4 ms·

cash will be banned in the future

by VMG 7y ago

pwinnski 7y ago
Part of me thinks this is definitely something an authoritarian government would try to do, but then I wonder: how has this not happened already? Has it happened somewhere I've missed? I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. If people are engaging in economic activity they want to hide from the government, and find others willing to engage in the same activity, they'll probably work something out, right? Whether it's masks that could potentially hide someone from facial-recognition cameras or something else.
- vageli 7y ago
  Yeah but then using a barter system is probably outlawed in those societies, which would have a chilling effect because you don't know if someone is safe to ask about the alternative method for fear of being reported. A casual interaction between shopkeeper and customer would never be facilitated by barter in such a hostile environment.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > "I wonder: how has this not happened already?" It's the sort of thing you spend a few years normalizing instead of implementing in one fell swoop. Rapid changes unnerve people and a rapid elimination of cash could cause civil or economic unrest. I believe India has experimented with demonetizing larger bills, and in Sweden businesses that accept cash are becoming increasingly uncommon, as are people who use cash. When the majority no longer consider cash important, eliminating cash becomes safer. More people adopt the mentality that cash users are criminals with something to hide or generally just paranoid weirdos, and are consequently less likely to object when the use of cash is further restricted. Moreover, with fewer people using cash, the government has largely achieved their objective already. When few people use cash the haystack the needles are hidden in becomes much smaller.
- VMG 7y ago
  > I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. Regular people who don't care about privacy or censorship resistance will use credit cards. This is in the interest of the powerful because you can easily disable service for undesirables. The rest will use Bitcoin

cash will be banned in the future

by VMG 7y ago

cash will be banned in the future

Part of me thinks this is definitely something an authoritarian government would try to do, but then I wonder: how has this not happened already? Has it happened somewhere I've missed? I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. If people are engaging in economic activity they want to hide from the government, and find others willing to engage in the same activity, they'll probably work something out, right? Whether it's masks that could potentially hide someone from facial-recognition cameras or something else.

vageli 7y ago
Yeah but then using a barter system is probably outlawed in those societies, which would have a chilling effect because you don't know if someone is safe to ask about the alternative method for fear of being reported. A casual interaction between shopkeeper and customer would never be facilitated by barter in such a hostile environment.
catalogia 7y ago
> "I wonder: how has this not happened already?" It's the sort of thing you spend a few years normalizing instead of implementing in one fell swoop. Rapid changes unnerve people and a rapid elimination of cash could cause civil or economic unrest. I believe India has experimented with demonetizing larger bills, and in Sweden businesses that accept cash are becoming increasingly uncommon, as are people who use cash. When the majority no longer consider cash important, eliminating cash becomes safer. More people adopt the mentality that cash users are criminals with something to hide or generally just paranoid weirdos, and are consequently less likely to object when the use of cash is further restricted. Moreover, with fewer people using cash, the government has largely achieved their objective already. When few people use cash the haystack the needles are hidden in becomes much smaller.
VMG 7y ago
> I suspect that banning cash would result in an ad hoc barter system for goods and services. Regular people who don't care about privacy or censorship resistance will use credit cards. This is in the interest of the powerful because you can easily disable service for undesirables. The rest will use Bitcoin