De-banking – the practice of banks closing accounts, or denying services, on the basis of political belief – seems set to become one of the major battlegrounds of the ‘culture war’. And its salience tells us a great deal about what is at stake in that wider struggle, and its intellectual origins. Sadly, however, this has been obscured by a lot of muddy thinking, which it will take some time to clear up.
Let’s begin with the question: is ‘de-banking’ justified in a free society, or not? This issue is raised, with customary contrarianism, by Matthew Parris in the Spectator this week. Although he doesn’t put the point in quite this way, he reminds us that the problem with de-banking is that it really puts two freedoms in opposition to one another. On the one hand, our instincts tell us that it is wrong for a bank to close somebody’s account – knowing the baleful consequences this will wreak in a heavily financialised society like our own – on the basis of that person having expressed views which the owners of the bank dislike. But on the other, it is distasteful in a free society that the operators of a business should be forced to trade with anybody; the whole point of a free market is that it enshrines freedom of choice.
On the face of it, these two freedoms are not readily reconciled. And here the issue should also call to mind one of the other intractable problems of our current moment – the extent to which privately owned social media companies should be free to censor and/or ban users on their platforms based on the views that they express. There, like here, the question is which freedom we prefer: that to express one’s views, or that to associate freely?
What we are talking about, then, is really a recurrent problem within societies that purport to be liberal, i.e., what happens when freedoms conflict. Leaving aside the obvious truth that proponents of de-banking (and censorship of speech on social media, for that matter) are often disingenuous and only seem to discover a faith in liberal values when it suits them to do so, this should serve to remind us that the culture war between progressives and conservatives is for the most part really a division within liberalism as to which types of freedom are preferred, and in what contexts. Broadly speaking, progressives prioritise the freedom to choose or express – it isn’t always clear which – one’s identity, sexuality, etc., as well as other related freedoms (such as reproductive freedom, the freedom to cross borders, and so on). Conservatives or ‘classical liberals’, meanwhile, tend to prioritise freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom from state interference, and so on. There is more going on in the ‘culture war’ than this, but reflecting on this basic observation should at least help us to dismiss the argument that this is a conflict between liberals and Marxists: it largely is not. The fundamental division is between two types of liberal, if we define liberalism as the doctrine that the role of the state is to promote freedom.
So how do we decide which freedom ‘wins’, in any given context? It is here that critics of liberalism – Carl Schmitt and Stanley Fish being two prominent examples – site their most pointed and acute attack. For such critics, liberalism gives us no principled basis for such a decision. Ultimately, what it comes down to is power. The loudest voices get to decide which freedom matters. Whether de-banking or social media censorship is allowed to proliferate, in what circumstances, and in respect of which views, will just depend on whoever is holding the levers of power.
This makes liberalism itself a big lie, according to these crities: it is not a political system that promotes freedom, but an unstable and vicious struggle between competing preferences and interest groups, to which the victor go the spoils and the losers, nothing. In this perspective, what we are currently witnessing, and what we describe as a ‘culture war’, is simply a playing out of the inherent self-defeating properties of liberalism across the cultural landscape. Whether or not the ‘woke progressive left’, or whatever you wish to call them, will get to impose their vision upon the world is simply a matter of domination versus submission and nothing more.
This leads us back to Matthew Parris. Parris, in trying to make the claim that what is at stake is merely a matter of principle (freedom of association in a free market), is in one sense simply being a useful idiot, pretending to be a good, neutral liberal but really just furthering the aims of one side in the broader power struggle. Lacking any principled basis for preferring freedom of association to freedom of expression in this particular context, he ends up simply ratifying the power play of one side over the other, and unwittingly therefore is just participating in the process whereby purported arguments of ‘principle’ are deployed to beat the other side over the head.
Is this, then, all that we are doing – simply engaging in a glorified shouting match? It can often seem that way. But here it is useful to step back for a moment and reflect on what it is that we think that the law ought to be doing if we value living in a stable, pluralistic society. This will vary. It is undoubtedly true that generally speaking it is preferable if business owners are free to make contracts with those who they wish to, and this is indeed a very old feature of English law (though a complicated one for reasons that I will have to go into elsewhere). But it is also the case that we make many exceptions to that rule – most notably when a business owner is making his or her choice on discriminatory grounds, such as on the basis of race or sex. In those circumstances, we say that the overarching value of pluralism has to win out, and that freedom of association has to give way to the extent that we would like to protect that overarching value. The alternative is that portions of society will be left out, and that resentments – and instability – will brew as a consequence.
In the case of de-banking the same reasoning surely plays out. Thinking of the subject as a war between two freedoms, association versus expression, gets us nowhere. But thinking about it in terms of the vision of society which we wish to secure helps cut through. Do we want to live in a society in which people can be denied access to so basic a utility as banking based on the views they express, however prominent their profile? It takes a special kind of blinkeredness of vision to fail to see that such a practice cannot be consonant with life in a stable, pluralistic democracy – one cannot indeed have a stable polity in which large swathes of the population could at any moment lose access to finance simply on the basis of what they say. Yes, there might be edge cases about which reasonable people can disagree, but the basic position must surely be that banks – like certain other types of actor, such as utility companies – occupy so fundamental and privileged a position in society that the normal rules of freedom of association can’t be allowed to apply. The alternative is simply too potentially destabilising to contemplate.
In debating this issue, in other words, it is helpful if we try to look beyond soundbites and get at the underlying values – the ‘incompletely theorised agreement’ that we all can share. We might not agree on the details, but we can at least agree that it is better to live in a society which is stable, in which a plurality of views are accepted, and in which people are therefore not subject to arbitrary displays of power. From there, it is not difficult to reason our way to the position that de-banking ought not to be permissable except in defined, and limited, exceptional cases.
Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. This article first appeared on his Substack. You can subscribe here.
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A cross between a loan shark and protection racket?
I’m shocked
Heil Pfizer!
https://twitter.com/_whitneywebb/status/1450464402000556039?s=20
Over in Belgium COVIDIAN cult deniers decided it was time to pay the HQ at Puurs a visit, on mass.
Pfizer’s UK commercial headquarters are located in Walton Oaks in Surrey, perhaps if it becomes mandatory for 5-11 year old kids in Britain to be jib-jabbed a visit there too will be necessary?
Oh dear. Pharma is the new tobacco industry. Who’d have thought it?
These contract terms are much worse than the tobacco industry had…
Plagiarism! Ehden Biber originally exposed this and should be credited.
Fun Fact: In the 19th chapter of Revelation (last few verses), “Babylon” is thrown down for being the richest city causing all the nations to go mad, and also for its druggery. “For your merchants were the greatest men of the earth; for by your druggery all the nations were misled.” The word “druggery” is often translated “spiritistic practices” but the Greek word (pharmakia) literally means druggery. Here endeth the Fun Fact.
Babylon – in the Rastafarian sense – is the word my family and I use as a catch-all term for everything that’s been going on these last 18 months. How apt! Thanks for fun fact.
Let’s hope that, when this farce is over and done with, the Hanging Gardens bit takes on a new meaning.
I have been asked about this several times but it is necessary to point out that although the word φαρμακεία does indeed refer to ‘magical practices’ and ‘sorcery’ and is thus used in the New Testament, it also has the meaning of ‘medicine’ or ‘drug’ and is used in both senses in Homer.
To infer or attempt to infer that ‘pharmacy’ is the same as ‘sorcery’ is to conflate two different senses of the word. Compare Odyssey δ 230 and Iliad Δ 191, Λ 741 with Odyssey κ 392, Iliad Χ 94.
Ι know (but it is late and I do not at present have the energy) that the word is similarly used in BOTH senses in the Patristic literature.
You said, “it also has the meaning of ‘medicine’ or ‘drug’ and is used in both senses in Homer.”
So the verse could also be translated, “by your drugs all the nations were misled”?
Obviously context is king, and the context also depends on whether we view the passage as John’s commentary on ancient Rome, or a prophetic vision of the future (or the rapidly approaching here-and-now). Sceptical scholars would probably argue for the former, I’m hinting it might be the latter, or both.
Anyway, I personally think words like this used in John’s book are meant to have multiple meanings, much like poetry. The drawback of the translating process is that it forces the translator to pick a word, and thus lose some of the poetic nature of the words.
Oh look, another conspiracy theory has made it into the mainstream.
How long before the Mail is talking about planned depopulation by vaccine?
Even the DM isn’t that stupid.
If depopulation by vaccine is the fascists’ aim, their plan must envisage a millennium of steady work, aided by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and even then they wouldn’t stem the tide of human reproduction, or even cause a ripple. They should have gone for the Black Death instead – not that that would work either. It didn’t last time, in a world bereft of any kind of operative medicine. It merely caused a temporary blip.
I wish I shared your optimism.
Transparency anyone?
Pfizer is immunized against lawsuits, but what about all these companies and universities and sports conferences that are forcing people under their charge to get vaccinated against their will?
For example, colleges and sports leagues KNOW that vaccination among young males increases the risk of developing myocarditis. Still, these colleges and athletic teams and conferences and pro teams are either mandating vaccination or coercing people to get vaccinated.
What happens if and when these cases start emerging (as they will and perhaps already have)?
Here I am pulling for the meanest toughest trial lawyers to show what they can do.
Well, there’s another reason for refusing the Pfizer booster.
Well, if they are dumb enough to buy the stuff after seeing how useless it is and how much damage it causes..
Public Citizen actually were not the ones to break this news. It’s been well known among the censored since earlier in the year. All the contracts were leaked by this guy. He did full dissection of them. I wonder why now this is hitting the msm? How the sceptic mind works eh
https://mobile.twitter.com/eh_den
This is worse even than Faustus’ deal with the devil. At least he got a long life before he guys arrived with pitchforks – not six months.
Fauci 81 still in office after 50 years,
Very interesting. This is not news to those who are awake but it is the first time in a year that the sainted Pfizer have been criticised in the mainstream press.
Perhaps something bigger is about to break
Pfizer really are the evil unacceptable face of capitalism. Dante wrote about 9 circles of hell, Pfizer have found a 10th.
But Pfizer aren’t responsible for the creation of this mess. Let me introduce the China-bought WHO and any of the hapless governments that have chosen to listen to its ‘advice’.
Noteworthy too that the CEO sold his stock just before their product got emergency authorised according to my memory…
In which case, he’d have missed out on the share price going up…
but he did pocket a cool 21mil last year
Forget domestic legal immunity. This is a crime against humanity for which immunity cannot be granted. The entire Pfizer board should be put on a one way trip to the Hague, for a fair trial and a swift conviction.
I want tickets for that!
‘One of the safest and most effective Covid vaccines’.
Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
“Blew me away.” Sorry, couldn’t resist
https://rescue.substack.com/p/a2520b80-bcd1-4905-a913-68f6f6809779
“This highly effective bait-and-switch began last March with a webpage, to which the FDA tweet linked, that conflates the two ivermectins. On one hand, the FDA tells of receiving “multiple reports of patients who have required medical attention” after taking the animal product. On the other, it describes the fate awaiting people who take large amounts of any ivermectin, ending a long list with “dizziness, ataxia, seizures, coma and even death.” The medical literature, nonetheless, shows ivermectin to be an extremely safe medicine.
So how big was the surge that FDA described as “multiple”? Four, an agency spokesperson said just after the page went up”
Pfizer & Moderna to generate over $90 BILLION in vaccine sales next year (Financial Times)
Pfizer is expected to move $54.5 billion worth of Covid vaccines and Moderna $38.7 billion, according to Airfinity data seen by the FT.
The Covid market is forecast to double in value to $124 billion in 2022.
According to the Washington Post, 3.5 billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been purchased already, with most of the finer details unfolding in secrecy with the pharma giant turning the screw on govts to boost profits.
Talk about a cash injection.
Subscribe to RT News t.me/rtnews
for a product that doesnt do what it purports to. Someone bring in Trading standards.
Typical bullying tactics. Surely unethical?
They’ve been empowered by the USA, UK and every other western Government which enthusiastically joined in the Scamdemic ….. and pushed experimental jabs.
Pfizer are leeches; they are doing what leeches do …… suck blood.
I’m unsure how shocking this is supposed to be.
Much of it looks like what any sensible business would do to protect itself during an induced worldwide panic.
Given that we’re now confident that the vaccines ‘help’ in a limited way, while ensuring that the vaccinated are subjected to an endless round of booster shots after their immune systems are gradually shut down, which bits of this news are actually a ‘bad’ thing for those involved?
Most of these governments could access much cheaper anit-Wuflu drugs tomorrow and tell Pfizer to stick the vaxes somewhere warm and dark. That they won’t is surely of more concern to the poor humans involved in this pharmaPonzi scheme.
Paracetamol helps in a limited way, Vitamin D helps in a limited way. I haven’t noticed that billions have been made and contracts that are basically extortion entered into, Whoever the idiots are who were negotiating the contracts with the Pharma companies they basically couldnt do a worse job. Imagine
Government negotiator to car manufacturer.
Yes we would like you to make a driverless car, we need it quickly so don’t worry about safety testing, we will pay you to develop it, and we will hold you free of liability if it kills people, oh and here is a big fat check for billions as we want millions of the things regardless of their ability to actually move anywhere. Is that a deal?
I rest my case
Complete immunity for a product that does not do what it says on the tin but which has to date killed and injured more people than all vaccines combined in the past 15 years.
Laughing all the way to the Bank
The Biggest criminal & Fraud fine in Pharma History was paid by Pfizer of $2.3 BILLION.