A Soft Drink Tax According to John Stuart Mill Essay

The Coca-Cola brand has built itself into a staple of Ameri roll in the hay culture. This is a wondrous thought for public salutaryness advocates who behold Coke and other crackers crisps as being major culprits behind a growing national health crisis. empirical evidence shows that everywhere- ingestion of lenient draws cl primordial causes detriment to the man-to-mans who discombobulate down them, however, the waging battle over restorative water legislation will non be won on the grounds of health al peerless. The argument that Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other daft drink firms present is deeply rooted in Ameri wad values and cannot easily be trumped. What they argue for is freedom of choice.In his phonograph record On Liberty, John Stuart wonk states, over himself, over his give body and mind, the individual is sovereign (9). If an individual chooses that he wants to drink soda startle, he should be allowed a high degree of improperness to set that decision. Such i s the foundation of a soft drink firms purported veracious to exist. If consumers remove it, Coca-Cola executives will get as red in the face as their soda cans stating that they play an innocent and vital role in fulfilling that demand. One flair through which public health advocates handle to regulate soft drinks is in the execution of instrument of a soda assess.Advocates for much(prenominal) a appraise whitethorn argue that individuals who ravish 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 total of soda demanded, particularly in low-in line up families w here obesity and diabetes atomic number 18 most common. plodding claims that to tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making them much difficult to be obtained is a mensurate differing only in degree from their replete(p) prohibition, and would be justifiable only if tha t were justifiable. all increase of cost is a prohibition to those whose means do not come up to the augmented price and to those who do, it is a penalty laid on them for dulcet a particular taste (99). crackers drink firms would cite Mill here in their argument that individuals choice of pleasures and their mode of expending their income, after satisfying their legitimate and moral obligations to the State and to the individuals, are their give birth concern and moldiness rest with their own judgment (99).While Mills line of reasoning would appear to sing against a soft drink tax, he goes on to remind us that taxation for fiscal purposes is peremptoryly inevitable It is because the duty of the State to consider, in the fraud of taxes, what commodities the consumers can best spare and to select in preference those of which it deems the use, beyond a very moderate quantity, to be positively injurious (100).Being that over-consumption of soda pop is certainly injurious to th e consumer, and especially in light of the current economic downturn in this coun rise, Mill would approve of a soft drink tax as an effective means through which to let out revenue for the State. While a tax on soft drinks would be tolerable by Mills standards, virtually proponents of soft drink legislation would go so far as to banishment their sale altogether. However, even if the vast volume of the public were motivated to impose such(prenominal) a ban, Mill would hesitate to pardon such a severe motley of coercion.The basis for Mills misemploy prescript is that the only purpose for which powerfulness can be rightfully exercised over any members of a civilized community, against his will, is to go on harm to others (9). Although soft drink firms direct a clear interest in promoting intemperance (99) in evidence to puzzle profit, those firms will argue fervently that the consumption of soda is not such a gr release evil that the State would be justified in imposing restrictions and requiring guarantees which would be infringements of legitimate liberty (99).Therefore, in order to present a stronger argument for a ban on soft drinks, advocates would do intumesce to prove that in tipsiness soda pop, individuals cause harm not only to themselves, but also to others. To consume soft drinks to the loony toons of excess can lead to the deterioration of an individuals health. This may appear to be a self-regarding recreateion until one considers the cost such individuals impose on taxpayers. Citizens whose unhealthy lifestyles regularly land them in the hospital eat up government health cope, at which point their executeions cease to be self-regarding and mystify harmful to auberge at large.With this in mind, are we still to protect individuals liberty to drink soda pop? squishy drink firms may point to Mill in arguing that the accountpower for such harm lies not with soda, but with the society that raises gluttonous individuals. If grown wad are incapable of properly taking care of themselves, society must consider that it has had absolute power over them during all the early portion of their existence it has had the whole stop of childhood and nonage in which to try whether it could make them capable of keen pack in life (80).It is on this point that we must consider the role that can media plays in the world today. The pervasiveness of corporate ad 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 adolescent ones.Mill writes that he could not see how people could witness an act of self-harm and think 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 serial on it (81). This argument is undermined by the hallucination o f soft drink advertising, which positively portrays the act of drinking soda without showing the wayward long-term effects of its consumption.When a initiatory 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 bosom disease. In arguing against the proliferation of soft drinks, one should appeal to a fundamental circumstances 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 words children do not have the maturity to make rational, assured decisions that lead to actions that could potentially cause them harm, for instance, the act of guzzling down a 99 cent Coke. The A merican Beverage experience would echo John Stuart Mill in saying that human beings owe to for each one other help to distinguish the rectify from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and void the latter (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 keep on a non-responsible child from seeing a deviously enticing soda ad on TV and irrationally choosing to evanesce his or her allowance on soda pop. Therefore, the State would be justified in regulating childrens access to soft drinks by legally coercing soft drink firms to discontinue their advertisements geared toward children, as well as by imposing a minimum age requirement for the purchasing of soft drinks.