Beernomics

Have you ever wondered why your pint is so expensive?

You work hard, you’ve got a day off, maybe you don’t have a job but you fancy a pint. But it’s so dear to go the pub with your mates, sit off watching the racing, listen to the jukey.

Why?

It’s because the pub you’re sitting in isn’t owned by the barmaid. It’s not owned by the manager. It’s owned by a pubco such as Punch Taverns. They don’t even own the pub. They own the right to use the building as a pub. The building itself will be owned by a property company who lease it to a pubco, who franchise it to a manager. The land the pub is built on will be owned by (literally) a landlord, such as Lord Grosvenor, and leased to the owners of the building, who lease it to a pubco, who franchise it to a manager.

Lots of people running lots of companies are charging money for the “right” to own, or lease, or operate the pub that you are buying your pint from. None of these middlemen are doing any work in building, maintaining or running the pub, apart from the manager and barmaid.

Now to your pint.

It’s a pint of Smethwyck’s Best Bitter (I made that beer up, but it’s proving a point)  It’s a delicious brew of fermented hops and malted barley. The hops are grown in Kent, the barley grown and malted in Staffordshire. Except the hops are grown on land owned by, let’s say Lord Grosvenor, or one of his cousins. They are grown by a tenant farmer who has to pay rent to Lord Grosvenor (who does no work) and has to make a profit himself in order to survive. So the hops, already artificially expensive, are then picked. Luckily by a caravan full of Lithuanians, no extra cost. They are sold to a wholesaler, who will sell them to a brewer, who rents his brewery from a landowner, who will make your beer.

The same thing happens with the barley, with the addition of a malthouse, owned by a company who rent from a landlord, etc…

Once the beer’s made, it will be barrelled or bottled and transported to your local (by a private haulage company). You will enjoy your well-deserved pint, or your seriously needed pint.

But think, why has that pint cost you so much?

The pubco, the landlord, the brewery, the farmer (not the farmhand) and the haulier are all groups of people who generate wealth by doing absolutely nothing other than owning property or rights to the use of property. Capitalism is why your pint is so expensive. A planned economy will make your pint cheaper by removing these unnecessary parasites.