Cashless Society and the End of Freedom

Cashless society seems like an inevitable progression into an easier, faster and more convenient future. But this comes at a huge of cost of privacy and anonymity of cash payments, and freedom from control over people’s funds.

Limiting cash payments and banning high-value bank notes is becoming a global trend. In France the cap on cash transactions is only 1,000 euros and in Italy it’s at €2,999.99. The European Central Bank has recently stopped issuing €500-notes, although they will remain accepted as a legal tender indefinitely. India’s Prime Minister Modi banned the use of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes basically overnight. In Sweden, no high street bank in big cities handles cash anymore with 85% of the population banking online.

1. 1970s Researchers Predicted Debit Cards Would Be Great For Surveillance
2. The Privacy Dangers of a Cashless Society Were Clear Over 40 Years Ago
3. The Privacy Dangers of a Cashless Society Were Clear Over 40 Years Ago
4. Cash payment crackdown to counter tax evasion and black economy
5. Australia Bans Cash For All Purchases Over $7,500 Starting July of 2019
6. Australian bill to exclude crypto from new cash payment restrictions
7. German plan to impose limit on cash transactions met with fierce resistance
8. ECB Decrees Slow Death of 500-Euro Note in Crime Crackdown
9. India withdraws 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in effort to fight corruption
10. $100 note should be dumped to starve black economy, economist and Labor suggest
11. Deadline looms for Indian cash overhaul
12. India’s banknote ban: how Modi botched the policy yet kept his political capital
13. The Cashless Society Is a Creepy Fantasy
14. The Swedes rebelling against a cashless society
15. What Happens When We Become A Cashless Society?
16. The Hidden Costs of Cash
17. Cash Costs U.S. Businesses $40 Billion a Year
18. Identity theft, credit card fraud cost US consumers $16 billion in 2016
19. Federal Tax Compliance Research: Tax Gap Estimates for Tax Years 2008–2010
20. Fact Sheet: Apple and Tax Avoidance
21. After a Tax Crackdown, Apple Found a New Shelter for Its Profits
22. Negative Interest Rates Aimed at Driving Small Banks Out of Business and Eliminating Cash: Economics Professor
23. It’s starting to look like negative interest rates might do the opposite of what they’re supposed to
24. Euro Area GDP Annual Growth Rate
25. How negative interest rates helped turn Deutsche Bank into a disaster
26. What is ‘nudge theory’ and why should we care? Explaining Richard Thaler’s Nobel economics prize-winning concept
27. ECB imposes negative interest rate
28. The cashless society is a con – and big finance is behind it
29. Visa offers restaurants $10,000…if they stop accepting cash
30. German plan to impose limit on cash transactions met with fierce resistance
31. Germany Is Still Obsessed With Cash