The last three months of 2025 was an erratic time for me as I traveled across multiple states for work and to see family. Back and forth across countless state borders, I have carried a copy of Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine. Having just finished the book a few days ago, I cannot help but reflect on how applicable Kingsnorth’s message is to my daily activities. There are the obvious issues of mass surveillance in almost every public space, and the ability to be summoned at anytime, anywhere, by anyone via the little “black mirror” in my pocket raises serious concerns. Then there are the more mundane things, like just being able to buy a hotdog.
Both Costco and Sam’s Club have changed their policies so that you have to either scan a membership card before ordering from their food courts or order directly through their apps. The companies and the policy-change defenders state this is to reduce crowding and encourage devotees of the cheap hotdogs and other food court items to purchase memberships if they do not already have them. I am certain that none of the data generated from these scans and digital orders will be collected and sold to track the spending and consumption patterns of their members. That would be ridiculous!
I realize this is a trite point to make, particularly over tripe, but after reading Kingsnorth’s assessment of the overall goals of the Machine, I am even more pessimistic about every little encroachment on even the most ephemeral of things. United Airlines has become more resistant to printing out paper tickets, with their agents insisting I use my phone to display my boarding pass. McDonald’s, which conducts its annual lottery game promotion, now requires the coupons for free food items you might win be registered in their app, as opposed to the old way of simply handing the coupon to the cashier and then getting your food. Individually these could be dismissed as one-off measures to improve efficiency, but combined they point to a level of corporate control I thought it would have taken decades longer to reach and in only the most highly urbanized and tech-centric hubs, not at the McDonald’s in Salem, Ohio.
It seems like it was less than a decade ago when the main debate was over whether businesses could stop accepting cash for goods and services and exclusively take credit cards. Arguments for both sides seemed sound, with some businesses wishing to reduce the risk of theft and the costs associated with handling cash, while cash advocates raised the concern for those without access to credit cards or traditional banking. Now it feels as if a new divide is occurring with larger corporations moving to only accept payment through their own apps, which also require a person to incur the expense of having a smart phone, while small businesses, choking on credit card processing fees, are pushing their customers towards a cash dominant model. This strategy might work, except for one little wrinkle currently underway, the elimination of cash.
On November 1st, I walked into a Giant Eagle grocery store with a small bag of pennies. After waiting in line for a few minutes with other people also carrying bags and buckets of the coins, I received a gift card for twice their face value. Over $2 million worth of gift cards were issued by Giant Eagle during this promotion, meaning that the grocery store chain had taken in over $1 million dollars of pennies in just one day.
The reason for this promotion was because earlier in 2025 the U.S. Mint began reducing penny production, with the last of the coins struck on November 12th. Stores like Giant Eagle wanted to make sure that they have sufficient supply of the coins to make change until prices can be adjusted. The reason the mint ceased production was because the cost to make and ship a penny had been well over one cent for years, costing the government millions of dollars annually.
While I normally would be supportive of an action that saves so much for the public purse, at this time I am concerned that eliminating the penny may have a significant snowball effect. Nickels are another coin which costs the mint more to make and distribute than they are worth, with each of the little disks containing nearly 6 cents worth of metal. I would not be surprised if their mintage is ceased in the next year or two as another cost-saving measure.
Then there are those people who just despise coins in general and would leap at the thought of completely eliminating them from daily life. Once, when purchasing a cheap book from a bookshop in New York City I paid with a dollar coin and a few quarters. It took the cashier a moment to realize that no bills would be coming, and then he described the concept of paying for something with just coins as “Dickensian.” This mentality, coupled with rising costs for the mint and reduced purchasing power for all of the common coin denominations due to rampant inflation, could easily pave the way toward the elimination of coinage in a few years.
On the other end of the spectrum, several economists have been pushing for the elimination of paper money larger than $20 due to the tendency for larger bills to be utilized by criminal elements. In Europe, steps towards this goal have already been taken, with the production of new 500 Euro bills ceasing in 2019. I have even encountered businesses in the U.S. that currently refuse to accept payment in any bills larger than $20. Eventually, and by this I mean possibly within a decade, it would not be a huge leap then to see the elimination of the remaining denominations of paper money justified through the combined arguments of security and cost savings.
Where would this leave us? Money gone from our pockets, with apps and cards controlled by third parties tracking and authorizing what we can or cannot buy. Even little things like plane tickets, coupons, and receipts will all be irredeemable without a black mirror shackled to our wrist. Oliver Anthony’s line, “Lord knows they all just wanna have total control!” in Rich Men North of Richmond has never felt more poignant.
Kingsnorth ends on a hopeful note in his book, encouraging readers to “Raindance on the astroturf” and to work towards building authentic cultures that will eventually replace the hollowness of the Machine. It is a hopeful vision, and one I would love to see achieved in the long run. However, I fear the path to this end goal may grow rougher than it already is. In the meantime, many of us will have to go without food-court hot dogs or a penny to offer for a neighbor’s thoughts.
Image via Wikimedia.
