It was the customers that toppled Alko

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By Jyrki Iivonen
     
      "The mission is to produce and sell alcoholic beverages, so that the people of Finland might become sober, and the Finnish state might get rich", wrote Director-General Heikki Koski on the role of Alko, the Finnish state monopoly on alcoholic beverages, in his diary in the late 1990s.
      The thought, expressed by the former director-general, can be found in a new history of Alko, written by Dr. Martti Häikiö. The book was published on Wednesday to mark the company's 75th anniversary. Koski's comment describes in a nutshell the impossible task facing the company, and the two-faced nature of Finnish alcohol policy.
     
Häikiö's Alko history is not a traditional chronicle of events in a company. Häikiö is not interested in the economic success of the target of his investigation; he examines Alko's achievements as a tool of Finnish alcohol policy.
     The approach is a sensible one, as the balance sheets and annual accounts of a monopoly company are quite boring. Fortunately, Häikiö has also refrained from falling into the trap of presenting the company's production facilities and technical know-how.
     Häikiö got past the issue of the "mandatory" aspects of the company's history in a conveniently easy manner. The managers, staff, and products were dealt with through photographs and picture captions. The members of the Administrative Councils, Boards of Directors, and top managers are listed in appendices.
     As a result, the text remains uniform, and at the same time, the wishes of the commissioner of the book are more or less fulfilled. After all, a book commissioned by Alko must be distributed among politicians and personnel in any case.
     
The story of the state alcohol monopoly begins with the referendum held in December 1931, calling for an end to prohibition. The state needed money in its coffers, and selling booze was an easy way to get it.
     Prohibition was overturned only partially, as Alko shops were established in cities and towns. The countryside was kept dry all the way until the 1960s.
     The history of Alko shows what seem to be silly tricks by today's standards, that were used to try to control the Finnish frenzy for alcohol. Whereas the official goal was to discourage consumption, Alko was a complete failure. Another big loser was the temperance movement.
     Customers in the 1940s were kept under close watch by buyer monitors, whose "most important obligation is to learn to know the regular clientele of the shop by appearance, and after that, to find out the names of buyers who visit frequently, and who raise suspicions".
     The observers would visit people's homes, speak to family members, neighbours, and gather information at workplaces. The observers were often former police officers in the community.
     
The big bang in alcohol policy in Häikiö's view was allowing medium-strength beer to be sold in grocery stores in 1969, and the establishment of Alko retail outlets in rural communities. After that, consumption shot up considerably.
     Häikiö blames Alko director Pekka Kuusi (SDP) for the mistakes. Kuusi wanted to Europeanise Finnish drinking habits. The aim was to get people to switch from strong spirits to wine and beer.
     People did indeed start drinking beer and wine, but they did not turn their backs on the hard stuff. Overall consumption, and problems related to drinking, grew.
     "The result of the legislative changes that he pushed through was the biggest disaster of Finnish postwar social history", Häikiö writes of Pekka Kuusi.
     
The hero of the book is director-general Heikki Koski (SDP), whom Häikiö has met several times. During Koski's period, the old Alko remained intact: it distributed and produced alcohol, it owned hotels and restaurants.
     Pressure came from the European Union to dismantle the monopoly, but Koski had the stamina to lobby politicians, civil servants, researchers, and the media on behalf of an Alko involved in many fields. The problem with state-owned companies is that the owner's voice is used by any number of people at random. For that reason, one of the most important tasks of the director-general is to guard the rear - in other words, to deal with the interest groups.
     
Koski's successor Ilkka Suominen (Nat. Coalition Party) did not bother to put any effort into dealing with interest roups, and things went south. When Finland joined the EU, the Alko concern was split up.
     
Häikiö is a professional in historical research, but there is one minor shortcoming in the book. The bibliographical sources are not categorised into material that has been published previously, and other material and interviews.
     Only the notes, which number more than 1,000, reveal where the information comes from. Reading is slowed down considerably when the reader has to jump from the text to the notes at frequent intervals.
      The text reveals that Häikiö is enthusiastic about his topic. He characterises the history of Alko as a more important work than his history of Nokia, which wrote previously.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 5.4.2007

More on this subject:
 COMMENTARY: Tear down the walls

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Seventy-five years since the end of Prohibition in Finland (5.4.2007)

Links:
  Alko

JYRKI IIVONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jyrki.iivonen@hs.fi