The Great Banking Paradox: Is Technology Serving Us, or Are We Serving Capital?
Why science isn't the villain in our digital frustration—the system is.
There was a time, not so long ago, when you didn't have to queue for an hour to be served at a high-street bank. This was in a world before the internet, before "instant" became our default setting.
Today, I conduct 95% of my day-to-day banking online. Yet, let’s be honest: I do this primarily to save the bank’s time, not my own. When I stepped into a branch yesterday to perform a simple task—withdrawing a couple of fifty-pound notes—I was met with a half-hour wait.
We are told that "time is money." But in the modern economy, it seems this adage only applies to corporate giants. Does the ordinary person’s time have no value?
The Stolen Promise of Technology
If necessity is the mother of invention, then technology—including the internet—was surely intended for the betterment of mankind. But look at what has happened. With every step toward "convenience," we find ourselves nourishing the profit-seekers.
The logic is simple and cold:
- More online banking leads to fewer staff at the counters.
- Mechanisation leads to a constant haemorrhaging of bank jobs.
- Digital "security" remains a question mark—are our encrypted cards truly any safer than the cash we handled in the 90s?
Science vs. The System
Since the 1980s, alongside the rise of "the incredulity towards meta-narratives," there has been a growing tendency to blame science for the havoc wreaked upon our civilisation and our planet.
But I disagree. Science is merely a tool; the intent behind the tool is where the rot lies. To blame science for the dehumanisation of our daily lives is like watching a bad pianist play a discord and blaming the piano.
The piano is fine. The science is sound. The problem lies with the crooked fingers of capitalism that are playing the tune. We aren't suffering from too much technology; we are suffering from technology that has been hijacked for profit at the expense of people.