As the packed train groans and struggles to overcome the usual signal failures, point breakdowns, emergency track inspections and intruder alerts, a cheerful voice announces over the loudspeakers the arrival of the refreshment cart.
But he adds sternly: “Unfortunately, we are not accepting cash today. Only contactless payments.” They are lying. They are not entirely sorry. Cash is a hassle for them. Besides, it is not just that they are not accepting cash today.
They never accept money. No explanation is given for this restriction, but I know from experience that it is an ironclad law, not open to debate.
Well, it could be worse. On a recent visit to the Netherlands, I felt anxious about using the bathroom at a giant railway interchange.
It’s time to campaign for everyone to accept cash again, says PETER HITCHENS
Once I located the establishment, I was met with a shiny, inescapable electronic turnstile that only accepted one type of contactless card, which I don’t have. No coins were allowed. Without a card, you couldn’t get into the bathroom.
Anyway, imagine having to use a credit card for something like that. I remember when these cards were only good for extravagant purchases that one couldn’t afford, and were marketed under the slogan “they take the wait out of desire.” Which is exactly what the mandatory use of the credit card failed to do for me at the Rotterdam train station.
You might think that in this country you can insist on paying cash for everything, but you can’t. English law states that cash must be accepted to settle a debt. That’s why cash-hating cafes, for example, are careful to put up signs indicating that they are card-only establishments.
That way, you can’t get into debt in the first place. We could – and should – change this. It’s time to campaign for everyone to accept cash again. It’s possible. I’m happy to say that in several states in the US merchants are required by law to accept cash.
In France, where citizens maintain a well-established distrust of authorities, banks and virtually everything else, Article 642-3 of the penal code states that merchants cannot refuse to pay in cash. Harsh penalties apply.
Without this, the rapid disappearance of cash from our lives will only get worse. The almost superstitious fear that cash could spread Covid and the retreat of millions of people into their homes, away from shops and streets, have greatly accelerated this trend.
If you objected, you were an evil, irresponsible spreader of pestilence. Banks are closing. Time and again I look for an ATM I have used for years and find it has been removed and destroyed. And I live in a busy city. Millions of people now live in cash deserts, without a bank.
Someone doesn’t like cash. Social “progressives” have all but abolished it in left-wing Sweden. We are told it invites money laundering, although I’m sure wire fraud is a million times worse. No, “progressives” hate cash because they can’t control it or the people who use it.
Non-progressives, on the other hand, like the feeling of independence and freedom that comes from the clink of coins in their pockets and the comfort of bills in their wallet.
And think of what they would lose if cash were to cease to be used, as the authorities clearly want.
No more uncles and aunts slipping a bill into a niece or nephew’s hand. No more cash bills in a hobo’s hat. No more impulsive cash bets. No more private tips to the waitress who (we suspect) won’t get much of the restaurant’s mandatory service charge. From now on, these and other pleasures and freedoms will have to be done with cards and card readers, or not at all.
But as we know, without cash, everything can go wrong. In 2012, more than seven million NatWest customers went three days without being able to buy food, pay bills or transfer money. Some lost their home purchases or were left stranded abroad, penniless.
In 2018, five million TSB customers were also left without access to their accounts after the bank botched an IT upgrade.
And surely one of the scariest consequences of the Correos scandal is that even a working computer system cannot be trusted to manage our money. And when something goes wrong, it can take years for the errors to be corrected, during which time it will be us, not the banks, who will be accused of wrongdoing.
The death of cash is the death of privacy and a massive increase in state power.
How long will it be before the state knows everything our banks know about us, especially if Sir Anthony Blair’s plan to bring back electronic identity records comes to fruition? If every transaction is electronic, then every transaction is recorded.
The computer will know what you bought, where and when you bought it. And if it knows, it can tell others.
Your bank and those who have access to its systems will know where you are, often to within a few metres, at any time of day. It’s not that we’re ashamed of what we do, it’s just that we don’t want other people to know everything about us.
And it is wise for us to feel that way. Governments are constantly increasing their power and they care about what we do and what we think. We have seen people in this country who have been debanked because they have failed to be the right kind of person. How could an unbanked person survive in a cashless society?
We have had a hint of sorts in the scandalous treatment of pro-Russian blogger Graham Phillips, sanctioned by decree of the British Government.
Imagine you are going to pay for your purchases at an unattended checkout and your card is declined.
I don’t care whether you like Mr Phillips or not. I personally don’t like him, but the way he is treated for expressing views on Ukraine that are not popular in the Foreign Office is grotesque.
The courts will not help him. When he asks for “licenses” to do perfectly normal things, they are of no use to him in practice. He is a person without personality, as hopelessly trapped as a character in a Kafka novel.
Mr Phillips cannot earn money or spend the money he has. Others cannot pay him. He is absurdly prohibited by law from paying council tax, but he has never been tried or convicted of any criminal offence.
Do we really want the government to have this kind of power, which it would have over anyone in a cashless society?
Imagine going to pay for your groceries at an unmanned checkout and your card is declined. The same thing happens at the pub. You get home (on foot) and your inbox is full of messages from people complaining that you haven’t paid their bills. Then your electricity and broadband are cut off.
How far can this go? In China, an elaborate “social credit” system can be used to prevent people the state deems guilty (supposedly for not paying fines or taxes) from traveling within the country. In 2018, it prevented 17 million people from buying plane tickets and 5.5 million from taking long-distance trains because they had a low “social credit” score.
That power is more or less unlimited once it’s in place. Combined with constant surveillance, it’s the Hive State in action. By the simple act of refusing to give up cash or allow it to be removed, we can stand in the way of that terrible danger. And so we should.