Where’s the Beef? – Solving the UK Currency Controversy with Decentralisation
On the 13th of September 2016, the Bank of England entered a new £5 note into circulation in the United Kingdom. This new note is made of a thin polymer, similar to the Canadian and Australian currencies, which are resistant to water and dirt damage. The new fiver also boasts new and improved security features, such as a see-through window and a gold fronted, silver-backed image of Queen Elizabeth II. Sounds great, right?
Source: Flickr
Well, to many of Britain’s vegans and vegetarians, the new note represents a violation of their lifestyles. This is because it recently emerged that the fiver now contains tallow, a kind of animal fat. This revelation has angered those who believe that the use of animal products in a state-issued currency shows a blatant lack of regard for the many veggies of Britain.
‘Who cares?’, I hear many people ask. Some, including the inventor of the original polymer note, have dismissed complaints over the use of tallow in the notes, calling them ‘trivial’. After all, argue many, various types of candle and soap also use this kind of fat in their production. But to many, this is not a trivial issue: in my own home city of Cambridge for example, the ‘Rainbow Cafe’, a vegetarian establishment, is now refusing to accept the new notes. Many Hindu temples across the UK are also following suit. Although vegetarians and Hindus are both minority groups in the UK, the disregard of the Bank of England in including animal fat in the production of banknotes highlights a key problem the UK has, which does affects the whole population.
Freedom to Conform
The most obvious concern this scandal raises is the issue of free choice regarding the representativeness of a centralised state. The new currency blatantly ignores the lifestyle choices of many Brits, to the extent that many now refuse to use it. But the issue is not that vegetarians can’t accept the new fiver in itself, the issue is that they have to use it. At the moment, a vegetarian or vegan may use a different denomination of currency, such as the £10 note, various combinations of £1, £2 and other coins, or credit cards. A minor inconvenience, many will say. And this is true. But what about when the £10 note also becomes printed on non-vegan polymer in 2017? Or the £20 note in 2020? Are we to expect that the meat-free should carry around bags of £2 coins, or that vegetarian cafes are to accept only credit and debit cards?
This is an issue that could have been avoided had the designers of the new notes taken into account the beliefs and preferences of over 1.2 Million Brits. But what if the new veggie-friendly notes are unusable by those allergic to the new ingredients? What if they are unusable by those who detest the design? Even before the notes were released, there was controversy surrounding the use of Winston Churchill’s image on the reverse side.
This brings me to the point of this article: it is impossible for a single, centralised organisation to truly represent an entire population.
The Issue with Centralisation
A common metaphor used for the comparison of the state and the market is the ice-cream shop. The market allows you to choose your favourite flavour from a plethora of options; chocolate, vanilla, mint, strawberry, etc. It also allows you to choose as much as you want, or to have nothing at all and go for crepes instead. In the State’s parlour, you have two options: chocolate or vanilla. You prefer chocolate, but unfortunately 51% of the other customers prefer vanilla, so you’re stuck with it.
The same principle applies to the new banknotes. England and Wales have a sole producer of currency: The Bank of England. This means that all residents of these two areas have to use this currency in all transactions, or use electronic currency via a credit or debit card. As this article has discussed, however, this currency is now unusable for a minority of people in the UK. Since there is no other producer of the British Pound in England or Wales, however, vegans and vegetarians do not have an alternative currency to use (unless they travel to Northern Ireland, the only province of the UK who are not stated to eventually begin producing polymer notes).
Free our Money!
The solution to this issue is quite simple: free banking. If the UK were to allow other, private banks to begin printing their own sterling, the free-market principle of competition would enter the currency market. As argued by Hayek, this would allow for the provision of the best possible quality, quantity and variety of monetary products and bases. With this system, people would have the power to decide not only what they buy, but also how they buy it; with gold-backed money such as the Liberty Dollar, time-backed money such as Ithaca Hours, or even completely decentralised digital currencies such as Bitcoin. The possibilities are truly endless. At the very least, it would mean people could once again shop at vegan restaurants, without carrying a satchel full of pennies.
Richard Mason is a European Studies Student at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Initially coming from the UK, he got involved in the Liberty movement after coming to Maastricht, but has been a passionate libertarian for much longer.
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