Sumptuary Labor

Jeffrey J. Sallaz and Chi Phoenix Wang
Additional contact information
Jeffrey J. Sallaz: University of Arizona
Chi Phoenix Wang: Harvard University

Politics & Society, 2016, vol. 44, issue 4, 551-572

Abstract: Liberal market states promote the responsible consumption of potentially dangerous commodities. But the work of enforcing sumptuary law is in fact delegated to service employees in the private sector. In this article such work is termed sumptuary labor . Although the ability of states to privatize sumptuary enforcement is a remarkable accomplishment, it is by no means a seamless one. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among bartenders and casino dealers, the article elaborates patterned conflicts of interest that arise during the performance of sumptuary labor. Both firms and workers may fail to ensure eligibility for consumption, prevent overindulgence, or guarantee the purity of the problematic commodity. The article concludes by theorizing how liberal market states manage the potential decoupling of sumptuary policy and practice.

Keywords: governance; consumption; labor; liberalism; markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329216674004 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:44:y:2016:i:4:p:551-572

DOI: 10.1177/0032329216674004

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Politics & Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().