Banning cash is such a monumentally bad idea its a miracle of modern propaganda that a single person is willing to even consider it. From negative interest rates to ubiquitous tracking of your every move and purchase (by stores, banks, governments, and whoever else they choose to share the information with), to the total paralysis society would face from any sort of blackout or network disruption, to limitless technical vulnerability by hackers, eliminating cash is truly one of the worst ideas ever conceived. Its bad enough that the government enforces a legal monopoly on currency. Extending that monopoly to digital-only currency is a huge step in the wrong direction for business, commerce, and freedom.
That depends on your perspective. Our overlords have lost the war for hearts and minds of the 10% [1]. So the classic problem here is how to "drain the swamp". And this is a perfectly correct solution.
In this very forum a few months ago someone posted how they were afraid to search for Adhan -- the Muslim call to prayer -- because they didn't want to end up on a list. This approach works. It works silently, efficiently, and there is no paper trail to have to respond to in a future (one hopes) crimes against humanity tribunal.
[1]: Just a round number. The 10%(™) signifies the significant cross cutting core subset of society that the tip of the power structure, and the captive civilization, critically depends on.
I don't think anyone is considering banning cash. More likely, you'll one day find that merchants may refuse to accept cash, or provide change, the same way that many merchants today refuse to accept credit cards. And honestly, that is their right. As someone who's had to collect rent from roommates, I refused to accept cash from them. It's too much of a hassle/liability for me to deal with. I think that a law requiring all merchants to accept cash is government-overreach frankly.
Regarding negative interest rates - this is something that sounds really scary, but actually isn't. We aren't talking about a hard asset like gold - we're talking about fiat currencies. Every time your government expands the money supply and triggers inflation, you're losing money. If you try to prevent governments from setting negative interest rates, they will just pump up the money supply and make you lose money through inflation instead. There's little point in banning negative interest rates, unless you're willing to ban monetary-supply-expansion as well. And unless you're a hardcore Ron Paul libertarian, I bet you've never protested governments promoting moderate inflation.
Regarding anonymous monetary transactions, I agree that there is value in this. This can also be accomplished through cashless transactions. All you need is an aggregated prepaid debit card service. You buy the prepaid debit-card using your regular bank account, and then use that prepaid debit card to conduct anonymous transactions.
The one upside of cash is minimal transaction fees. It always annoys me that Visa takes a 1-2% cut from every single transaction. It effectively makes us all 1-2% poorer in the process. But this is a market-solvable problem if the government took adequate steps to foster competition, and ban anti-competitive tactics. We've already seen many attempts recently, such as Apple Pay, to undercut the credit card companies fees, while still allowing cashless transactions.
Overall, cash is a pain to deal with. If I never had to touch cash again, I'd be a perfectly happy man. I don't think the government should take steps to discourage/ban the use of cash, but if private merchants and individuals decide to abandon cash, the government certainly shouldn't interfere with that decision. The current benefits of using cash can certainly be replicated and had, even in a cashless society.
FWIW, the patents on blinded signatures have come and gone. E-cash based on blinded signatures has the critical property of untraceability that Bitcoin lacks. However, the system must be run by a real-world institution ("bank").
It's quite clear that the existing power structure "wants" to hinder anonymity, whether deliberately for more control via Orwellian crimes like "money laundering", or just emergently where no party wants to get stuck holding the bag in our defective soft-money banking system.
Cash is basically what we've got in the medium term. I've personally gone back to using cash for groceries and other various sundry purchases, because pushing back against the government+corporate surveillance panopticon is the right thing to do. This idea of anonymous e-payments is completely hypothetical until eg a proper replacement for Bitcoin arises that has untracability and can withstand nation-state attacks.
I'm under no illusions about its anonymity though - every note has a serial number right on it. It would be prudent to assume that banks record the serials of bills that are withdrawn and deposited. I don't actually think this is happening at the consumer level just yet, but I'm sure the diktat has been drawn up and is just waiting for the right 24 hour tragedy.
> You buy the prepaid debit-card using your regular bank account, and then use that prepaid debit card to conduct anonymous transactions.
Cash is mixed by changing hands multiple times before being deposited, so even recording the serial numbers at withdraw and deposit time yields little information. Notes frequently pass between people who don't even know each other. At best you might be able to make some assumptions about where people shop regularly, but there's no mandatory database of what is purchased.
Your suggestion is not anonymous at all. Prepaid cards can only be anonymous when purchased with cash, and even then they can be traced back to the merchant who sold them who may be able to identify the buyer. (eg. Cameras, known to staff, etc)
In addition to other bad things already mentioned, any government enforcement usually comes with "prosecutorial discretion" -- freedom to choose whom to prosecute and whom to ignore.
Tracking all money spent would give a huge additional opportunity to many government agencies to harass those they find obnoxious. I have little doubt it would get misused very soon.
It's a wonderful way to fight things governments don't approve of. For example, generating a list of every person who bought food / water / whatever at a protest.
The meme that banning cash is a useful way to fight tax evasion is hilarious propaganda. Unreported cash transactions are tiny compared to the tax avoidance and evasion done by businesses and the rich. Banning cash doesn't make big business pay a real tax rate, nor does it prevent profits from being hidden in overseas accounts.
Blaming low tax revenue on cash is a convenient distraction. When everyone is focused on their fear that the average citizen might get away paying less taxes, nobody notices the people cooking the (non-cash) books and/o buying legislation.
Depends on who is doing the tracking and for what purpose.
I prefer societies that expect people to do the right thing and have measures in place to deal with anti-socials than societies that expect people to do the wrong thing and therefore try to control everybody for it.
Oh no, not communism! Everyone knows that's the worst thing ever!
The American demonization of communism is a bit tiresome. You can't use the word "communism" as a conversation-stopper, it's not an argument, it's a fallacy. It's like saying "so you're basically Hitler".
And I'm tired of people underestimating feloniousness of communism.
Just for your information: communism, as in Soviet Union, accounts for more victims than Hitler and nazism. They might not have built gas chambers, but trying to deliberately starve the whole nation (Ukrainian) to death isn't much better [1].
Unfortunately, at some point of WWII Stalin became US and UK ally, so still some political correctness prevents West to freely speak about communism and it's crimes.
So all things considered communism actually is "the worst thing ever" and nazism is a close second.
Your should fear totalitarianism, not communism. Soviet Union was totalitarian state, but there was (and there are) many other bloody totalitarian states, which don't used communism as ideology.
True, not every totalitarianism is communism, but, as Leszek Kołakowski proved in "Main Currents of Marxism" monography, totalitarism is deeply ingrained in communism ideology. Every single country that was ruled by communists long enough ended up being totalitarian regime. There are no known examples of country being democratic and communist at the same time.
Nominal democracy and nominal communism didn't exist in the same country because they were each belief systems of different empires. The ideas themselves are certainly compatible, both being just different takes on collectivism.
Violating an entire population's right to their property, and to engage in economic activity with other consenting adults, is evil on a nightmarish scale.
I think communism to be a very good thing, and would be a great economy. But nash equilibrium will never work with humans. We are too egoist (that isn't necessary a bad thing) for it to work.
I want tracking by the government because I don't believe in humanity. With the caveat that the same spying that is done on citizens should be done (and more) on politicians.
> I want tracking by the government because I don't believe in humanity.
What do you think the government is comprised of? If you think communism is unworkable because of human nature, what makes you think that getting the people who make the rules to make rules against themselves will be any easier?
If you don't believe in humanity, you can't believe in any system.
Communism is the purest form of ideals: it assumes people will recognize and do the right thing because it's in their best interest collectively.
Capitalism abstracts over the ideals by offering money and property as incentives. By the nature of abstraction, a lot of the original value is lost and people mistake the incentives for the ideals.
Statism goes further, and whether or not it incentivizes the ideals, it centrally enforces them. But it's so far detached from the original ideals that it's not even enforcing the right things anymore.
So again, in the end, if humanity is incapable of communism then no system will save us.
The problem with communism is that, in order to work, it requires a version of humans that would render communism redundant.
At least capitalism works with the nature of humans and proposes kind-of, sort-of okayish incentives. Unfortunately, you are right, ultimately no system will save us.
The tyranny of the majority assumes that issues are always us vs. them, i.e. two choices. Often there are more than that and then no changes by government can be made. The two party system often masks this possibility.
Yes and no, and it all depends on what the black market consists of, if the laws are actually in line with the will of the vast majority of folks' morals (including those that aren't part of the majority), and things like that.
Do you want to have to report that you gave that teenager down the street $20 to mow your lawn, for example? That can make you an accomplice in tax evasion if the teen doesn't report that $20, and might make you run afoul of labor laws (after all, they probably couldn't work for a landscaping company because of dangerous equipment). You are unwittingly taking part in a black market at that point.
Now, if the data is used to make laws that are actually followable and allows for normal things such as the above to take place (which would make for a great deal of changes, including drug laws), maybe it would be a good thing. It would also need to be open enough for citizens to also track government spending and other things - otherwise, it would just be totalitarian.
Everyone here seems to be paid to say how bad tracking is, then on other thread you see people say they love Apple, windows 10, gmail reading their email.
I vote my government and they do what I ask for (this democracy after all) and I think payment tracking is a good thing especially for tax-evasion.
Nobody votes for those corporations and still there's people that love to have their privacy violated.
(I'm not putting too much effort in these comments because HN is a big bubble where tracking is bad, encryption is good and the same people advocating for privacy use proprietary software meh...)
Using a specific company's technology is a choice. Participating in government is not. I'll always take a company I choose to track me over a government that does it by default.
Using a specific company's Technology, in today's socially networked world, is a choice that you impose onto your friends, family and fellow citizens.
I send you an email to your Gmail account, Google reads it. You choose to use Apple products, companies are forced to comply to Apple's unilateral and unaccountable app store policies, likely dropping other distribution platforms or 3.5mm audio jacks in the process. You give critical mass to the payment system of your choice, businesses and governments drop the ones they don't like or need anymore.
Your choice is not just your own, it's a choice that you make for all the rest of us as well. I have no say over what options I get deprived of because of other people's choices. That's why we have government, because as a society we need a way to prevent you from screwing over the rest of us following your poor choices that give power to companies that use it to my detriment.
If your choice only affects you, do whatever you want. If it affects all of us, let all of us decide on it together.
If I choose to use an email system that you don't like, you don't have to participate. Participation is non-compulsory. You can refuse to reply to my emails. You can refuse to send to services you don't trust. You can choose to use one payment broker or another.
