I’ve recently started deliberately carrying a small amount of cash on me at all times. After years of being beguiled by the indisputable ease of tap-and-go spending, I’ve realised that there are still plenty of reasons to use cash in at least some situations.
Not all, of course. I still smart from losing a pay packet with a whole fortnight’s wages, back in the 80s. But, as a sign on the counter of a local store recently reminded me, many small businesses get shafted by their banks on card transactions. They pay to provide the service, but get nothing back from the bank: swipe’n’go costs them money.
Then there’s the little things: chucking gold coin to a tin-shaker. Giving a few bucks to a homeless guy. Knowing the government isn’t tracking every damn cent you spend.
Knowing your bank can’t cut off your ability to do anything, on a woke whim.
308,000 people within the United Kingdom are backing Great Britain News’ feisty campaign to keep cash. The Don’t Kill Cash July 4 movement exceeded its 250,000-signature goal by August 17. The purpose of the petition is to stop a cashless society from turning British subjects into slaves of social credit scores, and a surveillance state.
GBN, alongside Nigel Farage, is demanding the government ‘legislate to protect the status of cash as legal tender in the UK up until at least 2050’.
Farage knows better than most the danger of being “de-banked” over your political opinions.
A cashless society ‘gives total control to all the wrong people, and leaves you totally at their mercy’ [GBN’s Patrick Christys] asserted.
For evidence, he pointed to de-banking.
This is the growing punitive practice of banks closing ‘the accounts of people who go against the establishment agenda’.
About this, he stated, ‘Just look at what’s happening to Nigel Farage, and a host of other anti-[left-wing] establishment figures. We’ve seen government freeze people’s assets if they went against the lockdown nonsense. We’ve seen companies like Paypal do the same.’
‘How long,’ he asked, ‘will it be before people get their assets frozen because they don’t go along with the LGBTQ+ agenda, or if they say the wrong thing about immigration?’
Ask Lee Williams.
The pro-cash movement is, of course, being framed as a “conspiracy theory”. Which, if the past five years have taught us anything, means that it’s probably true.
Lo and behold!
In April 2021 – so mid-Covid – the Bank of England said that they, and the UK Treasury, had created a taskforce to explore a UK Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
The BoE announced that a CBDC ‘would be a new form of digital money issued by the Bank of England, for use by households and businesses’.
Spectator Australia
Even Australia’s left-wing public broadcaster admits that a cashless society has plenty of drawbacks.
The transition away from cash disproportionately affects disadvantaged groups, such as people with disabilities and those who live in remote and regional Australia who have difficulty accessing digital financial services.
Many people over 65 still rely on cash, with nearly one in five qualifying as high cash users.
RBA data also shows that people from low-income households use cash more often than their more affluent counterparts […]
Cash can also be a lifeline for victims of abuse who might have limited access to online financial services and cards […]
And in emergency situations, like floods and bushfires, “cash is king”, says creative technologist Jessie Hughes.
And, the ABC admits, a cashless society is a totalitarian’s wet dream.
Regulators such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are pushing to phase out cash, citing transparency as a major reason.
But “transparency is a double-edged sword”, says Chris Vasantkumar, a lecturer at Macquarie University who studies the anthropology of cash and cashlessness.
ABC Australia
“One person’s transparency is another person’s surveillance.”
Chris Vasantkumar
The Guardian, too, admits that a cashless society has plenty of drawbacks.
The other night a barman told me that most customers tap their cards when they buy drinks. “On weekends we used to get $180 cash in tips per worker,” he said. “It covered my rent. We don’t get tips anymore because no one carries cash.”
More importantly, cash transactions are “real” in a sense that has a noticeable effect on our spending habits. While I hate to give any credit to Marx, there’s a good argument that a cashless society really does alienate us, in subtle but important ways, from the fruits of our labour.
With tap and go, my credit card was hitting the ceiling with increasingly regularity (no matter, my bank would always generously offer to extend my limit). The technology – and laziness (who can be bothered pulling out the correct change?) – made it even easier to mindlessly spend […]
Cash was only ever a token, but by handing it over the counter there was a clear trade: here is a percentage of my day’s labour in return for the labour you have undertaken to make, say, my sandwich.
That transaction has now been squeezed into a split second of time – the time it takes to “tap”. And in doing this, something is being devalued.
The Guardian
Curse you, Guardian writer: you’re right. I guess this is one “conspiracy theory” both right and left can agree on?
And always carry cash on you.
