Cash is Coined Liberty

  • Gifts impose an obligation to honor the giver. Things bought do not bear these obligations. Money liberates. It is “coined liberty.” 
  • A money economy is a pre-requisite for private property. Money exchanges are impersonal exchanges. That too is liberating, and it permits exchanges at distance. 
  • By legal definition, coins and currency, including notes, are legal tender money, a medium of exchange (the asset) by law. Checks as well as debit cards, credit cards, money orders, etc., are a means of payment, a method that facilitates delivery of money from one to another. All credit is debt outstanding.
  • The ban of cash currency is another step to curtail individual liberty. In the preparatory stage, the ruling class starts trial balloons in the mainstream media, flanked by “expert” opinion pieces, to see how people react. If there is an uproar, they will pull back and wait for a better opportunity. If there is no uproar, you simply wake up one morning with yet more of your personal freedom taken away for the “collective good”.
  • While cash is guaranteed by government, bank deposits, credits/debits in banks are not guaranteed by any statutory authority. There would no longer be a government debt obligation, as any ‘Promise to pay’ by government is paid, the instant the banks used it to create credit, paid in full.
  • The notion that we’re using ‘digital money’ or ‘digital currency’ as a medium of exchange is nothing more than a trick of the mind, a figment of our overactive imaginations, a deception, it’s how we rationalize the transaction, and it's how the banksters get away with stealing our labor and wealth.
  • Economists and bankers believe that a cashless society will work, because of success stories like Sweden, where four out of five purchases are done electronically. What they’re not taking into account is that Sweden has a successful economy despite going cashless, not because of it. They have a cohesive society with low crime rates, good schools, and an excellent infrastructure. They would have been successful either way.
  • A cash ban would bring about thorough surveillance and be one step closer to one step closer to their wet dream of a socialist superstate under complete bureaucratic control.
  • Non existence of cash, central banks can bring interest rates to below zero as and when they feel it is in the best interest of economy and your wealth in deposits will simply erode and vanish over time. 
  • Why have your money on deposit at a negative rate that reduces your wealth when you can have it in cash and suffer no reduction? Cash therefore gives people an easy and effective way of avoiding negative nominal rates.
  • Recently economists have come out in favor of outlawing currency in order to enable the planners running the central banks to impose their destructive policies more effectively by closing down one more avenue for savers intent on holding on to their hard-earned money. 
  • In light of today’s technological possibilities, coins and banknotes are indeed an anachronism. Should they be discontinued, the markets for undeclared labor and drugs would wither on the vine. It would be easier for central banks to enforce their monetary policies. Central bank policy rates are less effective if banks or consumer start hoarding cash. Critics warn however that such debates only distract from the real problems of monetary policy.
  • The abolition of cash would force people to hold all their cash balances with institutions that are de-facto insolvent. It would no longer be possible for people to sidestep a banking crisis by withdrawing their money. Financial privacy would be completely eradicated, and one’s economic life could be erased by faceless bureaucrats at the push of a button. This may of course seem like a glorious Utopia to an etatiste.
  • The idea is one of the most tyrannical authoritarians have propagated in recent years. Whenever you hear that something should be done to “protect the children” or to “combat the drug trade” and the “shadow economy”, you can be absolutely certain that the collectivists want to make you less free. As an aside to this, if there were no “shadow economy”  living standards would plummet and a large part of the formal economy would immediately be in free-fall as well. The political class is aware of this fact, although one should never underestimate their stupidity.
  • Discouraging saving in favor of consumption is like eating one’s capital will magically lead to paradise instead of ruin. Such nonsense has become institutionalized among economists to the extent that it is offered up every day in the media. This philosophy requires authoritarianism.
  • Cashlessness is not going to stifle the black market, which is the biggest reason why governments want to go cashless. It’s going to strengthen it. They won't stand idly by as their wealth is forced into the light of day by an edict? Eliminating cash won’t remove the desire to save money, and people who work in the black market already don’t like to deal with banks. This will only serve to push them even further away from the legitimate economy. Instead of cash, they will just find new ways to preserve their wealth.
  • In the years that followed the crash of 2008, fearful Americans bought everything the government doesn’t want them to own. Gold, silver, guns, storable food, cryptocurrencies, etc. These all went up in value. Members of the black market will just put their money in real-world commodities and untraceable currencies, because there will be no other options if they want to stay away from the prying eyes of governments.
  • Black market goes by another name: the free market. And the free market can’t be stifled in the long run. It will always produce an alternative to any law or regulation.
  • Money has become intrinsically connected to everything we want, need, and do, so by removing cash and creative negative interest rates, they’re placing a tax on every day life. And if the black market does what the black market does best, it will create an underground alternative to everything we want and need.
  • In the final days of the Soviet Union, their dysfunctional system produced one of the most virulent and extensive black markets in history, and one could find just about any product or service there. There’s no reason why it can’t happen here. If they succeed in eliminating cash, their system will fade while the black market thrives. They’re too stupid and hubristic to realize that they’re fueling alternatives to their vision of the world, and sealing their own doom.
  • Central bankers and governments are not just some “team” playing on our side. They are acting in their own interest and incidentally advocating economic nonsense in the process.
  • As long as cash currency is “legal tender”, it will not be possible for shops to refuse cash payments. There is a big difference between consumers adopting cash-less payment options voluntarily and banning the use of cash altogether. 
  • The move towards a brave new cash-free world is supported by the UN Capital Development Fund’s "Better Than Cash Alliance", which aims to accelerate the shift to electronic payments, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, MasterCard and Visa. But opponents of the concept express concerns about loss of liberty. German central banker Carl-Ludwig Thiele recently criticized the Danish government’s proposal, saying that “abolishing cash would hurt consumer sovereignty, the free choice of citizens about their payment instruments”, and citing Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s famous line: “Money is coined liberty.”
  • It is a good sign that at least some European politicians are realizing that a ban of cash would represent a totalitarian measure that is severely at odds with the principles of a free society and are prepared to do something to counter the emerging trend toward abolishing cash.
“Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to a man 
who is deprived of freedom. If money is jingling in his pocket, 
he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

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