COMPARATIVE IDEOLOGIES AND ALCOHOLISM - THE PROTESTANT AND PROLETARIAN ETHICS

Although the United States and the former Soviet Union have addressed alcoholism as a problem, models for response have rested on very diffe rent ideologies In the United States, measures to deal with alcoholism are supported by the Protestant ethic, while in the Soviet Union, suc h measures were supported by the proletarian ethic. Relying on separat e ideologies, both societies define and respond to alcohol-related pro blems in a similar manner: alcoholics are defined as unproductive in t he political-economic system. The sources of this similarity can be fo und in elements common to both ideologies and the structural convergen ce of both nations around industrialization.