While you wouldn't expect a
communist system to exist in the
United States, the
liquor laws of
Pennsylvania provide an interesting
data point. The system of stores that
alcoholic beverages in the
commonwealth is owned by the
state government, and it is
illegal to compete. There are two kinds of stores that will sell alcohol;
beverage stores, which only sell
beer and other
light drinks, and
state stores, that sell the
hard stuff. This law was introduced as a kind of
extreme form of
sin tax, and has stayed on the books because of its
popularity with certain
religious groups, despite its overwhelming disfavor with the general public.
This system suffers from the typical problems of communism:
- Selection is awful. Distribution choices are not made at the local level, and if the store doesn't have what you're looking for, you have to pay a hefty delivery charge to get that special Merlot for your family reunion dinner.
- Distribution of stores per area is limited by the population of the county, in theory. In practice, pork-barrel politics has introduced enough exceptions to render the actual distribution somewhat arbitrary. At one time, there were less stores in Pennsylvania than there were in the city of Dallas.
- Service sucks. By law. Employees are forbidden to recommend any specific brand of alcohol.
- High prices. There are a ton of taxes that you have to pay on your alcohol. An expose was done on this in the 1980s. It turned out that some of the taxes were highly suspect; for instance a 'flood relief' tax was going to pay for flooding damage that had been done in the 1930s.
- Poor management. It's hard to imagine losing money when you're the only person in town that can sell alcohol, but somehow Pennsylvania manages to do it.
Many state residents get around the law by driving to a neighboring state and purchasing their alcohol there, or by buying from local
microbreweries. It should be noted that arrests for
drunk driving and
underage drinking are not significantly lower in PA than in other states.