State enterprise for ethical reasons: mostly alcohol and tobacco

摘要

The impact of the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2007-2010 directed attention once more to the role of the state in the economy, with many observers accepting that that role would be larger in the foreseeable future than it had been during the privatising era of the later twentieth century. But the interventions of the GFC period and the debates about them focused very largely on commercial functions -banking and industrial production. Going beyond these particular interventions and debates, there has always been a strong, though often forgotten, case for government intervention for ethical rather than commercial reasons. This article reviews that case as it manifests itself in the alcohol and tobacco industries, with a brief indication that the betting/gambling industry presents many similar features.