I read it, and it remains irrelevant. For one to argue for the utility of protecting self-regarding acts, it is still necessary that such acts exist.
Even the examples you use show the inherent problems in the false duality you've constructed. Liberal societies do not, in fact, punish drunkeness, only certain expressions of drunkeness arbitrarily deemed "public." Practically speaking, it means that many of the drunks responsible for some of the most severe social consequences (destruction of families, increase in poverty and indigence etc.) are faced with no legal consequences whatsoever for their actions.
The question of extravagence is even more pertinent, as, contrary to your argument (via Mills), extravagence itself has ENORMOUS consequences for all of society (see global warming and the destruction of the earth's ecosystems). Liberalism is not only incapable of checking extravagence due to its own internal structure, but actively encourages extravagence as a central tenet of its economic system.
The bottom line is this, liberalism as political and social philosophy is dedicated to popular sovereignty and individual liberty, both are born of a false conception of what it means to be an individual, and both make it functionally impossible for a liberal regime to do what is necessary to preserve the long-term health and viability of human cultures.
Even the examples you use show the inherent problems in the false duality you've constructed. Liberal societies do not, in fact, punish drunkeness, only certain expressions of drunkeness arbitrarily deemed "public." Practically speaking, it means that many of the drunks responsible for some of the most severe social consequences (destruction of families, increase in poverty and indigence etc.) are faced with no legal consequences whatsoever for their actions.
The question of extravagence is even more pertinent, as, contrary to your argument (via Mills), extravagence itself has ENORMOUS consequences for all of society (see global warming and the destruction of the earth's ecosystems). Liberalism is not only incapable of checking extravagence due to its own internal structure, but actively encourages extravagence as a central tenet of its economic system.
The bottom line is this, liberalism as political and social philosophy is dedicated to popular sovereignty and individual liberty, both are born of a false conception of what it means to be an individual, and both make it functionally impossible for a liberal regime to do what is necessary to preserve the long-term health and viability of human cultures.