Smoking, Class, and the Legitimation of Power: Reflections on the War against Tobacco and on the Rise of the New Puritanism

by Sean Gabb

"The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." T.B. Macaulay, 1848

The "War against Tobacco" is a fact of modern life. We have high taxes, bans on promotion, campaigns against smoking, and growing attempts to criminalise smoking outside the home-and even inside the home.

In this book, Sean Gabb shows that the "War" is part of a much larger project of lifestyle regulation by the ruling class, and that its final victory will be to reduce us to a mob of terrified and atomised serfs, toiling for the enrichment of others. He examines this "War" in its political and historical and its theological aspects, showing its alleged justifications as nothing more than a discourse imposed by the ideological state apparatus.

Extract:

The function of the war against tobacco is to provide a set of plausible excuses for the extraction of resources from the people and for the exercise of power over them. There is nothing new or unique about this war. It has been waged on and off for centuries. It is similar to the established wars against alcohol and drugs, and to the gathering war against supposedly unhealthy foods. Though, with the decline of public rationality, we now have our own witches and heretics to be combated-or, to be explicit, our racists and our paedophiles-the regulation of lifestyle is still the most plausible set of excuses for enlarging the income and status of our ruling class.

This is a class issue, and no discussion of tobacco policy can be complete without an understanding of the dynamics of class.

CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION: SMOKING, THE RULING CLASS AND LEGITIMATION DISCOURSE
THE RIGHT TO SMOKE: AN HISTORICAL VIEW
THE RIGHT TO SMOKE: A CHRISTIAN VIEW
THE RIGHT TO SMOKE: A CONSERVATIVE VIEW
COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING: A THREATENED HUMAN RIGHT
TOBACCO, CHILDREN AND ENTRAPMENT: A CASE FOR CONCERN?
SAVING THE KIDDIES, ENSLAVING ADULTS
THE PASSIVE SMOKING SCARE: WHEN RULING CLASS PROPAGANDA MASQUERADES AS SCIENCE
Sean Gabb is a writer and broadcaster whose novels, written under the name "Richard Blake" have been reviewed in the national press and translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Hungarian, Slovak, Indonesian and Chinese. He is Director of the Centre for Ancient Studies, and he lives in Kent with his wife and daughter.

179 pages, Paperback

Published October 25, 2017

About the author

Sean Gabb is the author of twenty books and around five hundred essays.

Under the name Richard Blake, he has written six historical novels for Hodder & Stoughton. These have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Greek, Slovak, Hungarian, Chinese and Indonesian.

Under his own name, he has written four novels. His other books are mainly about libertarian politics.

He is the Director of the Libertarian Alliance, a human rights and educational charity based in the United Kingdom.

He also teaches. His main experience has been in higher education. More recently, though, he has discovered a talent for teaching Latin to primary school children. This is a talent he intends to develop.

He lives in Kent with his wife and daughter.