Drinking Up the Revolution: How to Smash Big Alcohol and Reclaim Working-Class Joy

Big Alcohol is one of the most powerful and profitable industries in the world — yet this constellation of massive corporations, lobby groups, and governments faces almost no scrutiny for the immense health and social harms it causes.

Like climate change is to fossil fuels and lung cancer is to cigarettes, these countless alcohol-related harms — cancer, organ failure, traumatic injury, dependency — are a direct result of Big Alcohol’s thirst for profits. Now, it is fighting make alcohol even less regulated, and cheaper, stronger, and more ubiquitous, as it expands into the Global South and seeks even higher returns.

In Drinking Up the Revolution, James Wilt makes the case for smashing the global alcohol industry and building a politics of joy in its place. Far from a call for prohibition or sobriety, it is instead a manifesto for putting alcohol production and supply into the hands of the working class, facilitating lower-risk drinking, reduced harm, and decommodified sources of relaxation and pleasure.

For too long, the alcohol industry has dominated our understanding of the substance’s history, impacts, and ubiquity. Drinking Up the Revolution is a rallying cry to take back power from the corporations that have commodified our desire for joy and sold it back to us in a way that harms our health, lives, and the world around us.