WEBVTT NOTE Homer vs. Prohibition 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.440 It's a pleasure to be here and to have all you here today on this distinguished panel. 2 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:15.400 I must admit, my paper Homer versus Prohibition, this is not a paper about the epic poet from 3 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:18.040 ancient Greece. 4 00:00:18.040 --> 00:00:26.560 This is a paper about Homer Simpson of the cartoon TV series The Simpsons. 5 00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:35.620 The Homer of Ancient Greece wrote about zealots and stars, military heroes, all that kind 6 00:00:35.620 --> 00:00:45.280 of stuff. Homer Simpson is much more of a regular guy, with all the flaws of every people, 7 00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:52.620 not the great zealots and religious leaders and the stars and the military heroes of Homer's 8 00:00:52.620 --> 00:01:06.140 Epic Writings. Homer Simpson is the representative of what I refer to as the drinking class. 9 00:01:06.140 --> 00:01:18.160 Now Josh Hall is editing a book called Homer Economicus on the economics of the Simpsons 10 00:01:18.160 --> 00:01:23.480 and he asked me to write a chapter for that book on a particular episode of the 11 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:30.400 series The Simpsons and the the title of the episode is Homer versus the 18th 12 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:35.760 Amendment or alcohol prohibition in the United States and it's really I'd never 13 00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:40.640 seen the show he just knew that I had written a lot about prohibition and wanted 14 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:47.240 me to write one specifically on that this specific show and I couldn't really 15 00:01:47.240 --> 00:01:52.240 I thought this is a great opportunity. It provides an excellent illustration. 16 00:01:52.240 --> 00:01:58.240 Like I said, I hadn't seen the show, but when I did, I said, I have to sign up for this project. 17 00:01:58.240 --> 00:02:09.240 Overall, the book is meant to be an introduction to free market economics to college students, high schools, senior economics classes, 18 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:16.240 and just everybody can benefit from the book. 19 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:30.240 My paper is actually on the working paper site of the Mises Institute, so if you want to actually get a copy of the paper, and if you wanted to show your class the show, it's only 21 minutes long. 20 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:38.240 I've done it a couple times at Auburn University, and it's worked out great. 21 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:45.840 Matt Groening, who's the producer and creator of the show, and his writers just did a fabulous job 22 00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:52.960 in terms of getting the story right about alcohol prohibition and applying it to Springfield, 23 00:02:52.960 --> 00:03:00.800 Illinois and The Simpsons Show. He starts out with reality. He's not starting with perfection. 24 00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:07.520 The show opens on St. Patrick's Day in Springfield with Homer and his buddies standing 25 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:14.060 Standing outside of Moe's bar eagerly awaiting Moe to show up so that they can get snuckered 26 00:03:14.060 --> 00:03:22.220 all day long on St. Patrick's Day, Moe finally shows up with a large bottle of green beer 27 00:03:22.220 --> 00:03:29.420 dye with the skull and crossbone written on it and Homer's friends say, you know, Moe, 28 00:03:29.420 --> 00:03:34.460 we've been here for an hour, we're thirsty, we broke in your back door but there was another 29 00:04:04.460 --> 00:04:14.140 Crazy and crawling all over the place. There's a beer cannon in the parade and the beer cannon 30 00:04:14.140 --> 00:04:19.660 gets tipped over and the beer starts going up in the air and comes down directly into 31 00:04:19.660 --> 00:04:25.980 the mouth of Bart Simpson, who gets drunk and is shown on TV staggering all over the 32 00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:35.740 Place on TV, and then this sort of creates an uproar amongst the finer people of Springfield, 33 00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:42.020 Illinois. There's a lot of talk about, think about the children, you know, we got to do 34 00:04:42.020 --> 00:04:50.140 this for the children's sake. Women sort of go to City Hall and demand that something 35 00:04:50.140 --> 00:04:57.180 can be done, representing what in the 1920s was the Women's Christian Temperance Union 36 00:04:57.180 --> 00:05:00.060 who advocated for prohibition. 37 00:05:00.060 --> 00:05:09.540 And so this is all sort of, he brings it down to the small level of prohibition in the 1920s 38 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:16.000 here in Springfield, Illinois in a very sped up process. 39 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:25.640 As the discussion goes on, basically he brings into play the Baptist's point of view of 40 00:05:25.640 --> 00:05:33.320 alcohol is inherently evil and we must be completely eliminated in order to save society. 41 00:05:33.320 --> 00:05:37.700 And while this is taking place, a clerk in town finds an old dusty document that says 42 00:05:37.700 --> 00:05:43.560 that Springfield has a prohibition already, that's been in existence for 200 years, it's 43 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:49.040 which has just been forgotten about and so Matt Groening speeds up the story of Prohibition 44 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:54.420 which actually took a half a century in the United States to get from the prohibitionist 45 00:05:54.420 --> 00:06:01.480 sentiment in the people, the temperance sentiment turned into a nationwide prohibition. 46 00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:05.120 He does it in 30 seconds. 47 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:13.540 So in the paper basically I look at the promises of Prohibition which is to clean up society 48 00:06:13.540 --> 00:06:21.040 to make everybody nice and neat and pretty, clean up corruption, and so forth, and compare 49 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:29.900 that to the reality of prohibition, all the unintended consequences that do take place. 50 00:06:29.900 --> 00:06:36.440 In other words, go beyond the sort of simple supply and demand economics of, well, we'll 51 00:06:36.440 --> 00:06:40.540 prohibit prohibition, we might not be able to completely eliminate it, but it's going 52 00:06:40.540 --> 00:06:45.040 are going to drive up the price and reduce the quantity. We're going to make a better society. 53 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:49.880 The reality is, of course, there's a lot of unintended consequences and The Simpsons Show 54 00:06:49.880 --> 00:06:54.720 does a great job of illustrating all those unintended consequences. 55 00:06:54.720 --> 00:07:00.000 The first thing that happened is the owner of Duff's Brewery in town switches to non-alcoholic 56 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:05.200 beer, claiming that his sales are going to go up, his costs are going to go down, he's 57 00:07:05.200 --> 00:07:08.960 going to make more money than ever. Thirty seconds later, he goes out of business. 58 00:07:08.960 --> 00:07:20.520 Then the mafia shows up. It starts running in beer from the next town over. They drive 59 00:07:20.520 --> 00:07:29.280 into town in these armor-plated trucks, careening through the streets, and the mafia boss tosses 60 00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:36.240 out money into the police cars. As money lands on the lap of one of the police officers, 61 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:47.240 I don't know, you know, why does the mafia always get such a bad rap? 62 00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:53.360 Moe's Bar, which is normally kind of a laid back, you know, place where they're not really 63 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:58.120 even talking all that much, just a few guys sitting around sipping their beers, is turned 64 00:07:58.120 --> 00:08:04.000 into Moe's Pet Shop, which is a speakeasy. It's made to look like a pet shop, but it's 65 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:12.880 It's actually a jazz bar and instead of the laid back old Moe's bar, it's got a big jazz 66 00:08:12.880 --> 00:08:18.480 band and the waitresses are all in burlesque costumes and everybody's dancing and carrying 67 00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:26.000 on and everybody's having a great time actually until the women's Christian temperance. 68 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:32.180 People show up and get the police chief who's also at the bar, who's also at the speakeasy, 69 00:08:32.180 --> 00:08:39.660 They get him fired and they bring in a character from the US Treasury Office named Rex Banner 70 00:08:39.660 --> 00:08:45.720 who's meant to represent Elliot Ness from the show The Untouchables, the person who 71 00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:53.260 wouldn't accept bribes, who would always go after the bad guy and would never be deterred 72 00:08:53.260 --> 00:08:54.260 by bribes. 73 00:08:54.260 --> 00:09:00.940 And actually, Fat Tony, who's the mafia guy in town, goes up to bribe Rex Banner in the 74 00:09:00.940 --> 00:09:06.420 of the Show, and you know, just puts the money right in his face, and Rex Banner just won't 75 00:09:06.420 --> 00:09:11.420 take it. And Fat Tony says, well, if you won't take my money, I'm going to go back to selling 76 00:09:11.420 --> 00:09:25.860 heroin. And Rex Banner replies, see that you do. So it's, so when they put the right guys 77 00:09:25.860 --> 00:09:31.540 is in charge who, you know, aren't going to take the bribes. In fact, Tony's no longer 78 00:09:31.540 --> 00:09:38.900 running in the beer from the next town. The city starts running dry. Then Homer laments, 79 00:09:38.900 --> 00:09:44.140 quote, at first I thought, I should have worked on my Homer Simpson imitation, at first I 80 00:09:44.140 --> 00:09:53.180 thought prohibition was a good thing. People were drinking more and having a lot more fun. 81 00:09:53.180 --> 00:10:03.260 Without beer, prohibition just doesn't work. 82 00:10:03.260 --> 00:10:08.800 And then to underscore his status as a role model for the drinking class, Homer chastises 83 00:10:08.800 --> 00:10:16.280 Police Chief Wiggum for giving into the good guys, quote, don't say that chief, alcohol 84 00:10:16.280 --> 00:10:24.840 is a way of life. Alcohol is my way of life and I aim to keep it. So Homer becomes, steps 85 00:10:24.840 --> 00:10:36.040 into the role as the hero at this point. He's going to do something about this lack of beer. 86 00:10:36.040 --> 00:10:42.720 He comes up with the idea of going to the dump where all the duff beer had been dumped 87 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:48.760 and digging it up. And so he gets on that. Rex Banner finds out about this and chases 88 00:10:48.760 --> 00:10:54.160 him through a cemetery and he's careening off and running into things in this car. He 89 00:10:54.160 --> 00:10:59.240 shows up at home, marches out front waiting for him, and he comes in with this battered 90 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:10.780 up old car and a wagon load full of beer kegs. So Homer develops an ingenious idea of hollowing 91 00:11:10.780 --> 00:11:16.560 out bowling balls, filling them with beer, and putting them in this contraption which 92 00:11:16.560 --> 00:11:27.560 somehow ends up back at Moe's bar. And Moe's serving beer for only $45 a mug. So you get 93 00:11:27.560 --> 00:11:34.560 the idea of higher prices, criminal activity, violence, and so forth. And Homer turns to 94 00:11:34.560 --> 00:11:40.760 Bart and says, the real money is in bootlegging, not your childish vandalism. Bart then concedes 95 00:11:40.760 --> 00:11:50.560 Oh, so many wasted nights. And even Marge says that once she finds out that Homer is 96 00:11:50.560 --> 00:11:58.440 really this elusive underground character known as the beer baron, when Lisa finds out she's 97 00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:04.440 outraged that her father is a bootlegger. But Marge even says that Homer, this is the cleverest 98 00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:18.440 So it's a great story. Once they run out of beer from the dump, Homer gets into doing 99 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:29.840 bathtub whiskey. He actually goes to the hardware store and orders 39 bathtubs. And so things 100 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:36.160 You guys are getting, you know, showing that, you know, the higher potency product comes 101 00:12:36.160 --> 00:12:37.160 onto the market. 102 00:12:37.160 --> 00:12:42.040 If you have to make it and bring it to market, as I've shown in my book on The Economics 103 00:12:42.040 --> 00:12:50.200 of Prohibition, the producers turn towards more potent, easier to conceal, and more dangerous 104 00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:51.200 products. 105 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:58.960 And Homer actually gives up his status as the beer baron when all of the stills in his basement 106 00:12:58.960 --> 00:13:05.360 start exploding. He's in bed with Marge, they're just about to go to sleep and all these stills 107 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:12.840 start exploding in the basement and Homer tries to cover it up by coughing or apologizing 108 00:13:12.840 --> 00:13:19.560 for farting, things like that. Marge isn't having any of it and Homer catches himself 109 00:13:19.560 --> 00:13:26.660 on fire trying to put out the explosions and he decides to give in with that. He comes 110 00:13:26.660 --> 00:13:56.660 He comes up with a plan to get rid of Rex Barron and get the police chief reinstated, which he does by giving himself into Police Chief Wiggum, and at the end, he, let's see here, yeah, they're going to catapult Homer for being the beer baron, they're going to catapult Homer out of town using a 200-year-old catapult 111 00:13:56.660 --> 00:14:26.660 and then Marge stands up for Homer and then the clerk finds out that no, that law, that 200-year-old law had actually been repealed and so the story ends rather quickly obviously the mayor asked Homer to get the beer coming back into town and he says no I refuse but Fat Tony is willing to flood the town with booze again in four minutes 112 00:14:26.660 --> 00:14:35.780 Homer's triumph in the conclusion to the episode is to make a toast to alcohol and freedom. 113 00:14:35.780 --> 00:14:42.420 It's very explicitly making the case that freedom is also an issue as well as all these 114 00:14:42.420 --> 00:14:45.660 unintended consequences. 115 00:14:45.660 --> 00:14:53.780 From atop a pile of beer kegs, he announces to alcohol the cause of and solution to all 116 00:14:53.780 --> 00:14:55.780 and all of life's problems.