Abstract

MEZA RAMIREZ, Carlos Andrés. Liquor monopoly and proscription of illegal distilled beverages, in Colombia. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2014, n.19, pp.69-91. ISSN 1900-5407.

The logic of dispossession in Colombia refers to structures and phenomena of the colonial legacy not yet overcome. One of them is the effect of monopoly concentration of liquor taxes on the prohibition of the production of distilled beverages, which is one of the crafts of rural and ethnic societies. The liquor tax, the basis of the fiscal productive power of the departments, has remained relatively stable since the late 18th century. From the institutional and bureaucratic viewpoint, the proceeds from the liquor tax constituted the motor force of local and regional development. That is why the monopoly policy established forms of privilege by concentrating the rights to produce and supply liquor for the benefit of the pieces of territory called departments that make up the nation-state. The other face of the evolution of departmental revenue is revealed in the memories of persecution, fines, seizures and imprisonment in which witnesses recall their own life experiences or stories they have heard to illustrate the idea of uprootedness regarding taxes.

Keywords : Distilled beverages; liquor monopoly; proscription; dispossession.

        · abstract in Spanish | Portuguese     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )