D. H. Lawrence and the Cashless Society

gbnews.com

 

 

I. 

 

As is well-known, D. H. Lawrence regarded mankind's money-mania as a collective form of insanity: "Money is our madness, our vast collective madness." [1]

 

And his proposed solution to this madness (which he elsewhere describes as a perverted instinct which rots the brain and corrupts the soul) is to terminate the present financial system: "Kill money, put money out of existence." [2]

 

Society, he says, must establish itself upon a different (revolutionary) basis from the one we have now; for endlessly chasing a fistful of dollars results in vicious competition and turns us all into fiends [3].    

 

Whilst these tiny snippets, taken from Lawrence's 1929 poetry collection Pansies, might not constitute a comprehensive political critique of capital - might, in fact, simply be the musings of a romantic poet dreaming of a socialist utopia in which food, housing, and heating would be free for everyone [4] - they do at least make it clear that Lawrence hated having to earn, save, and spend money. 

 

 

II. 

 

The question that arises, however, is this: would Lawrence have welcomed a cashless society of the type presently evolving and being promoted by many politicians and bankers? 

 

I doubt it: for clearly the so-called cashless society only allows those who govern us and run the financial system to exercise still more power and control; to strangle us ever-tighter in their octopus arms [5]. It's not a return to the a world prior to notes and coins, where barter was the system of exchange, but a slide into a (dystopian) future where money has been digitalised (i.e., turned into a form of electronic information or data).    

 

I know all the arguments made in favour of a cashless society - it's quick and convenient, it's safe and secure, it prevents crime, lowers business costs, and even reduces the transmission of disease [6] - but I'm also aware of the dangers that threaten from a society founded upon total surveillance of the individual and the complete control over their money (their savings and financial transactions).   

 

It's not just a loss of privacy that concerns - but a loss of freedom. There's also the question of what happens to those who don't have (or might not want) bank accounts; will millions of people effectively become non-citizens and be despised and discriminated against as such? 

 

In sum, I don't want to belong to a cashless economy and certainly don't welcome the idea of a central bank digital currency, allowing that coldest of all cold monsters, the State, to monopolise the cashless payment system. Thus, whilst I'm sympathetic with Lawrence's call to kill money, I'm (paradoxically) supportive of those, such as Nigel Farage, who are working to ensure the survival of cash [7].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'Money-madness', The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 421. 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'Kill money', The Poems, Vol. I, p. 422. 

[3] See the poem 'Wages' in the above volume, p. 452. 

[4] See the poems 'Money-madness' and 'Kill money' once more. In the latter, Lawrence writes: "We must have the courage of mutual trust. / We must have the modesty of simple living. / And the individual must have his house, food and fire all free like a bird." 

[5] See the poem 'Why?' in The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 391-92.  

[6] We should, I think, interrogate all of these alleged advantages of going cashless. Just to take the last of these claims, for example, whilst it's true that dirty old banknotes and grubby coins can carry disease-causing organisms (such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Covid-19), cash has been found to be less likely to transmit disease than commonly touched items such as card terminals and PIN pads. 

 

[7] Readers who also wish to protest the move towards a cashless society in the UK may like to support the GB News campaign - 'Don't Kill Cash' - which Farage is spearheading: click here. 

 

 

This post was inspired by a remark made by David Brock in a recent email, for which I am grateful.

 

 

Amplifying Deviance and Danger: Notes on the Concept of Moral Panic

Tanya Brassie: Moral Panic 

dribble.com

 

I.

 

Stanley Cohen's concept of moral panic [1] remains a useful one for examining how an (often irrational) fear that a tiny minority of people threaten the values and interests of wider society can quickly become widespread (or go viral as we like to say in this digital age).

 

Of course, not all fears are irrational and whilst it probably doesn't help to panic, there are times when social anxiety is justified and expressing concern over perceived threats an understandable response, although we might question whether the manipulation and exploitation of fear by journalists and politicians - or those whom Cohen terms moral entrepreneurs - is ever a good thing.  

 

As Cohen points out, while a threat may be real, to exaggerate its seriousness is not helpful and often just results in new laws that restrict everybody's freedom. Further, if allowed to really take hold of the public imagination, there's the danger too that a social phenomenon that plays with public prejudice becomes a psychological issue and moral panic ends in mass hysteria (which is genuinely dangerous - often far more so than the perceived threat).       

 

 

II. 

 

I am reminded of all this when listening to the numerous reports and endless discussions on GB News and Talk TV about boat migrants crossing the Channel, drag queens reading stories to children, and transwomen competing in sporting events or accessing female toilets.

 

I might not want any of these things to happen: but I am also aware of the fact that whilst Piers Morgan and Dan Wootton, for example, are not consciously engaged in spreading hate speech, they do play a crucial (and questionable) role in the dissemination of moral indignation. For even when the above and their colleagues accurately report the facts, they often do so without contextual nuance and in a manner designed to generate viewer anger and trend on social media.       

 

So, what am I trying to say here? 

 

Perhaps, simply, that those with big mouths, strong opinions, and high-profile media platforms should also exercise a degree of caution when exercising their right to freedom of speech. Similarly - and this is a Nietzschean point - when demonising others it's best to take care lest this makes you monstrous in the process [2]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Whilst moral panics have a long history, it was the sociologist Stanley Cohen who first named and explicitly formulated the concept in his seminal work Folk Devils and Moral Panics (MacGibbon and Kee, 1972). Although Cohen discussed the example of teenage mods and rockers, many other groups have also found themselves othered as a mortal danger to society, including satanists, communists, and homosexuals.

     It is worth noting that often it is not a group or community as such that triggers a moral panic, but a phenomenon such as drug use, football hooliganism, dangerous dogs, or internet pornography. Again, these things are often exploited by the authorities to justify a clampdown on civil liberties.     

 

[2] I'm paraphrasing Nietzsche writing in Beyond Good and Evil, 4. 146.