Business Against Drunk Driving: The Neoliberal State, Labatt Brewery, and the Creation of the “Responsible Drinker”

Abstract

This paper examines the motivations and consequences of Labatt’s anti–drinking and driving campaign. The paper considers the economic and political conditions that enabled Canada’s largest brewer to execute a cause-advertising campaign and to establish itself as a “responsible corporation”—even when its leadership cared less about the deleterious effects of Labatt products and more about the company’s earnings. It examines neoliberal governance and the relationship between the public and private sector in tackling a prominent social problem—impaired driving—and how a for-profit business used its influence to create a new subjectivity: the “responsible drinker,” who did not drive while under the influence. It seeks to situate Labatt’s campaign within an increasingly neoliberal, individualistic political economy. This paper argues that Labatt’s actions were part of the neoliberal agenda toward “responsibilization” that shifted the responsibility for drunk driving away from regime-based institutions and onto the individual, allowing the neoliberal state to govern from a distance. It demonstrates that contrary to neoliberal rhetoric the state did not shrink during the late twentieth century but rather took on new regulatory functions.