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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Parts of my home town still think it’s 1984. It appears parts of the wider Labour movement think the same. Nasty people.
Same here, but boy, we could do with the coal now!
At least we know what Labour’s real purpose is – destroy family farms with inheritance tax so everyone will vote Labour in the Shires and end up working for min wage for Bill Gates’ Factory Farming Inc. conglomerate.
How much has Gates’ Foundation been paying Labour?
Probably was cheap 411 pairs of prescription glasses for cheap Labour MPs from the company advertising for £6 per pair.
Of course Starmer has his £6 pair because he is too worried he might lose the £4k pair Lord Ali bought him.
I’m wondering why he didn’t call them Kulaks.
Bring it on, be just like my home mining town in the 80s.. And I’ll be there..
In fact covid reminded me of those days, we didn’t quite have the police (military dressed as police) road blocks but it wasn’t far off….
Both sides were at it as I’m sure you remember. Scabs were the names of those who chose to breach the picket lines and go to work. Seen old footage of Busses with armour plating and the drivers & passengers in helmets because of the attacks on them and the vehicles they were traveling in. Not a great fan of Channel Four but they did a good three part documentary on it last year.
It was a pretty crazy time indeed…
Is John McTernan aware of the Holodomor and does he think Stalin a roll model?
The Holodomor was a natural event and nothing to do with Stalin.
“The idea of “holodomor” as an intentional or man-made genocide which specifically targeted Ukrainians and was used to crush Ukrainian nationalists fails on multiple fronts.”
In summary, here are the established facts regarding the situation 1932–1933:
Natural drought played a role in creating the situation.
Ex-landowning kulaks and Ukrainian nationalists did in fact refuse to work, murder collective workers, slaughter their own cattle, and otherwise actively sabotage the sowing and harvesting campaigns.
Importing industrial machinery was the reason for exporting amounts of food in order to increase production as fast as possible.
The cycle of famines which had existed for centuries prior and inherited by the Soviet authorities ended after the industrialization and collectivization policies had been fully implemented and the nazi invasion had ended.
Under Stalin, the Ukrainization policy went into effect for over a decade before being changed due to rabid bourgeois Ukrainian nationalist elements exploiting it for treasonous activities.
Stalin did not harbor any unique hostility to the Ukrainian nationalists any more than he did the Russian nationalists who he fought in the civil war or even the Georgian nationalists who he fought in the August uprising.
The Ukrainian nationalist movement in question was heavily tied to anti-semitism & fascistic beliefs before the 1930’s and exposed themselves in their true goals by aligning with nazi Germany in their hopes to create an ethno-state.
Central Soviet Authorities sent hundreds of thousands of tonnes of food to the Ukrainians from other regions and Stalin himself personally intervened to scold a regional Russian official objecting to sending aid and made him send food.
The situation of hunger encompassed the entire union to varying degrees, including impacting ethnic Russians.
The situation in Ukraine during 1932–1933 was not intentional or man-made by Joseph Stalin or the Central Soviet Authorities.
The overwhelming and vast majority of countries on this planet do not recognize this situation as being a “genocide”.
https://discomfiting.medium.com/holodomor-fact-or-fiction-17324ffe1d46
Who exactly has compiled that???
Some guy called Anton.
It is all referenced.
If you want further details that the Holodomor was a natural event try here …..
“Revisiting the perspective brought forth by Douglas Tottle, we are reminded of the importance of a nuanced understanding of the famine. Tottle’s painstaking exposure of fraud, manipulation, and the selective use of evidence in the genocide claim uncovers a troubling alignment with the interests of extremist Ukrainian groups such as the OUN. By revealing these connections and the ways in which the fraudulent narrative served their purposes, he brings to light the deeply problematic reduction of the Holodomor to a Ukrainian-centric tragedy or a simplistic genocide. Such an approach obscures the broader socioeconomic context, denies the interconnected suffering that affected various ethnicities, and undermines the multifaceted nature of the crisis. Engaging with this more complex view is not only an intellectual endeavor but an ethical obligation to honor the memory and experiences of all who endured that difficult period.”
https://ddgeopolitics.substack.com/p/f23f5fff-430a-4eb5-b80e-676dfb1d5440
And here ……
Counterpunch has 27 articles on the lies about the Holodomor.
https://www.counterpunch.org/search-results/?cx=000357264939014560440%3Aicshsy4bfu0&ie=UTF-8&q=holodomor#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=holodomor&gsc.page=1
Some fellow Stalinist.
I think you’re wrong about that.
What are your views on Solzhenitsyn?
I have no views on him.
All I know is that he wrote “The Gulag Archipelago” which I used to give people as a charade to act out as it was so difficult.
If I wanted to know more about him I would use my “trusted” sources to form a well read and educated opinion.
Ah yes, the infamous Stalin roll, cast after his very own image!
Sorry for the silly joke but I simply love this typo.
Oh dear, yes. I can’t change it so I’ll have to own it. Wonder if Greggs would sell it and what would be in it.
First they wanted to import all the gas, now they want to import all our food. How does this help us meet CO2 targets exactly?
I also noticed that Kier and pals flew to COP, couldn’t they get the train or use an electric car?
A skeptical person might think this is all BS…
..
After thatcher sold off all the family silver!
Well said Ozone
Because once we are net importers of food and energy all anyone of the global elites has to do is switch it all off.
Nailed it !!!
Labour revealed in all their brazen psychopathy.
.
https://youtu.be/Phoqxoolol0?si=n6VqTzEB3IpBLxhF
Time to bin those seed oils
Seed oil! You mean tractor lubricant?
Sunflower,rapeseed and all the rest is the most processed human food on earth and should never be ingested
I stopped roasting potatoes in Sunflower oil when I saw the shellac-like coating left by it on the roasting tray.
Whatever that is you are eating it.
I turned to Olive oil and no residue of any kind was noticeable.
Interesting video, thanks.
It’s best not to give any credence to what mentally ill people say.
10 minutes in an empty room with a farmer would sort this c-nt out !
A political adviser telling us what we do not need!
“Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
If we are looking at things we do not need I would put political advisers a huge step above small farmers.
Having spent my career in agriculture and horticulture I recall how years ago we derided the ineffective and incompetent Soviet collective farms and yet here were are pushing down that route. They want everything to be big, corporate and under their thumb, ostensibly free market but in reality pretty close to a Soviet State collective operation. It is a dismal, grey and uninspiring vision for the future and not a world in which I feel at home.
Wonderful quote! Who said that?
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
Thank you!
Politicians, lawyers,solicitors,accountants and criminals stand nessasary only in a frivolous world!
My father was a smal farmer and always resented the attention and high wages paid to miners. he pointed out most of them were, or descended from rural workers on other parts of the country who went into the mines for bigger money. He resented the way they used monomopy and political power to get higher wages and better benefits that farm workers or farmers themselves.
The media used to be full of the high injury and death rate among miners. They never discussed the higher rate among farmers and farm workers. The latter did not get sickness benefit or high pensions. NB I see this government has given the surplus in the miners pension scheme to the miners even though the cash came from tax payers.
The tone of the Blairite commentator sugests they view small farmers as Kulaks. Thereby to be monstered by the socialists in power.
They all seem to think food comes from supermarkets. How wrong they are. What a disastrous five years we are in for – thanks Tories for so screwing up they got in.
Vote Reform!
Farmers produce food. In the grand scheme of things, what do former Tony Blair aides produce which is useful to anyone but themselves?
Hot air? Could be used to heat up a small village. There would need to be filters to remove the sound of his voice though.
If only the manure they spout could be put on the fields and do some good…
As pointed out elsewhere; that appears to be Len McCluskey’s slow witted brother.
Much of the essence of all that is best of Britishness resides in the countryside and small towns and that is why they need to be destroyed.
The miners too were destroyed not for economic reasons but because they were seen as a threat to the state. Scargill made it easy for the govt but they were doomed any which way.
The great universities, public schools, the church, the Army – all destroyed.
See the pattern yet?
Exactly.
His words are truly shocking. He fails to mention that it was his & Scargill’s Communist masters in Russia and Poland who benefitted most from “shutting down the industry”, as he so blandly puts it.
The British miners were destroyed, but the British Taxpayers were forced to keep subsidising the EU coal mining industry in Poland and Romania, and probably still are, while we are forced to import coal from them and Russia.
And Australia! Importing coal from 12000 miles away when it’s only 1 mile beneath our feet! Oh the lexicon of common sense seems to have abandoned us!
I didn’t know that— thanks. More proof that our own elected politicians hate us.
Speechless at how completely topsy-turvy this man’s understanding of history is. Struggling to know where to start explaining how completely befuddled and confused he his. Goodness me.
I hope shops refuse to sell him food.
And all eateries – restaraunts, cafes, market stalls and no biscuits at Trade Union meetings
Can only assume that this idiot doesn’t eat then, where does he think food comes from, “tesco’s” etc
We don’t need small farmers, we have bug factories in the pipeline…..
My God do these people hate us.
What an evil thing to say. Difficult to take on board what’s come our way in this Labour government, though I’ve been telling my husband for ages that once the Labour government were in they would start ramping things up, no holds barred. And it’s happening!
This man will regret his words.the farmers have had enough. No farmers, no food. Perhaps this man has a plan for,that?
Yes, same plan as the Holodomor.
Famine is the plan.
Depopulation Agenda.
Target: White Countries Only.