I remain puzzled by Doug's determination on this issue. I hope it is clear that no one is criticising smokers in a moralistic way, (though there is a small risk from passive smoking).
About advertising, kindly educate me since this project is in many ways an exercise in self education.
I was referring to the attempts by the industry to explain away the large amount of money spent on advertising and on lobbying by saying that it has no effect! I am not aware of their sophisticated reply to this question, beyond a claim that they are maintaining market share.
About Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, or whatever it is clear that cigarettes have been smoked widely in countries that have revolutionary histories. Perhaps pictures of Mao turned more millions onto smoking than the Marlboro man. Although Doug suspects me of crude economic determinism, I see no reason to plead guilty. Socialisation, status, competition and bonding around an easily carried highly addictive drug of recreation, is a highly complex process. It is not unique to nicotine. Such processes have occurred around alcohol for thousands of years, and around coffee for four centuries with the spread of coffee shops for the emergent bourgeoisie.
What is happening is giant monopoly capitalist companies moving into dominate the markets of many of these poorer countries with their revolutionary past. They teach that bourgeois identification can be achieved by offering around a more expensive attractively labelled brand of the addictive commodity. This is part of the capitalist offensive against these former socialist countries. The nicotine coated bullets.
And of course in the short term the monopoly capitalist companies will win. They are quite sanguine about their strategy of reinforcing their profits by deepening the exploitation of markets like Vietnam. I posted on this a couple of weeks ago.
Doug seems still to be stuck in a moralism-antimoralism polarity here instead of analysing the class forces behind the phenomena.
Chris Burford
London.