[In the following essay, Best demonstrates how in the seventeenth century “powerful persons and agencies” who had a political and economic stake in the tobacco trade between Europe and America succeeded in transforming tobacco into an acceptable product despite the persistence of social disapproval.]

Sociologists who analyze the invention of deviant labels typically emphasize the importance of differences in morality. They argue that new deviant labels are created when reform movements (or moral crusades) point out the existence of previously unnoticed moral failings; the reformers (or moral entrepreneurs) lead others to define some behavior as indecent, disgusting, or immoral. Such explanations are particularly common for laws against drugs and other “crimes without victims.” Whereas laws against theft and other crimes with victims can be seen as functional, even essential to some types of societies, the definition of victimless crimes seems discretionary, subject only to prevailing morality. Thus Becker argues that the basis for the Marijuana Tax Act was in reformers' values, including beliefs that: “the individual should exercise complete responsibility for what he does and what happens to him; he should never do anything that might cause loss of self-control;” “disapproval of action taken solely to achieve states of ecstacy;” and “humanitarianism” (Becker, 1963:136). Others have emphasized the role of morality in the anti-opium movements in nineteenth century England (Johnson, 1975) and twentieth century America (Lindesmith, 1965). In this view, drug laws—and, by extension, other laws—are the result of moral concern.

Other sociologists have emphasized the role of interests in the invention of deviance. Dickson (1968) suggests that the Marijuana Tax Act reflected the Federal Bureau of Narcotics' desire to expand its scope of operations, thereby justifying its continued funding in a period of budgetary constraints. Similarly, Gusfield (1963) argues that the prohibition movement served symbolically to represent the status dominance of the native, rural, Protestant middle class. Other analysts have noted that the passage of the Harrison Act to regulate narcotics was consistent with the interests of businessmen hoping to trade with China (Taylor, 1969; Musto, 1973). In each of these cases, the anti-drug movement's rhetoric was couched in moralistic terms, but it is possible to discern bureaucratic, status, or economic interests which presumably would lead to support for the crusade. This argument is not limited to accounting for crusades against drugs; the role of interests in the development of other criminal laws has been recognized by Hall (1952), Quinney (1970), Chambliss (1974) and others. Moral commitment is not necessarily the major motive behind the passage of new legislation.

Sociologists have paid less attention to the process of vindication. Just as deviant labels must be invented, there are occasions when a form of deviant behavior is vindicated, redefined as respectable or legitimate. While it is possible to identify several examples of vindication, the process has received little systematic sociological attention. Sociologists who have studied recent movements to vindicate abortion, homosexuality, marijuana use, and other victimless crimes have adopted a moralistic framework. In this view, the issue is whether the laws against victimless crimes unjustly interfere with the individuals' right to choose their own course of action. Schur (1969:194) says: “… there is some feeling among students of these matters that at least some of the behaviors we now treat as criminal might better be simply left alone; that in some areas of human behavior a greater tolerance of diversity, rather than special efforts at control—by whatever means—would constitute the wisest ‘policy.’” Similar arguments have been offered by those who hope to alter social policy, such as the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws as well as other academic observers. Their analyses ignore or minimize the role of interests in the process of vindication, assuming instead that moral persuasion is sufficient.

This paper seeks to weigh the relative importance of morality and interests in a single historical case of vindication—that of tobacco in seventeenth century Europe. Shortly after Europeans first learned that tobacco could be smoked for pleasure, smoking was banned or heavily taxed throughout much of the continent. Yet, within a relatively short period of time, these anti-tobacco laws were withdrawn and the same governments which had passed them were encouraging tobacco use. This vindication was a consequence of shifts in the governments' interests, and occurred in spite of continued moralistic opposition to smoking. After examining the case in greater detail, the implications for the sociological analysis of other efforts at vindication will be considered.

Because tobacco was indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, Europeans had no contact with the drug before the sixteenth century. Tobacco was introduced to several European countries before 1560 and by the end of the century it was well-known—as a medical drug. Physicians claimed that tobacco could be used to cure a wide range of diseases and Europeans began to cultivate tobacco for use in medicines. Also during the second half of the sixteenth century, Europeans discovered a second use for tobacco—as a recreational drug. By 1600, smoking was a common habit around most major ports and “in all the more cosmopolitan cities of England and Ireland” (Brooks, 1937:52).

England was also the scene of the first important moral crusade against tobaco. In 1602, Work for Chimney-sweepers: or A Warning for Tobacconists, the first of several anti-tobacco tracts, was published. Two years later, A Counterblaste to Tobacco appeared and, while it was published anonymously, the author was widely known to be the King, James I. James and his fellow moral entrepreneurs attacked tobacco for a variety of reasons. They held that the recreational use of tobacco was irresponsible, analogous to drunkenness; one tract (Deacon, 1968:72) published in 1616 used images later associated with the temperance movement:

For imagine thou beheldest here such a fume-suckers wife most fearfully fuming forth very fountaines of bloud, howling for anguish of heart, weeping, wailing, and wringing her hands together, with grisly lookes, with wide staring eies, with mind amazed, with thoughts perplexed, with body shivering and quaking in every joynt: wouldest thou not wonder greatly at this her so sodaine a change? … But suppose withall thou shouldest presently heare the thundring eccho of her horrible outcries ring in the clouds, while she pitifully pleades with her husband thus:

Oh husband, my husband, mine onely husband! Consider I beseech thee, thy deare, thy loving, and thy kind-hearted wife. … Why doest thou so vainely preferre a vanishing filthie fume before my permanent vertues; before my amourous imbracings; yea before my firme setled faith & constant love?

Similarly, critics argued that excessive tobacco use was hazardous to the smoker's health, leading to insanity, sterility, birth defects, and other maladies; that smoking was religiously offensive; that it was a habit of low prestige, characteristic “of ryotous and disordered Persons of meane and base Condition” and that, since the finest smoking tobacco was imported from Spanish colonies, it was economically foolish to exchange English gold for the product of a rival nation, particularly when that product was to be burned (Beer, 1933; Brooks, 1937; Arents, 1937; James, 1954). Similar arguments were adopted by anti-tobacco crusaders in several other European countries (Corti, 1931; Lewin, 1964).

These anti-tobacco sentiments were not limited to pamphlets; they became the basis for official policy in several countries. In England, James sought to eliminate the recreational use of tobacco. In 1604, he added a special impost of 6s. 8d. to the standard duty of 2d. per pound on imported tobacco—a 4000 percent increase designed to price tobacco out of the reach of most smokers. James refrained from making tobacco use illegal, because he did not want to interfere with the “Persons of good Callinge and Qualitye” who used the drug for legitimate medical purposes (Arents, 1937; Brooks, 1937). This failure to institute criminal sanctions was atypical; most other countries in the northern half of Europe adopted criminal penalties to discourage smokers. Laws forbidding trading in tobacco, smoking it, or both, began to appear after 1630 in several states, including Austria, Denmark-Norway, France, Bavaria, Cologne, Saxony, Württemberg, Russia, Sicily, Sweden, and Switzerland (Brooks, 1937; Corti, 1931; Gray and Wyckoff, 1940; Hamilton, 1927; Laufer, 1924; Ramsey, 1930). The penalties for violation were usually relatively small fines, although the Russian laws, which at various times prescribed whippings, slit noses, torture, deportation to Siberia, and death, were exceptions (Brooks, 1937).

The anti-tobacco campaigns in Northern Europe contrasted with the response on the rest of the continent. In general, the nations of Southern Europe were the first to learn about tobacco. These same countries, Spain, Portugal and the majority of the Italian states, never legislated against the plant. While the cause of this is not certain, in keeping with the explanation of vindication offered below, it might be noted that they were profiting from the tobacco trade before the deviant definition began to spread. (The fact that tobacco was already widely smoked in England before the English deviant definition developed may explain why smoking was not made a criminal offense; perhaps James sought to avoid the conflict such a move would create.)

In spite of the anti-tobacco prohibitions, tobacco use spread throughout Europe during the seventeenth century, as indicated by repeated pronouncements. The Elector of Bavaria issued a proclamation stating “He was greatly pained to hear that the successive orders respecting the use of tobacco had been very carelessly observed, and in some cases criminally disregarded” (quoted in Corti, 1931:113). In 1670, the Swiss National Assembly decreed that “Although the injurious habit of smoking has been everywhere prohibited by order, we recognize that these orders have been met by a spirit of opposition which is not easy to suppress. Nevertheless, we have once more resolved not to recede from our position” (quoted in Corti, 1931:124). Even Russia, with its harsh penalties for smoking, had tobacco smugglers (Arents, 1938).

During the seventeenth century, then, recreational tobacco use became defined as a social problem throughout much of Europe. Both morality and interests seem to have influenced these governments to define tobacco as deviant; while moral entrepreneurs indicted tobacco on several counts, politicians were aware also of the economic dangers in trading gold for tobacco imported by Spain. Thus the history of tobacco parallels the histories of several modern drug problems. In one important respect, however, tobacco's history is an exception: by the end of the seventeenth century, the drug was legal throughout Europe—it had been vindicated. This process of vindication requires detailed analysis.

The vindication of tobacco occurred only when the governments which had been legislating against it developed a new definition of tobacco as a revenue-producing substance. To see how this definition was created, it is necessary to return to the English experience, for just as the English were the first to define tobacco as deviant, they were the first to vindicate it. In fact, it was King James, the man who is remembered as tobacco's most vigorous official opponent, who demonstrated tobacco's value as a legitimate substance.

James's approach to eliminating the tobacco problem was to tax it out of existence as he tried to do in 1604 when he added an impost to the regular duty on imported tobacco. The flaw in his plan soon became evident. Although the amount of tobacco entering the country officially declined, there was no corresponding drop in smoking—tobacco was being smuggled into England. During this period, the taxes on tobacco and other imports were collected by agents who were granted a patent for this purpose by the Crown. The patent (called a farm) was leased from the King in exchange for a fixed rent and, in some cases, other payments. By collecting the rent, the Crown had an assured income (Ashton, 1960; Dietz, 1964). If imports were low enough, it was possible for the patentee to fail to get back even the purchase price. This was the situation under the high impost. Unable to cope with the smuggling, the patentees requested “either that the impost be lowered, or that they be allowed to surrender their farm” (Beer, 1933:109). James agreed to their request, and cut the impost to 1s. per pound in 1608. This decision is of some importance. It marks the first time that the King sacrificed his principles regarding tobacco for the sake of revenue, and it signaled the start of a redefining process in which tobacco came to be valued by governments for the tax money it could supply. James's commitment to the new definition soon increased. Tobacco imports (and the potential profits from tax collection) rose rapidly. In 1615, the tax collectors surrendered their lease on the patent (which had some years to run) in return for a payment of 4,000 pounds. Royal collectors handled the duty for two years, then the farm was leased again at four times the previous rent (Dietz, 1964:350-57; Brooks, 1952; Rive, 1928). Tobacco had been recognized as a source of potential revenue.

This new definition of tobacco derived its importance from the English attempt to colonize Virginia. In the face of Spain's remarkably successful exploitation of the New World, England's sixteenth century efforts at colonization had failed. These early failures had been costly, but the potential gains made a new venture worthwhile. The expectations were quite clear because “… the commodities with which the proposed southern colony was expected to supply the mother country were—in addition to gold and silver—naval stores, wines, iron, potash, and silk, the staple products that England was obliged to import in considerable quantities from foreign countries” (Beer, 1933:86). These expectations were not realized:

The precious metals were, however, not found in Virginia, nor could the other desired commodities be produced on a commercial scale, on account of lack of skill, inadequate natural resources, and the heavy cost of carrying them to market. On the other hand, early in the history of the colony, tobacco proved a most advantageous crop. The soil was well adapted to it. … More fundamental, however, was the fact that the high prices which prevailed at this time in England bore practically no relation to the comparatively moderate cost of production …

(Beer, 1933:86-87).

In addition, tobacco's light weight helped minimize shipping costs. It was the one colonial product which could be exported reliably at a profit. Therefore, the colonists in Virginia turned to tobacco farming, as did their counterparts in the later English colonies from Connecticut to the Caribbean (Beer, 1933:86-91). During their initial years, virtually every English colony in the New World relied upon tobacco as its major export. …

From Virginia's initial export of 2,500 pounds in 1616, the colonial tobacco trade grew to an estimated million and a half pounds over a twenty-year period. During the same period, English imports of Spanish tobacco remained relatively stable. The incredible growth in the colonial trade did not go unnoticed—the authorities resisted it initially with every means in their power. Angered by the colonists' failure to discover precious metals and so forth, and concerned that the colonies not be committed to what was still thought to be a fad, both James and his successor, Charles I, complained about the investment of energy in tobacco production:

In 1627, [Charles] wrote to the Governor and Council of Virginia that he was much troubled that the colony produced no substantial commodity and was ‘wholly built upon smoke, tobacco being the only means it hath produced,’ and enjoining them to take special care in making pitch, potashes, and other desirable products

(Beer, 1933:90-91).

This was not the first such appeal, and similar messages would be sent to Virginia and the other colonies for nearly sixty years (Beer, 1933:90-100; Brooks, 1952:113-14; Ramsey, 1930:108-9). James and Charles maintained their moralistic objections to tobacco use.

Yet these moral concerns were voiced within the context of a larger governmental crisis. During the seventeenth century, most European states faced major financial difficulties. On the one hand, most governments were attempting to expand the scope of their authority, thereby incurring increased costs. On the other hand, the governments found it difficult to draw additional revenue from their countries' exchange economies—a problem exacerbated by the ongoing rise in prices. In England, the Tudors had financed their operations by selling the Crown lands, a short-term solution which reduced the rental income in future years, making the Stuarts' position even more precarious. James responded to the crisis by searching actively for new sources of revenue, including expanding the sale of honors and establishing new taxes. The expansion of the tobacco trade, then, provided tax revenue at a time when the government was especially concerned with fiscal matters. It gave the king an economic interest in the tobacco trade (Anderson, 1974; Ardant, 1975; Ashton, 1960; Dietz, 1964).

Although taxes on tobacco imports were one step toward establishing new sources of revenue and reducing the Crown's financial crisis, their impact was relatively minor. In 1638, thirty years after the Virginia colony was established, Lord Goring rented the farm of tobacco duties for 11,000 pounds and also leased the farm for selling licenses to tobacconists for a similar amount (although various deductions reduced the actual rents paid to the Crown). Tobacco was a minor source of tax revenue compared to other farms. (The great farm of the customs, which carried the right to tax all imports not explicitly exempted, rented for 172,500 pounds in 1638. See Dietz, 1964:328-61.) Tobacco's importance was in its role as the economic mainstay of the North American colonies. Seventeenth century Virginia, for example, was a colony based on a single cash crop—the colony could only expand if the tobacco trade grew (Lang, 1975:110-27). Even without the income from taxes, the Crown had an interest in maintaining the tobacco trade as a means of supporting its colonial ventures.

Confronted with the moral objections to tobacco use and the economic advantages in fostering the trade, the Stuarts took steps to protect their colonies. While James might have been reluctant to sanction the Virginia venture if he had known it would expand the tobacco trade, once the importance of the plant to the colonies became clear, he and Charles took steps to protect their income. Tobacco policy remained a matter of debate throughout most of the century, but the questions were generally resolved in a fashion that protected the industry. Thus, in the years before 1630, the Stuarts moved to examine imports for quality and evidence of adulteration in order to protect the consumers; to minimize smuggling both through policing and policies of adjusting taxes to make the illicit trade less profitable; to prohibit, or at least control, Spanish imports as well as cultivation in England and Ireland; to control colonial cultivation to avoid glutting the market; to levy additional taxes by licensing tobacconists; and to keep import taxes on colonial tobacco lower than those for Spanish tobacco. In these ways, the colonies' economies and the Crown's income from the tobacco trade were protected and improved even while the Stuarts wrote their angry letters telling the colonists to stop concentrating on tobacco growing. These policies designed to foster tobacco farming in the colonies were helped by “… the popular dislike to Spain and jealousy of its immense tobacco traffic, the financial and commercial policy of the majority in Parliament which, by opposing the exportation of bullion to Spain for tobacco, sought to strengthen its colonial trade in this commodity, and the economic self-interest of the Virginia Company and its associate …” (Brooks, 1937:93).

The Stuarts reconciled their policies supporting the colonial tobacco industry with their moral objections to the drug by referring to the needs of the colonies. The economic survival of the colonies depended upon tobacco; therefore, England would protect the industry. But it was understood that this dependence and this protection were temporary conditions. Typically, announcements of new protective policies were coupled with injunctions for the colonists to develop new sources of income, so that the government might then deal with the social problem posed by tobacco. In 1624, for example, James proclaimed that all tobacco imports to England had to come from English colonies, but he noted that his action was temporary. In a letter to the Solicitor-General, he referred to Virginia as a “languishing colony, which can only subsist at present by its tobacco,” adding that he was “sure that the colony cannot prosper if it relies only on this” (quoted in Hudson, 1933:27). Similarly, in 1631, when Charles renewed the protective regulations controlling foreign imports and domestic production, he noted that their evasion posed a threat: “it is now come to passe, that those our forraigne Plantations, that might become useful to this Kingdom, lingring onely upon Tobacco, are in apparent danger to be utterly ruyned” (quoted in Beer, 1933:151). At the same time, he sent letters to the colonists, ordering them to stop concentrating their energies on tobacco (Beer, 1933:152). It would be another fifty years before the home government stopped issuing such instructions (Brooks, 1952:113-14; Wyckoff, 1936; Hudson, 1933). Under this rationale of temporary expediency, moral concerns were subjugated to economic interests, as the government moved to protect the essential industry.

With this support, the English tobacco trade grew dramatically throughout the seventeenth century:

The long term development of the Chesapeake tobacco trade can conveniently be divided into periods of a quarter or a third of a century each. During the first thirty years of settlement, between 1607 and 1637, the two colonies were established, a staple commodity found, and marketing arrangements worked out. At the end of this period, imports into England from Virginia and Maryland were in the vicinity of 1.5 million pounds a year. With the foundations thus securely set, the next thirty-odd years—the period of the most impressive growth—saw a tenfold increase in trade, English imports of tobacco from the Chesapeake reaching fifteen million pounds in 1668-1669. In the last third of the seventeenth century, substantial growth continued, but at a much slower rate, only doubling to reach about 30 million pounds' weight in 1697-1699

(Price, 1964:497).

Seventy-five years later, on the eve of the American Revolution, Virginia and Maryland still accounted for over 60 percent of the North American colonies' exports to England and Scotland, and their tobacco accounted “for better than 90 percent of the value of the Chesapeake exports to Great Britain and for over 50 percent of total colonial exports thither” (Price, 1964:496).

These exports were not, however, all consumed in England. By the middle of the seventeenth century, smoking was common throughout England and it became necessary for the tobacco industry to establish new markets. Toward this end, the English began to promote their colonial tobacco in other European countries, although for revenue purposes, the English government required that the tobacco be sent to England first, where it was taxed, before being shipped to its final destination. Re-exporting soon accounted for the largest share of the tobacco trade; by 1669, when annual exports from Virginia and Maryland were 15 million pounds, some 8 million pounds were being re-exported—shipped from England to other European nations (Price, 1964:499). In order to establish these new markets, it was necessary to eliminate the various laws against tobacco in the other European nations. England, which needed the profits that an expanding colonial tobacco industry would bring, sent delegations to the other states to encourage them to repeal their laws and profit through the taxation of legitimately imported tobacco. Tobacco was the source of income for the government which taxed it, the colonists who grew it, and the shipping companies which carried it, and the tobacco trade became a factor in England's foreign policy (MacInnes, 1926). Thus, the English, who at the start of the seventeenth century led Europe in an anti-tobacco crusade, came to profit immensely by taxing and trading in the drug, and closed the century serving as missionaries of smoking to the other governments of Europe.

This lesson was not lost on the rest of Europe. Faced with rising costs of government and the difficulty of levying taxes in an exchange economy, to say nothing of the evident failure of their policies of prohibition, the other governments examined the English experience. In it, they saw tobacco's potential as an additional source of tax revenue. They did not stand on their principles. In Russia, for example, “… Peter the Great … issued a ukase permitting the open sale and consumption of tobacco in all his dominions. In the preamble, the Czar declared that he had been moved to this step by the wide use of and ubiquitous secret trade in the weed. … Henceforth the state was to share in this lucrative trade. New and very high import duties were set up …” (Price, 1961:20). The vindication of tobacco in Russia is perhaps most unusual because the Czar held out until 1697 before forming his monopoly; such arrangements were common in the rest of Europe twenty years earlier.

The schemes inaugurated by James I of England whereby he included among his prerogatives a financial interest in the tobacco trade, and the system of monopoly and control instituted by his successor, were widely adopted in various forms by European rulers. Thus, by 1675, the tobacco imposts had been farmed out in Mantua, 1627 Naples, 1635-1637; Lombardy, 1637; Tuscany, 1645, etc.; Utrecht, 1650; Silesia, 1657; in some of the States of the Church: Ferrara, 1657-1658; Bologna, 1660, etc.; Sweden, 1662; the Tyrol, 1662; Austria, 1670; Bavaria, 1675; and elsewhere in Europe

(Brooks, 1937:145).

In most cases, the administration of tobacco changed forms. “The ‘normal’ pattern of state action is found in a transition something like the following: from prohibition to state duties on relatively unsupervised tobacco shipments; from duties to a monopoly of trade or manufacture farmed out to private persons; from private farm to state monopoly” (Gray and Wyckoff, 1940:3; Corti, 1931:149-86; Price, 1973:3-16). As the seventeenth century closed, tobacco had been vindicated; it had earned the definition which it has retained—a recreational drug which is subject to taxation.

In summary, in their first two centuries of contact with tobacco, Europeans interpreted the nature of the drug in several ways; they saw it as a medicine, a recreational drug, an illicit substance, and, finally, as a source of tax revenue and economic development. Each of these definitions had implications for morality and social policy. When seen as a medicine, tobacco's cultivation was encouraged. As a recreational drug, it was viewed with suspicion and outrage by non-users. As an illicit substance, it was the subject of law enforcement efforts. And as a source of tax revenue and economic development, its growth was actively supported through various policies. Both the definitions and the related policies were the subject of debate. Although these debates featured moralistic rhetoric, tobacco's status was vindicated only when the officials who had the power to set policy recognized their economic stake in the outcome. In fact, there were occasions when the people who repealed the laws against tobacco did so in the face of their own moral principles, King James being the most obvious case. The fact that he could repeatedly express moral objections to tobacco and yet act to accommodate the colonial tobacco industry is perhaps the best testimony to the primacy of economic interests over moral crusading. But it should be emphasized that similar processes occurred elsewhere, albeit not with persons so clearly associated with the anti-tobacco crusade.

While sociologists have paid relatively little attention to the process of vindication, the interpretations of other studies support the argument that interests, rather than moral concern, can be the determining force. Thus, Gusfield explains the end of Prohibition:

The most significant element in the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment was not directly related to the cultural conflicts and struggle for status that had precipitated the Prohibition issue. It was the change in the tone of political life brought about by the Great Depression that killed the Eighteenth Amendment. In 1929 the amendment was safely in the Constitution, having survived the attack of the 1928 election. By 1932 neither major political party made its support a part of their platform. Two things had happened. The Depression had enormously strengthened the demand for increased employment and tax revenues which a reopened beer and liquor industry would bring, and it made issues of status secondary to economic and class issues

(Gusfield, 1963:127).

Skolnick (1978) argues that Nevada's economic dependence on its gambling industry accounts for the manner in which gambling has been legalized by the legislature and controlled by the state's agents. He notes also that economic interests, in the form of economic stimulation for Atlantic City and tax revenue for the state, provided the rationale for legalizing gambling in New Jersey. Similarly, Roby (1969) has described the process by which New York's Penal Law and Criminal Code Revision Commission's recommendations to reduce the penalties for prostitution were supported or fought by various powerful groups which had political or economic interests in the outcome. In each of these cases, attempts to vindicate a victimless crime required the alliance of interested parties.

These examples point to the need for more systematic sociological analysis of the processes of deviance invention and vindication. Most sociological writing on these topics has focused on the social movements aimed at changing moral definitions. Movements to vindicate deviance, no less than crusades aimed at deviance invention, are frequently supported by moralistic rhetoric, claiming that the change should be made for reasons of justice or decency. Undoubtedly these claims are usually sincere, and some people are persuaded by them. It is a mistake, however, to confuse rhetoric with effectiveness. At a minimum, the distribution of power and interests in a society should be assessed before identifying these rhetorical statements as the principal cause of social change. The history of tobacco offers a powerful case in point. The moral pressures that contributed to the definition of smoking as deviant continued in force throughout the seventeenth century. Tobacco was vindicated, not because there was a revolution in morality, but because governments discovered that it provided an economic foundation for colonialism and a new source of tax revenue.

How can the relative importance of moral indignation and economic interests be determined? Obviously, both can affect the process of vindication. Comparative studies of cases of vindication might reveal those circumstances under which economic interests are most likely to influence the process. For example, the magnitude of an economic interest may be related to its influence. While tobacco's share of English tax revenues was slight, the tobacco trade was seen as essential to the survival of England's colonies, and maintaining those colonies was a central objective for the government. Again, interests which are shared by many influential groups may be more likely to be taken into account. In the case of tobacco, the interested parties included the Crown, those who held the farm for tobacco taxes, the merchants who traded in the drug, the investors in the colonial adventure, and the colonists themselves. Each of these groups favored protecting the industry; when combined, their opinions carried substantial weight. Finally, interests may be more likely to be served when interested action can be rationalized as somehow consistent with morality. By defining their support of the colonial industry as a temporary expediency, the Stuarts were able to preserve their moral reservations about the drug. Tobacco's history, then, suggests that the magnitude of economic interests, the number of groups sharing those interests, and the ability to provide a rationale for interested action are related to the interests' influence.

The process of vindication has been neglected in treatments of the sociology of deviance. When the issue has been raised, the emphasis has most often been on morality. Although the colorful activities of moral entrepreneurs attract a great deal of attention, the reformers' effectiveness depends upon the political environment within which they operate. Comparative studies on vindication and deviance invention are needed to assess the relative importance of moral indignation and interests in different circumstances.

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