Trust me, your cash usage is far more trackable than you think it is. It is harder than credit, to be sure. Still surprisingly trackable.
And I'm sympathetic to the exclusion and censorship concerns. I just don't think cash really solves much there. We had plenty of both well before electronic payments were a thing.
Consider, you are worried about people that can't get bank accounts being excluded. But... they aren't really allowed in a cash environment, either. Without a permanent address, it is getting harder to get a license. Without a license or other personal documentation, it is nigh impossible to get a job. These are very real problems. Cash does basically nothing to help there.
Note, I'm emphatically not claiming that cashless helps, either. I'm saying it is a completely separate problem that payment systems don't really enter into.
> Trust me, your cash usage is far more trackable than you think it is. It is harder than credit, to be sure. Still surprisingly trackable.
Tracing cash money back to a specific person requires the time and resources of dedicated forensic experts and is fraught with uncertainty. There is not just a big but an astronomical difference in the ease of tracking electronic transactions vs. cash. The difference is so huge that surveillance and policing are now being automated at scale for the first time in history.
> Consider, you are worried about people that can't get bank accounts being excluded... Cash does basically nothing to help there.
Sure it does. I see homeless people paying for street food in cash. I am aware of battered women who save cash in secret because their bank accounts and phones are controlled by abusive partners. There are subcultures of nomadic people who don't have a permanent address and rely on cash jobs and payments. There are entire microeconomies in many cities that run on cash because their precariat members work under the table and don't have bank accounts.
Ish. If you are just talking about that stick of gum or something else tiny that nobody cares about, sure, cash is easier. If you want to trace larger things, it gets a whole lot easier. Especially with modern AMA laws.
Homeless people should be offered homes and food. Not given petty cash to try and get these things. I'm open to the idea that cash is the best we can do today for that. But... that is a pretty weak reason. Housing and food stability are not won with petty cash.
> Trust me, your cash usage is far more trackable than you think it is. It is harder than credit, to be sure. Still surprisingly trackable.
Are you serious? Okay, how would you figure out what a person purchased at a store 3 years ago on a given date? Can you do that just as well for 1000 people? for 10 million people?
> But... they aren't really allowed in a cash environment, either.
With cash, anyone can walk into a store and buy food. Without cash, people would be completely at the mercy of others to help them.
> Without a license or other personal documentation, it is nigh impossible to get a job.
With cash, it's absolutely possible to offer labor in exchange for money without any ID.
You seem to have bought into the big data idea that everyone is tracking everyone's individual purchases. That information is largely available, to some extent. No, it isn't happening. Yes, tracability goes up with electronic records. No, it really doesn't matter.
Big ticket purchases are absolutely traceable back to people. Pretty much always have been.
I'm not worried about the fact that purchasing a lambo will attract attention, including from the tax department, but I think we should be able to pay the rent for modest accommodation, hire taxis/car service, buy food and clothes and other basic things necessary to live with money that cannot be remotely disabled or taken from us. We should be free to give money to other people without reporting that to anyone or having anyone else be able to find out about it.
It would be a real problem to do that without cash.
And I'm sympathetic to the exclusion and censorship concerns. I just don't think cash really solves much there. We had plenty of both well before electronic payments were a thing.
Consider, you are worried about people that can't get bank accounts being excluded. But... they aren't really allowed in a cash environment, either. Without a permanent address, it is getting harder to get a license. Without a license or other personal documentation, it is nigh impossible to get a job. These are very real problems. Cash does basically nothing to help there.
Note, I'm emphatically not claiming that cashless helps, either. I'm saying it is a completely separate problem that payment systems don't really enter into.