes to the truth that alcohol is not without basis in our present order of society. Without it life would long ago have become unendurable for the suffering part of the population.” [[374]]