Alternate Universe brainstorming: No Prohibition

[wellspring]

Some other thoughts.

How did prohibition never happen? If the Progressives didn't have the moxie, then consider that they passed a great many amendments in this period: women's suffrage, direct election of Senators, income taxation, etc. Plus other policies like eugenics that were government policy but never made it into the Constitution.

There was a great deal of connection between women's suffrage and prohibition. Devil liquor was tied to domestic violence. Booze taxes financed the government. So while these seem like unrelated issues, they're all tied intimately together.

I think one outcome that others haven't identified but which seems pretty obvious to me is that without Prohibition, there would still be a very strong temperance movement in the United States. I can see a case being made for temperance finding its home with either party-- you should probably pick one. It needn't be Christian as it was in the early 1900's-- movements often cycle through different rationales for their goals as the political winds shift and as they try to harmonize with the political movements they associate with.

Other associated political causes might have been rolled into the Temperance movement. Drugs, tobacco, drunk driving, FDA regulation of medicine. I could easily see temperance pushing for and getting concessions and legal restrictions short of the Constitutional amendment they want. Much as the anti-tobacco movement has successfully pushed for similar measures.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Sabaron

People would drink a lot more. Contrary to popular opinion, Prohibition drastically cut US alcohol consumption, and alcohol consumption today still remains below pre-Prohibition levels (though it has been rising slowly every year since the end of Prohibition).

Originally Posted by malloyd

Though if you look at the long term curves, total alcohol consumption been trending down for a while. I suppose on some combination of better water, religious temperance movements, and the rising popularity of beer, which had been increasing in popularity since 1860 (when it was almost negligible) largely at the expense of hard spirits.

As the long-term trend towards less drinking holds true in countries where Prohibition didn't happen, it's dubious to conclude that Prohibition actually reduced drinking in the long term. In the short term, there was an apparent reduction, but given the inherent difficulty of measuring sales of illegal liquor and other substitute intoxicants, it is debated how real this was.

[Keiko]

Henry Ford chose gasoline for his cars because it was legally, cheaply and readily available. Without Prohibition, alcohol hits all of those criteria, only better. It's renewable, too, and any farmer can make it in industrial quantities from crop waste. The big drawback is that it doesn't give the same mileage as gasoline but without the expectations set by gasoline powered engines most people probably wouldn't notice.

Organized crime might be more local and without a large and well funded mafia Las Vegas might be much smaller than it is in our world or not exist at all.

Prohibition and the amount that people broke it meant less respect for police, religion and the government because everybody is breaking the law. Since they were breaking the law in secret speakeasys and at home gender mixing and associating with people you normally wouldn't was no big deal, nor jazz music, or other socially new trends.

The roaring 20's might have been more like the idealized 50's with strict dating codes people actually followed and respect for authority. Flappers would have been the the "bad girls" not a new social trend and Hollywood could have appeared much cleaner and respectable cementing the conservative ideal for the US.

[Captain-Captain]

Prohibition came with an alliance with the people who wanted an amendment to permit the then unconstitutional income tax. If that had failed, the US would not have as much organized crime nor the revenue stream that allowed us to fight the Axis.

[scc]

Originally Posted by ericthered

From claims I've heard, Las Vegas was created (both in respect to its laws and its buildings) with money made from the prohibition. No prohibition, no Las Vegas. Or more properly, a Vegas that looks more like Phoenix than its current form.

Um, what? Vegas got it's start because the US used to test nuclear weapons in the area, if you holidayed in the area there was a chance that you could see a detonation. When they stopped testing them in the area the hotels had to come up with a new way to attract customers and with gambling recently legalized...

If you want more details (Such as why The Strip isn't actually in Vegas) Google CGP Gray and look for his Vegas video

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by scc

Um, what? Vegas got it's start because the US used to test nuclear weapons in the area, if you holidayed in the area there was a chance that you could see a detonation. When they stopped testing them in the area the hotels had to come up with a new way to attract customers and with gambling recently legalized...

If you want more details (Such as why The Strip isn't actually in Vegas) Google CGP Gray and look for his Vegas video

According to Making of the Mob New York, it was Bugsy Siegel who conceived of making Vegas a big fancy gambling hub and he got millions in funding from Lucky Luciano...money that they wouldn't have had without Phohibition.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Henry Ford chose gasoline for his cars because it was legally, cheaply and readily available. Without Prohibition, alcohol hits all of those criteria, only better.

That's nonsense. The Model T was in mass production 11 years before Prohibition started, aviation pretty well sealed the dominance of the gasoline engine (the energy density of gasoline is nearly twice that of alcohol, it freezes at a lower temperature, and combustion at lower air pressure is much less a problem), and in any case you could make as much industrial alcohol as you wanted during Prohibition, as long as you denatured it with toxic additives.

[scc]

Originally Posted by trooper6

According to Making of the Mob New York, it was Bugsy Siegel who conceived of making Vegas a big fancy gambling hub and he got millions in funding from Lucky Luciano...money that they wouldn't have had without Phohibition.

OK, I see your point, but I think it's going to be more a matter of scale, those hotels would still have needed to make that switch to survive, they would still pull that tax dodge with Paradise, they just wouldn't have gotten as big as fast

[Anders]

Originally Posted by PTTG

I suppose that even high-inertia timelines might result in a less prohibitionist history; no drug war, no insane pot regulations, no reefer madness.

Maybe. Or maybe people won't have learned the lesson that regulating alcohol is not a good idea. You might have a movement that is less successful in the short run but more active in the long run.

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by scc

OK, I see your point, but I think it's going to be more a matter of scale, those hotels would still have needed to make that switch to survive, they would still pull that tax dodge with Paradise, they just wouldn't have gotten as big as fast

So Vegas would probably still exist but might be smaller with less corruption?