Stoep Wisdom (WI WI)
BANKLESS
In the 1930s, Lancelot Hogben, described by Wikipedia
as a statistician and experimental zoologist, took the chair of Zoology at UCT. He was (incorrecty?) credited with discovery of a pregnancy test based on research done on the Xenopus frog.
Wikipedia says he found the job in South Africa attractive but
his antipathy to the country’s racial policies drove him to leave.
He left In 1930 [18 years before Nationalist Party apartheid]. Note, Wikipedia says “policy”. Clearly, since the Nationalist Party took over only in 1948, it can’t alone be blamed for segregation, though it still deservedly has a bad rap for ‘apartheid’, HF Verwoerd’s word.
In 1936, Hogben published “Mathematics for the Million”, still in print today. Einstein and Bertrand Russell rated the book highly.
A pacifist (jailed for this on return to Cambridge after working for six months in the Red Cross in France in WWI), and socialist, Hogben once said:
“I like Scandinavians, skiing, swimming and socialists who realize it is our business to promote social progress by peaceful methods. I dislike football, economists, eugenicists, Fascists, Stalinists, and Scottish conservatives. I think that sex is necessary and bankers are not.”
There were 16000 conscientious objectors in Britain in WWI. It was a tough choice: jail or army. For example, in South Africa (where 286 served sentences under apartheid for refusing to go to war), the jail term was three times longer than military service itself. This means there must have been some who did not believe in fighting, but did so to get it over with quicker. Some must surely have died for that choice.
Hogben died 45 years ago in 1975, so the quote is possibly half a century old. If we asked (in January this year, before the pandemic) "are banks essential?", we think most would answer something like “Of course” or “what kind of a question is that?”. Now, things are different. If we ask “How many times since March have you been into a bank?” the answer surely will not be “often”. So, are bankers necessary?
Among many blockchain related software endeavours since Bitcoin became famous is one named BANKLESS, A DeFi app. What is a DeFi app? Decentralised Finance … another buzzphrase to tuck into modern vocabulary.
Without going into any detail, nor evaluating it, we think it is at least worthwhile to add the notion of banklessness into our daily debate. What if BIG (Basic Income Grant) becomes the norm after the pandemic? This is not so unlikely: Jaron Lanier (he invented Virtual Reality) wrote years ago that we will eventually be paid money by the huge megacorporations, purely so that they can be sure there is money available to buy their products. Capitalism eats itself, and becomes Socialism?
If that happens, what would be the point of an individual bank account? Will that not be the point at which bankers are not necessary?