Once upon a time, thieves gave you a choice: your money or your life. Not the government: it wants both. As if it is not enough that the state knows absolutely everything you do electronically, it’s moving to make the last private vestige of our lives digital as well. “The war on cash is advancing on all fronts,” reports Zerohedge in “First they came for the pennies“. The consequences of going cashless are manifold and hard to overstate, especially in terms of loss of privacy and autonomy.

Sweden’s citizens have become willing guinea pigs in an experiment consisting of negative interest rates in a near cashless society. Even homeless vendors of street newspapers carry mobile card readers. The situation is similar in Denmark. In sub-Saharan Africa, going cashless is nearly a matter of survival, not convenience, as few have bank accounts, but nearly everyone has a mobile phone. (Side note: is this the solution to voter ID in the United State?) Western NGOs such as the Gates Foundation are working with governments, banks, and credit card companies to replace cash with mobile money platforms. India hopes to do the same.

Consequences include banks taking a cut of every transaction and keeping extensive, eternal records of who you are and what you do. Going cashless is likely the only strategy that allows central planners to continue Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP), since rational savers will take cash out of the banking system under such circumstances. It is nothing more than legal theft by the authorities. It seems the general public sees only the “convenience” of going cashless.