A Soft Drink Tax According to John Stuart Mill Essay

The Coca-Cola brand has built itself into a staple of Ameri enkindle culture. This is a terrifying thought for public health advocates who see ampere-second and other blue-blooded soak ups as being major culprits behind a growing national health crisis. Empirical evidence shows that over-consumption of soft drinks distinctly causes suffering to the individuals who consume them, however, the waging battle over club seltzer legislation go away not be won on the grounds of health al sensation. The note that Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other soft drink firms present is deeply rooted in American values and cannot easily be trumped. What they argue for is freedom of choice.In his book On Liberty, John Stuart manufactory states, over himself, over his take body and mind, the individual is sovereign (9). If an individual chooses that he wants to drink soda pop, he should be eitherowed a high degree of liberty to repair that decision. Such is the foundation of a soft drink firms purpor ted right to exist. If consumers demand it, Coca-Cola executives forget get as red in the face as their soda cans stating that they play an innocent and vital eccentric in fulfilling that demand. One method through which public health advocates deal to regulate soft drinks is in the implementation of a soda r steadyue enhancement.Advocates for such(prenominal) a tax may argue that individuals who harm themselves by overindulging in soda should be limited in their consumption. Since supply and demand atomic number 18 sensitive to market conditions, a tax would undoubtedly lower the cadence of soda demanded, especial(a)ly in low-income families where obesity and diabetes are most common. footle claims that to tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making them more difficult to be obtained is a measure differing only in degree from their entire proscription, and would be justifiable only if that were justifiable.Every increase of cost is a prohibition to those whose means do not come up to the augmented determine and to those who do, it is a penalty laid on them for gratifying a particular taste (99). Soft drink firms would cite loiter here in their argument that individuals choice of pleasures and their mode of expending their income, after satisfying their statutory and moral obligations to the State and to the individuals, are their own concern and moldiness heartsease with their own judgment (99). grow loiters line of reason would place to speak against a soft drink tax, he goes on to remind us that taxation for fiscal purposes is absolutely inevitable It is thereof the duty of the State to consider, in the imposition of taxes, what commodities the consumers can best forbear and to select in preference those of which it deems the use, beyond a very declare quantity, to be positively injurious (100).Being that over-consumption of soda pop is for sure injurious to the consumer, and especially in light of the current economic downturn in this coun hand over, Mill would approve of a soft drink tax as an effective means through which to produce revenue for the State. While a tax on soft drinks would be permissible by Mills standards, some proponents of soft drink legislation would go so far as to ban their sale altogether. However, even if the colossal majority of the public were motivated to gossip such a ban, Mill would hesitate to condone such a severe form of coercion.The bottom for Mills harm principle is that the only purpose for which queen can be rightfully exercised over any members of a cultured community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others (9). Although soft drink firms have a resolve interest in promoting intemperance (99) in order to generate profit, those firms will argue fervently that the consumption of soda is not such a gr extinguish evil that the State would be justified in horrible restrictions and requiring guarantees which would be infringements of legitimate liberty (99).There fore, in order to present a stronger argument for a ban on soft drinks, advocates would do strong to prove that in drinking soda pop, individuals cause harm not only to themselves, but also to others. To consume soft drinks to the point of overplus can snuff it to the deterioration of an individuals health. This may appear to be a self-regarding action until one considers the cost such individuals impose on taxpayers. Citizens whose unhealthy lifestyles regularly land them in the hospital eat up government health care, at which point their actions cease to be self-regarding and become harmful to society at large.With this in mind, are we inactive to protect individuals liberty to drink soda pop? Soft drink firms may point to Mill in arguing that the accountability for such harm lies not with soda, but with the society that raises gluttonous individuals. If grown lot are incapable of properly taking care of themselves, society must consider that it has had absolute power over th em during all the early subdivision of their existence it has had the whole period of nestlinghood and nonage in which to try whether it could make them capable of rational preserve in life (80).It is on this point that we must consider the role that mass media plays in the piece today. The pervasiveness of corporate advertising in the U. S. manipulates childrens impressionable faculties of reason, subverting the ability of even responsible parents and educators to impart rational consumption habits on their young ones.Mill writes that he could not see how people could witness an act of self-harm and have in mind it more salutary than hurtful, since, if it displays the misconduct, it displays also the painful or degrading consequences which, if the conduct is justly censured, must be supposed to be in all or most cases attendant on it (81). This argument is undermined by the error of soft drink advertising, which positively portrays the act of drinking soda without presentati on the adverse long-term effects of its consumption.When a world-class athlete endorses soda pop, susceptible consumers, particularly children, are inclined to associate soft drinks with scoring goals and dunking basketballs rather than with cancer and heart disease. In arguing against the proliferation of soft drinks, one should appeal to a fundamental component of Mills doctrine, which states that his harm principle does not apply to children or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury (9).In other speech children do not have the maturity to make rational, informed decisions that lead to actions that could potentially cause them harm, for instance, the act of guzzling down a 99 cent Coke. The American Beverage Association would echo John Stuart Mill in saying that human beings owe to e ach other facilitate to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter(prenominal) (74). It is their argument that parents and educators, not government, are responsible for dissuading children to consume soft drinks.Indeed, parents and educators can form a partnership in banning the sale of soft drinks in schools, but it is beyond their power to prevent a non-responsible child from seeing a deviously enticing soda ad on TV and irrationally choosing to spend his or her allowance on soda pop. Therefore, the State would be justified in regulating childrens memory access to soft drinks by legally coercing soft drink firms to discontinue their advertisements accommodate toward children, as well as by imposing a minimum age requirement for the purchasing of soft drinks.