The Vegan Thread

In no particular order:

1. Lack of choice. I prefer paying by cash.

2. Cash is a public amenity. Sure, card payments are also based on the same currency, but I'm firmly convinced that the move towards card-only is essentially driven by large private payment system companies that want to cream something off every transaction. There seems to have been some kind of subtle campaign, quite probably on anti-social media, that's convinced people cashless is cool and modern. It's undoubtedly also been driven by things like contactless cards and 'convenience'.

3. In a similar vein, banks want to reduce their costs for handling cash (much as they charge businesses for banking cash). I don't like the way in which banks have reduced their services, e.g. in closing bank branches or removing cash machines.

4. Economic data. I think it is bad for there to be complete data on transactions. It gets closer (although there is, obviously, still a long way to go) to the monetarists' idea of perfect knowledge of the market. I prefer it if transactions are less trackable.

5. In summary of some of these points, I don't think it's a good idea to make the monetary system more and more abstract; I think you already see this in price lists when businesses list items as 'vegan burger 8' or something like this. It's £8 or $8 or 8€, etc., not '8'. People claim that it's 'more secure' to go towards electronic transactions--I don't believe that for a second. I strongly suspect the opposite is true. I mean, some businesses I've talked to (including on here) said they had been robbed at gun-/knifepoint and other businesses said they'd been burgled for cash left on the premises, but I really don't think the solution is to go 'cashless'. Thieves will merely develop new methods of stealing.

6. Tipping. I prefer to tip waiters in cash.

7. The situation for homeless people is absurd. Many people no longer want to carry cash, and, obviously, that's not the same as businesses going cashless, but they are related. There have been various suggestions of issuing homeless people with card readers so passers-by can give them 'spare change'. I'm afraid I don't think this would work at all (but what do I know).

I'm sure other reasons could be adduced, but those are my main ones.

Obviously, from a vegan perspective there is the issue that bank notes are no longer vegan, and I do understand that vegan businesses may prefer not to use non-vegan cash, but I think there should instead be a move back to vegan cash. (I don't know how likely that is to happen; @mespilus suggested that some feedstocks for plastic production were no longer separated into animal-free and animal-derived ones, as had been the practice for some decades).