Swiss to vote on preventing cashless society, pressure group says

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/swiss-vote-preventing-cashless-society-pressure-group-says-2023-02-06/

by walterbell • 3 years ago

124 190 3 years ago

This is great. I'm all for the convenience of paying with a card, and use it for 99% of my transactions, but cash has a place in a free society. Without it, the state and the banks have the means to shut off a person's participation in society. That's too much power going to unaccountable people. To say nothing of the surveillance a cashless society affords as well.

A cashless society is incompatible with a free society.

robertlagrant2• 3 years ago

I am not a blockchain person, but I think this was one of the better philosophical reason to like the blockchain. It seems to allow digital money that's not easily revocable by an authority.

Of course in practice it probably is, but I appreciate the theory.

eru3• 3 years ago

Most blockchain money is pseudonymous and very easy to track. Eg bitcoin has a globally readable track of each transaction ever.

You can use enough cryptography to make blockchain transactions anonymous. But I think you can use the same cryptography to make non-blockchain electronic money anonymous, too.

Dma54rhs• 3 years ago

I agree with the premise but in practice something like Bitcoin would be perfect for a police state. Easily trackable, just have to block the endpoints to repress people, forever history.

livre• 3 years ago

Nobody here has addressed the actual issue of Blockchain in a cashless society. You need internet for using crypto, your internet company accepts only legal currency (card, cash, etc) and since there's no chash and you have been cut off from using cards you can't pay for your internet bill and that means it'll eventually get cut and you won't be able to use crypto. Crypto needs cash to work, because people need cash or card for utilities, those companies won't accept your make believe money like the little shop in the corner does.

davidguetta• 3 years ago

Yes. Its crazy how much people dont realize that thing can change fast, an authoritarian gov comes and take your rights in the name of "security". Just look at russia, iran, china, or even also kanye west / andrew tate who had their account frozen.

tchvil• 3 years ago

No need to name only exotic or unfriendly places, Canada applied the same technique against its 'Freedom Convoy' truckers.

moremetadata3• 3 years ago

If the cash machine knows the serial numbers of your banknotes that its issued, and you then go and spend some of that money with someone, when those bank notes come back into the banks hands, they can use this to build up a map or pattern of behaviour. Are you comfortable with your bank knowing who you hand cash to?

In another situation, most on here will be familiar with FIFO and LIFO for buffers, and whilst most cash registers take a serialised bank note and hand it back out in a LIFO manner, sometimes the register operator will take bank notes and put them at the bottom of the pile.

This creates a new state, LILO as its gone to the bottom of the pile of bank notes. In addition why did the shop or business engage in that activity with some people and not others?

Is there something shady taking place or are they displaying knowledge to others?

How does that mess around with the banking systems ability to build payment networks what central banks would call the velocity of money?

A cashless society would make some crimes less possible like muggings, but could it also escalate the extremity of muggings? For example if fingerprints are required with a card or smartphone, would muggings evolve becoming more extreme with events like cutting off peoples fingers?

It also highlights the fact that's society is not configured/setup properly because such events like muggings are taking place.

I think coinage should be dropped (ie non serialised money) and banks should start displaying the serial numbers of bank notes much like the blockchain, so that people can track and trace where all the money is going.

For example, celebrities helping out less fortunate people with autographed products including things like NFT's could evolve, because a celebrity could hand out cash to someone which has its immediate utilitarian value as currency, but just like collectors demonstrate, that bank note could actually be worth more to a collector willing to pay x times more for that celebrity bank note which the less fortunate currently has in their possession.

Ergo could poverty be reduced with this method or would human behaviour change and less celebrity worshipping occur?

And would less celebrity worshipping be a bad thing or not?

mejutoco2• 3 years ago

when those bank notes come back into the banks hands, they can use this to build up a map or pattern of behaviour. Are you comfortable with your bank knowing who you hand cash to?

I am comfortable with it, since by the time those bank notes come into the bank, they do not know how many times, and between whom, they have changed hands.

There is also plausible deniability: the suspect guy bringing cash into the bank with numbers I had might have gotten them from me spending them at the supermarket, or from me getting change at the restaurant, and the restaurant owner doing business with him.

There are many gaps in this argument.

catseyechandra• 3 years ago

This is good, but switzerland tend to spread this kind of news to build a very progressive image, things inside of switzerland is a bit different, i.e. this swiss intel/security hiccup: https://www.strauss-engineering.ch/posts/sevices.html (in french).

Double_a_92• 3 years ago

While I generally agree, practically it's probably not a huge difference compared to what we have now.

Most people keep their money in banks, instead of cash. So if the government wants to target you they can already do it, no matter if you have a few 1000 in cash or not.

zirgs9• 3 years ago

Yup - and salaries are paid directly to bank accounts. Mortgage payments are automatically charged directly from bank accounts as well.

If your government freezes your bank account - you're fucked.

dools• 3 years ago

the state and the banks have the means to shut off a person's participation in society

The state already has this, it's called prison.

seydor3• 3 years ago

making it easier for the state to monitor its citizens' actions.

It also makes it easier for other people to monitor wealth being transferred, and switzerland hoards a lot of other people's wealth.

robertlagrant2• 3 years ago

It stores it. Why are you calling that storage hoarding?

saberience• 3 years ago

Yep stores wealth for and makes money from dictators, war criminals, and international criminals. Of course they want to prevent a cashless society.

x-complexity• 3 years ago

It also makes it easier for other people to monitor wealth being transferred, and switzerland hoards a lot of other people's wealth.

This assumes that it is even possible to view the transfers in the first place. CBDCs are not publicly viewable by design.

kypro2• 3 years ago

Would it be possible to create some form of anonymous digital currency?

Personally I think it would be sad purely for cultural reasons to completely move away from physical currency, but I think if there were some verifiably anonymous way to make transactions digitally I'd probably be okay with it.

I'm sure there would still be some state issued physical currency which you could trade or deposit at a bank if people wanted to some for the novelty of it. For me, like most people, the primary concern is the power it gives the state. It seems clear society will continue to move away from using cash, regardless of what the state mandates. In the UK there are already plenty of retailers who won't accept cash payments. So I think whether we like it or not, we probably need to be proactive to ensure the inevitable move towards cashless is done in a way that protects our freedoms.

eru3• 3 years ago

Would it be possible to create some form of anonymous digital currency?

Yes. Zero knowledge proofs might be some way to get there.

kragen4• 3 years ago

that's how zcash and monero work

coldtea2• 3 years ago

Digital is always prone to being lost/tracked/etc. You need to keep some "wallet" of credentials or something, there's always a trail, etc.

For societies with no trouble, that might seem fine. In societies (which can include a huge chunk of the world) with turmoil, dictatorships or hostile governments, war, and so on, it's impossible to have the anonymity and portability of cash in digital form, while also being able to use it (a) without electricity, (b) without internet access, (c) without a trail

kypro2• 3 years ago

I don't disagree. Similar issues exist with most digital technologies though and that doesn't stop their adoption – outside of the situations you describe digital solutions tend to be more convenient. I mean I'm not going to stop using Google Docs because one day I might not have electricity.

I think if you live somewhere where you're concerned about the government your best bet isn't physical state issued currency, but owning commodities like gold. I'm not sure your concerns are specific to cashless, but digital solutions generally.

dotnet002• 3 years ago

Monero makes for a strong anonymous digital currency. But it also suffers from all the inconvenient benefits a truly anonymous digital currency offers that cash does not and which governments and casual users tend not to appreciate (for understandable reasons).

bheadmaster3• 3 years ago

But it also suffers from all the inconvenient benefits a truly anonymous digital currency offers that cash does not

If you mean that it's used for criminal activities, how is it any different from cash in that manner?

sacrosancty• 3 years ago

The New Zealand government is working on a central bank digital currency but it has requirements for AML and terrorism funding so they refuse to make it anonymous. I'm sure most governments are similar. They just need one reason like that and then they can poke around in people's spending for whatever reason they want. There'll always be some bogeyman that the general population or international pressure leads them to track people for.

bheadmaster3• 3 years ago

Does Monero fit the bill?

pjc503• 3 years ago

The issue I see is that the privacy of cash is non-scalable. This results in an equilibrium where ordinary transactions can be untrackable, but you can't quite move hundreds of millions in or out of the country in a suitcase.

For digital currency it's just a number. One cent or a trillion dollars are equally easy to transfer. This tips the balance in favor of the "grey" and "black" economies. Long-term, that's likely to be destablizing.

(Grey being roughly "not technically legal but the average citizen doesn't care", such as paying people small amounts of cash so they can avoid tax, and black being "illegal and also agreed to be bad for society")

Arnt2• 3 years ago

Germany had something like that ("kontoungebundene Geldkarte"), it failed. You could store money on the card itself and use it to pay without trace and without a network connection. You could do that with the card that almost everyone carried around, and also the anonymous kontoungebundene variety. The former was traceable given enough cooperation, the latter not.

It failed, and after 10-15 years of steady decline almost all banks have now stopped issuing new cards with this function. Paying to maintain a system people don't care to use is unattractive.

I think it's fair to say that the system failed because it wasn't traceable. People wanted insight into their own card. The design which blocked tracing also blocked insight. That's not the whole story, there were other reasons, but that reason is both relevant and significant.

oblio7• 3 years ago

I think it's fair to say that the system failed because it wasn't traceable. People wanted insight into their own card.

What do you mean by insight? You couldn't check the balance on your card?

Nursie• 3 years ago

Actually this might be a case for GNU Taler - unlike cryptocurrencies it’s specifically designed so that merchants do not have anonymity, so tax can still be assessed, but users do.

bheadmaster3• 3 years ago

it's specifically designed so that merchants do not have anonymity, so tax can still be assessed

This is one of the biggest selling points of GNU Taler - it's not designed to circumvent the government, it's designed to cooperate with it. It is perhaps one of the few privacy-focused systems that have a chance of getting widely adopted in a legal way.

kragen4• 3 years ago

yes

zcash

monero

grin and other implementations of mimblewimble

also, currency has been digital for thousands of years; plausibly it's what digits were invented for in the first place

durnygbur6• 3 years ago

During covid for a moment red/green status in a mobile app was determining basic civil freedoms and freedom of movement of an individual. This is the future if we go cashless. If things start going wrong, it takes few days for tyranny to creep in. Most people are ecstatic when given authority to control others and to toggle their rights.

kuschku3• 3 years ago

"During the Zombie apocalypse, whether or not you're a zombie is determining basic civil freedoms and freedom of movement of an individual. This is the future if we go cashless"

WTF? You do realize that it's not an arbitrary status in an app that mattered, but whether you're at risk of infecting hundreds, right?

rgrieselhuber5• 3 years ago

“Zombie” - dehumanization is always a critical step in the process.

miroljub• 3 years ago

Do you realize it was an arbitrary status based on arbitrary decision by arbitrary politicians based on opinions of arbitrary scientists?

You may also analyse the currently available arbitrary data. Then you may realize that the status was indeed arbitrary. There is not even correlation, let alone causation on infection outcome when comparing arbitrary countries and states whose arbitrary politicians arbitrarily decided to listen to a different set of arbitrary scientists.

qikInNdOutReply• 3 years ago

The problem is not dystopian control. Societies are much to chaotic to keep that up. Even in china it fell apart and does fall apart. People rebel by withdrawing the will to life in such a society. Dystopian totalitarian states burn themselves out in one way another. Some final act is usually some futile war against a neighbour, before turning into small substates fightin one another.

A tokken represents the value of what a society can do for you. When that shrinks and all those billionaires, become just paper factory owners. Thats were the hurt is. What does it matter who and how you hold that weimar paper money fort.

version_five2• 3 years ago

The good news is that if there is a global push to digitalize currency, any country that doesn't, e.g. Switzerland is going to see demand for their money as a reserve currency shoot up. I don't know which country is actually closest to mandatory digital currency, say england for example- expect to see (and ideally start participating in asap) a CHF cash market

pjc503• 3 years ago

The UK is a very long way from going cashless, we still have three of the four nations with independent banknotes!

CHF as a banking currency has long been a safe haven. For a while they had negative interest rates in a desperate attempt to keep the value of their currency down to avoid destroying their export industries.

phillc732• 3 years ago

The UK is in general making it very difficult to operate using cash. My experience last summer, as a tourist, was that certain attractions would accept card payments only. Want to go on a Thames river cruise or visit Warwick Castle? The only way to purchase tickets was via card. I also paid with a £50 for a few drinks in a bar and they did not have enough cash on hand to provide me with correct change. It was either end up out of pocket, or pay the correct amount with card. Making cash such an inconvenience means more and more people use cards (or some form of cashless payment), thus making it look like everyone wants to go cashless, which is not really the case.

A similar story on a small local mini-market. I had a small number of items and ask the shop assistant to man the till for me. She told me that was not possible and I had to use the automated check-out system. However, because I was buying alcohol, she had to come over and approve the transation manually anyway! I do wonder if people working these jobs realise that automation is doing away with their livelihoods. They should be instead actively encouraging people to come to the manual till for checkout.

traspler5• 3 years ago

I'm Swiss and try to be as cashless as possible but I can absolutely understand people & businesses opposing a completely cashless future under the assumption that the current situation remains. The fees associated with the current system are exorbitant. Credit cards, as expected, have a pretty high fee of like 2.5% or more for the accepting business and the new Visa/Mastercard debit cards that they force on everyone have even more egregious fees of CHF 0.5 to 0.95 + 1.5% per transaction. Twint (our digital payment app) also has ~1.5% in fees per transaction and the business case of Twint is to farm as much payment data of the customers as possible for analysis and offers/ads. I do like the convenience of cashless but the cost in fees for businesses and the increased interest in exploiting my transaction history for an ads business sours this a bit for me.

ignormies• 3 years ago

Of course there are other reasons to avoid a purely cash-free society, but couldn't the Swiss government just limit the transaction rates/fees like the the EU?

caps interchange fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for consumer debit cards and at 0.3% for consumer credit cards;

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/fees-for-...

traspler5• 3 years ago

Yes there are other reasons, you lose a lot of control, but there are other comments here already discussing that.

Yes there needs to be such mandates to limit this but it's difficult to anticipate if/when this would happen.

There was such a limit for the older Maestro cards ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maestro_(debit_card) ) (afaik, but I'm not an expert in this domain). I think there the limit was CHF 0.3 per transaction. But you couldn't use them in online shopping or Apple Pay. The new debit cards can be used for that.

mantas5• 3 years ago

Then banks just charge stupidly high card-reader and merchant account fees. It still sucks for small businesses in EU.

trinovantes• 3 years ago

Processing cash also has non-zero cost (labor to count, secure, transport) but I guess it's still slightly cheaper than digital

In addition, businesses that handle most transactions in cash, at least here in Canada, are notorious for tax evasion

That being said, I'm not a fan of payment data being sold to ad companies

bombolo2• 3 years ago

In reality the digital should cost much much less. They just like having a lot of profit.

nemo44x2• 3 years ago

Tax collectors are really good at estimating how much a business should be bringing in. Tax evasion by cash only businesses isn’t as rampant as many people think. Especially if the business sells things that require inventory. A cash only service business is more likely to be laundering money (and paying lots of taxes) than evading.

nhchris2• 3 years ago

It's more than just fees and surveillance. It means you need permission for each transaction. Permission to buy a loaf of bread, a taxi ride, a train ticket. And even Canada does things such as freeze protester's bank accounts without trial. Let's not make it that easy for them, shall we?

traspler5• 3 years ago

Absolutely. Other comments here already discuss that. But I think there is discussion to be had about how cash enables certain crimes and what impact that has on us, how cashless can change this and on the other hand how handing full control over our ability to spend money is handed over to the government and what risks are associated with that and what mitigations are possible. Also the state already has many, many ways to make your life hell. How big the impact of this additional way is, also needs to be discussed. I'm pretty sure most people don't store their life savings in cash at home and freezing your bank account has a similar impact now even though cash is still available.

helloooooooo• 3 years ago

It was under emergency legislation. Account freezing can’t just happen out of the blue.

ajsnigrutin• 3 years ago

And not just that...

I'd mention ukraine, but even in peace time, there can be huge power outages in relatively large areas (as in US, more than one in the recent years), where point of sale terminals stop working, there is no internet connection to process the transaction, but exchanging a few bills, for whatever you need always works, even in the dark.

Also privacy... Want to buy a huge buttplug from a "Huge buttplug store ltd.", but your government could collapse in a few years and the new one might not like people (especially guys) using huge buttplugs? With cash, there's nothing to trace... with cards, the government can get a list of names in few seconds.

makeitdouble2• 3 years ago

There are other options than the credit/debit card model.

NFC secure area base locally stored accounts are a pretty good compromise for instance. The account is locally encrypted, anonymous, with a ceiling on the max charge. You’ll pay for bread with no latency, and will only hit the network at charge time and/or if you need to for backup.

zirgs9• 3 years ago

If the state freezes your bank account then you're already fucked. And nothing stops them from raiding your home and confiscating your physical cash as well.

I'm from an ex-USSR country. You can't stop an authoritarian government with physical cash in your mattress.

durnygbur6• 3 years ago

It's more a problem why European countries gave up to American Visa/Mastercard duopoly for cards, where the alternative is... Google Pay/Apple Pay duopoly for mobile. Their only answer are miserable local debit/ATM card systems working only in individual European countries, or superfrauds like Wirecard.

zirgs9• 3 years ago

You don't need Google Pay to pay with a phone. I use my bank's app for that. It works just fine without Google Pay.

throw101010• 3 years ago

I'm Swiss too, and while the fee argument is a great one, my main concern is preserving the optional privacy you have when transacting with cash. It's one of the last aspect of your daily transactions that businesses and most importantly governments cannot trivially track and tie to your identity, aggregate, and potentially use against you (and people who consume like you) in various ways.

Giving up this power, out of convenience, is a bad deal for citizens. And before anyone argues that this privacy is used by criminal/terrorists/etc., I would need to be convinced that going fully cashless would stop them to even consider it in the balance... but as far as I can tell they happily use the banking system for their criminal dealings, with the support of banks, since each year there are scandals about banks helping money laundering to the tune of hundreds of millions, even billions at the time, I don't think it happens mostly thanks to cash.

elforce002• 3 years ago

Not just bad for businesses my friend. I like to use Credit Cards as much as anyone else but the Idea of a cashless society is just bad, to say the least.

seydor3• 3 years ago

On the other hand, the need for non-visa-sanctioned electronic transactions is real. If a society does go cashless, the majority will be finally convinced to end their duopoly and mandate other ways to transact, because having 2 companies mandating whether porn is an tradeable good is tyranny. And yes, crypto is the current option. At least it could work for small transactions.

febeling• 3 years ago

I have the hope that recent revelations about censorship, and the problems with the covid vaccines on all levels have alerted people that their rights and interests are under attack globally. Good to see one of the few directly democratic countries move into that direction, with regards to possible mandatory centralized digital cash systems.

qwerty4561273• 3 years ago

Cashless society is an orwellian horror. I am so endlessly sad Switzerland apparently is the only nation to value their cash.

pif• 3 years ago

It's the obvious choice when a great deal of your wealth comes from helping foreigners bypass their tax laws.

Etheryte2• 3 years ago

I'm not really sure where you're taking Switzerland being the only one from. As far as I know there's currently no country in the world that's cashless?

jeffrallen• 3 years ago

Switzerland is one of few countries in the world where the citizens WILL decide if they reject a cashless society. In most other societies, it is the politicians who decide, who are by and large beholden to corporate interests. And because corporations are more or less uninterested in freedom, and love big profits, corporations are fine with a cashless society.

makeitdouble2• 3 years ago

Does current cash travel very far ?

If we’re in to do Orwellian things, I’m not sure what’s technically stoping us from doing it now. All bills are scanned at the banks, we can flag who got which lot from the ATM, major POS systems scan for counterfeit, and retailers will return to the bank any excess from what they need for day to day exchanges (or not bother and return everything to the bank to get new bills in packaged stacks).

We’re already trusting our govs for not abusing the situation. The bridge is already crossed in my mind, going pure cashless is a small step in comparison.

mrsuprawsm2• 3 years ago

What's orwellian or horrific about a cashless society? Sure, there are valid arguments against it, but that doesn't make it orwellian or horrific, this is just hyperbole.

cosmodisk2• 3 years ago

It does. It wouldn't happen on day one. But, slowly, it would start creeping in. As someone else commented: what if, you buy some mega turbo sex toy 3000 and a couple of years later super religious orthodox government wins elections. What if the government decides that you can buy one thing but not another. What if you want to organise a little poker night with your old buddies and so on. Look what happened with the internet. Endless scare stories about terrorism, pedophiles and eventually mass surveillance is in legislation..

sschueller4• 3 years ago

Sadly even in Switzerland convenience has a very strong position in this. We have the same issue with the SBB getting rid of ticket machines in favor of apps and digital train tickets.

cies• 3 years ago

One of the most functioning democracies of scale: the Swiss.

And even there I think lobby (the enemy of actual democracy) has big influence on the decision taking process; it just may not be more than 50%, that in most "so called democracies" it most certainly has.

I'd say it is down to the fact that the Swiss distribute their power better (by it being a collaboration of Cantons), instead of consolidating at the "lobbyable" top.

margorczynski2• 3 years ago

After what I saw happening in Canada now I keep a bunch of cash stashed away. Still I pay for everything via card/e-payment, a bad habit I would say as that makes removing cash easier for the state - most will not even notice it too much.

oblio7• 3 years ago

After what I saw happening in Canada now I keep a bunch of cash stashed away.

What happened in Canada? Their banknotes froze due to the extreme cold?

hinata08• 3 years ago

All the ATMs were jammed due to bills oozing maple syrup.

bsjaux628• 3 years ago

The Stupidity Convoy, sorry I meant the Freedom Convoy. A bunch of anti vaccination/Q-anon supporters decided to block the traffic in Canada because they couldn't phantom the idea of not spreading Covid. Most of them were able to remain blocking the traffic while still buying supplies because of the donations from other idiots in Canada and the US, so they froze their accounts

CatWChainsaw• 3 years ago

I honestly thought this was referring to the time that Rogers (internet provider) had a nationwide outage that lasted for days.

zirgs9• 3 years ago

How would that cash help you wnen your bank account is frozen? You can't receive your salary. Can't pay rent or mortgage. And that cash will run out in a month or two. What then?

glofish2• 3 years ago

If your personal account is frozen you could still work for someone else and ask them to pay you cash. Yes, reduces you options, but you still have options.

Ergo you can still make a living.

And if cash is a valid form a payment you can pay your mortgage with it.

See how simple it all is?

throwaway4aday7• 3 years ago

Depends on how independent you want to be at that point. If your account is frozen for the purposes of persecuting you then there's a non-zero chance you may want to go to ground or get out of the country entirely. Being able to grab a bag containing the necessities and a wad of cash is very important in that scenario.

intellectronica2• 3 years ago

This is just another case where the far right picks up dubious fights in the name of freedom in order to recruit new supporters. There is really no imminent risk of Switzerland becoming forcibly cashless or people losing their freedoms.

sschueller4• 3 years ago

I agree that this far right group bringing up this issue is a problem as I don't agree with any of their policies.

However on this issue:

There is a lot of push from Visa and Mastercard to get people to go cashless. Push of ads, claims that cash is dirty etc. PostFinance for example no longer is issuing their own debit cards instead are now also part of Mastercard. We have lost all control of our purchasing data.

Additionally there are now several businesses not accepting cash at all when this is forbidden by law.

intellectronica2• 3 years ago

It's hard for me to judge how much of a problem this is, and it's at least to some extent a matter of opinion, but even if it is a problem, the guiding principle for non-extremists is that you resolve problems at the appropriate level. An alarmist campaign and a national initiative isn't the appropriate level for this kind of problem, which can more productively be addressed through the relevant regulatory bodies, consumer groups, etc ... The only reason to start a campaign like this one is to make noise, desperately trying to recruit supporters to far right causes. It's not an honest and genuine attempt to address a real problem, even and especially if you are convinced that this is indeed a problem.

gerikson• 3 years ago

I figured FBS was far-right despite not reading German, simply from some keywords, the illustrations, and the web design.

Interestingly they're presented neutrally ("a pressure group") in the linked Reuters article. It took some googling to find their webpage: fbschweiz.ch.

therusskiy• 3 years ago

As a Russian last year I learned that any money in a bank are not really yours.

Russian government banned withdrawing USD/EUR from ATMs while Mastercard and Visa banned using their cards.

Your balanace ended up being a number in the app.

Cashless - no thanks.

durnygbur6• 3 years ago

War costs money. Civilians will be cut off from money and pushed down by security services and "law" enforcement, rewarded with privileges and confiscated money. So obvious, such a cliché, and works flawlessly every time ad infinitum.

kissiel• 3 years ago

1. Not rouble. You could still withdraw RUB. 2. Invading other countries may have not-so-unforeseen-consequences. 3. War renders all kinds of money "just a number" I think.

LatteLazy• 3 years ago

I am sort of stuck on this. I never use cash, I hate cash. But the fact it exists does protect us from a bunch of dumb BS that I think would eventually happen otherwise (negative interest rates, compulsory spending, "haircuts"). I would have no issue with it being used to tackle tax evasion. I guess we will see...

cosmodisk2• 3 years ago

The last time I used cash was some dodgy kebab kiosk. I don't carry any coins or banknotes. I don't even have a wallet, just a card underneath the phone cover. However, I don't want my or any other country going full digital on it. Hell is already wallpapered with initiatives like this.

gregnavis• 3 years ago

I love dystopian novels and have recently finished reading Limes inferior[1] by J. Zajdel. Policies implemented in the story (written in 1982!) and their similarity to present day politics are frightening! SPOILER ALERT: I'm describing the currency system from the novel.

Currencies were replaces by points stored on a device called the Key (= modern smartphone). There are red, green, and yellow points.

Red points are the simplest: all people are equal, so everyone gets the same number of red points per month, doesn't matter their skills, employment status, health, etc. That monthly allowance is enough to survive. It's like basic minimum income.

Green points are similar to red points, except they're paid out based on intellectual ability. A smarter person will always get more green points, irrespective of employment status. They were necessary because "all people are equal" is actually false.

Yellow points are most similar to a monthly salary. You can get the only by working. The higher your position in the hierarchy, the more yellow points you get every month.

Not all points are created equal, despite the official 1:1 fixed exchange rate. Quality goods are available only for yellow points, with other colors capable of buying substandard goods. That opened door to a host of black market activities for chameleons (who act as currency exchanges).

A central computing system, called _Syskom_, is used to track citizens' moves. Despite claims of objectivity, it's rules are often manipulated for policy goals.

A simplified example: some working people want to go up the hierarchy by faking their credentials. Criminals, called lifters, who can help them are often found in various bars. Those bars have slot machines allowing you to win hundreds of yellow points (an average salary is ~ 10 yellow pts). There's a non-zero chance that a winner, often drunk, will be approached by a lifter at a bar and hire him.

What does the government to catch more lifters? Increase the likelihood of winning at a slot machine and keep track of where the prize flows. "You pay 300 yellow points and you get a lifter" as they phrase it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_inferior

sschueller4• 3 years ago

It is already illegal for businesses in Switzerland not the accept cash [1]. In fact the law specifically states that you need to accept up to CHF 100 in coins and all bills (including the CHF 1,000 bill). The issues is there is no penalty define if you don't and some businesses have decided they don't want to accept cash.

This vote however wont fix this, all it does it force the SNB to continue to make cash available in the constitution when the SNB itself already clearly stated they have no interest in getting rid of cash and it is currently in the law. There was pressure from the EU for Switzerland to get rid of the CHF 1000 note but they didn't.

If no one accepts cash the vote is mute. At least some should be forced such as food and clothing stores. Stores that are not 100% online.

[1] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2000/186/en#art_3

secretsatan• 3 years ago

Cash is definitely king here, I was absolutely astounded at the large denominations in circulation when I moved here. Back in the UK, people double check a 20 pound note, a Swiss cashier won't even blink after being handed a 1000CHF note

russianGuy83829• 3 years ago

The logic behind the vote is that even while business have to accept cash, that wouldn't matter if there would be no cash physically available.

koonsolo4• 3 years ago

It's funny how some comments here try to reinvent cryptocurrencies.

_-david-_• 3 years ago

There are a lot of people here talking about privacy and preventing the seizing of money. There is another issue though. Being able to buy things without power is also important.

Swiss to vote on preventing cashless society, pressure group says

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