Cash – obstacle to enslavement

In the second half of the 1980s, I had to hide from the civic militia and the safety service for a while. My uncle, an anti-communist asylum seeker, passed on to me through individual who traveled to the West, respective 100 US dollars. I traded them systematically for gold in 1 of the older ladies who stood under Pewex, although for dollars or equivalent, the alleged PKO vouchers could legally supply in Pewex any goods available in the West that were missing in the East.

Thus, for respective months I was able to decision freely around Poland, travel even to tourist destinations and rent private accommodation, buy train tickets, go to shops and restaurants. And so I made it to the circular Table, erstwhile both the people haunting my vicinity flat and the another officers sensing the wind of political change radically changed their attitude towards specified unruly citizens as I did.

The enemy of the people

In a erstwhile strategy specified as my uncle and I were sometimes called enemies of the people. Many years later, I watched a movie that brought back memories of that time. The name of the movie was "The Enemy of the People", while the storyline told the destiny of a citizen who had information inconvenient to the alleged services and whose "services" they decided to follow for this reason, and on occasion they would eliminate. To this end, during secret searches, sensors were mounted in his things (foot heels, underwear, etc.) allowing tracking of the routes of movement, which as wandering lights were seen on the screens. At 1 point the hero went into the store to buy something, erstwhile it came to pay, he took out the card and it turned out that the transaction was not accepted, and his card was useless. "Services" blocked it. The movie ends like in American movies happy ending, just like my fight with the commune. However, after seeing it, not only memories but reflections came to me.

If in the 1980s the Polish People's Republic were a non-cash state, my situation would be diametrically different. I wouldn't buy anything, I wouldn't rent anything, I wouldn't go anywhere, and I'd be rapidly caught by the sad gentlemen looking for me, or possibly remorseful, and most importantly hungry and cold, I'd volunteer for the right command. If I had a smartphone, wouldn't it be essential to plant any sensors in my clothes, due to the fact that my wanderings would be like the movement of a chaotic animal with a telemetric collar on it, and if I inactive had to wear my digital ID?

Meeting with cash

My first gathering with cash as a problem occurred in the United States in 1997. Inviting the foundation paid for good hotels, but erstwhile I checked in at the reception desk, I was asked to show my credit card. I didn't have it and the situation got tense. I asked if I could leave as a vadium, a warrant of good behavior, cash? You've exchanged quite a few money behind the counter, I think $500. To his surprise, I pulled out a peculiar belt in which in the times of the commune I was carrying the most precious good that was the abroad passport and gave him 5 shredded 100 dollars. Unfortunately, there were no smartphones yet, and I haven't recorded his face on the film. Interestingly, the U.S. had in Poland the opinion of the homeland of freedom, boasting that it does not request to have an identity card.

As it turned out, freedom and control have many names.

Two years later, already in free Poland, I heard that in order to get paid, I had to have a bank account. I was shy to mention that the laws warrant me cash. I was told that yes, but, you know, all the employees have accounts and we would gotta hire individual who brings a paycheck especially for the Lord. I cared about this job, and I stepped down. (20 years later, the corresponding provision of the Labour Code has been amended and now the default is to transfer the wage to an account who does not have it, must compose an application).

Since then, in order to receive a salary, and in the alleged budgetary sphere, which is comparatively legal and respecting the rights of the employee, I had to do so through the bank. As a result, the bank had my wage for any time, he was able to supply high-interest credit and was inactive charging me for it. A small, but akin force was exerted by the fresh strategy not only on me, it was millions at the beginning of respective gold and then higher charges. Since I live in a large city and had a bank facility close me, I did not feel this coercion to pay the monthly hare on my wage as a large nuisance. It was different with workers in tiny towns or villages, they fought for their rights longer and more decisively, as the nearest bank facility was frequently far distant and at the same time the authorities of the fresh Poland liquidated public transport as unprofitable. I, at a friend's home all erstwhile in a while, made my money. You have frequently offered me credit and various types of insurance, but since I do not like to have debts, nor do I feel threatened, I have kindly refused.

One time, most likely erstwhile I got back from vacation, as usual, I wanted to collect my salary, but there was a note on the door that the bank's facility was no longer there. Instead, after a while, a store with inexpensive clothing appeared in her place. Cash service was liquidated in another facility. From then on, after my salary, I had to go to the bank much further. Account fees besides began to be associated with the amount of purchases I made utilizing a card alternatively of cash, another twelve zlotys a period from my pension so I pay for the right to take it and for the punishment for not utilizing the card. erstwhile upon a payday, if he was nice, he made money known to the mailman.

In stores, they ask me more and more frequently if I have an app, read: do I have a smartphone, so it is cheaper, which is more costly for me. This year, people were not allowed to enter the pier in Sopot without a payment card due to the fact that they could not buy a ticket for cash. In queues, language and hierarchy change.

Only recently, it was asked if you could usage a card, now most customers pay this way, sometimes individual puts a watch or smartphone to the reader. But it is for the reader and the reader that does not belong to the store that belongs only to 1 fintech corp (a complex combining the finance and IT sector), which in this way mediated not only between the workplace and the employee, but between the buyer in the morning a fewer buns and the bakery.

This mediation is not obligatory everywhere yet, but the coercion has a name, cultural pressure, social pressure, that is, the first polite one: “You know, don’t make any problem and exposure us to additional costs of bringing your wage to the workplace.” In a tiny store where I shop, the seller only accepts cash. On the Facebook group of local city activists there were outraged comments that dislikable, that scandal, that 21st century etc.

My close, much older friend was late robbed by digital robbers with respective 100 1000 zlotys, which provided life savings and protection for old age. If he kept them, for example, in the form of gold coins in a proverbial mattress, it would be essential to break in, possibly physical assault, police would cover the tracks, possibly get something back. Instead, in the 21st century, it was adequate to impersonate the police and extort data to then take over digital money by a fewer clicks and possibly vanish in another country or another continent.

The question of who types older people with considerable savings as victims is left open here.

In anti-cash propaganda, however, it is always said to older people that digital money is simply a warrant not only of being modern, but besides of security.

On the website of the National Bank of Poland, there are accurate bank statistic on fraud done by digital bankruptcy of companies and citizens. These are sums that go into tens and hundreds of millions of zlotys all period and year. If there were specified a sum of bank robberies on pensioners who kept money in a mattress or on banks, then we would read about it all hour, possibly more often. Banks are barely liable for the reported hacks into citizens' digital accounts, who pay for the privilege of the fintech manufacture to mediate between all request and supply.

Capitalism

Brett Scott besides points out the link between the unreflective worship of the alleged GDP growth and the structural request to grow modern capitalism with the imposition of payment cards.

Their usage according to the Visa corp investigation makes us buy and consume more than a fewer twelve percent. The first advice for people who have become addicted to shoppingholism, or simply want to keep control of their finances, is to leave the card at the bank or at least at home and return to cash, manually making a list of planned purchases and regular bills.

However, the more merchants and unthought-out purchases the greater GDP, thus money gives birth to those who wield it.

Interestingly, Scott recalls in this context the explanation of the stationary economy of Herman Daly, which we presented in the 2000s in the pages of the no longer existing Citizen Magazine, whose mission is being continued present by our weekly magazine and the Institute of civilian Affairs. Then there are fewer who wanted to perceive to us, and in many areas we see the consequences.

Charity

Another peculiarly disgusting form of promoting the planet without cash is to combine this with charity. An example of this was the action described in Scott's book under Boris Johnson's patronage of the action "Penny for London", which allowed those utilizing the London railway strategy to add 1 penny to each acquisition for those in need, but could only do so by utilizing proximity cards. The action was directed by people from the management of the largest banks and financial institutions.

In the United Kingdom, there will besides be regular “survivor campaigns” for homeless and aged people who are said to be “at hazard of financial exclusion” erstwhile ATMs and bank facilities are missing. “Tech for good” startups and charities giving out “dangered” card readers rush to help. Bankers and corporations operating credit cards in cooperation with the planet Food Programme and another charities are besides very active in the confederate and natural disaster zones, where they always combine aid with money digitization.

Surveillance by inclusion

Klaus Schwab said in relation to the upcoming destiny of totalitarian technology: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” In practice, however, it turns out that there is simply a completely different anticipation in this strategy of hiding for the large and the small.

The erstwhile know about average bread eaters almost everything and more, but themselves like the owners of the Tolkien ringing of power they become more invisible. We don't only know the names of the heads of the national Reserve and another corporations, but even the address to which we can rely, reporting our complaints, as any Facebook or X user or corporate client trying to scope the alleged hotline knows. It utilized to be called just writing on the Berdychs. Polish investigator of these processes Andrzej Zybertowicz uses in this context a metaphor of the Venetian mirror utilized by the police during interrogations.

Scott points out that erstwhile granting credit, the bank asks us about almost everything, but we do not have the right to ask for data about, for example, the amount of credit that the bank has given.

The surveillance by banks and fintech corporations on the net is increasingly preventive and concerns not only crimes, but besides activities of alleged suspects or unusuals, and thus inconsistent with what cyber-designed algorithms should do with their money "all average people". At the same time the system's rulers tolerate the existence of alleged taxation havens and another elements of the strategy that everyone knows about, but nothing in Bertold Brecht's song "nobody asks, everyone guesses."

In this context, the alleged inclusion means, as Scott writes, to absorb and place in a very inferior position. The situation of specified an incorporated citizen is governed by 2 moments that Scott compares to the character of the butler and evasive. The erstwhile defines and enforces the rules upon which we are allowed inside the system, the latter, in the event of inappropriate behaviour, brutally throws us out, without being able to appeal or even complain. And in a cashless planet specified expulsion will mean the fulfillment of the rule described in Revelation: not being able to sale or buy anything.

Culture, society, anthropology

The anti-cash corporations say that they free us from it and that, by satisfying the wishes of their customers, they respond to trends that in this communicative are synonymous with progress, improvement and modernity, something like the spirit of history.

However, everything indicates that people are actually deliberately drawn into a machine, whose rules of operation they do not know, and which is working to destruct not only cash, but the full planet of behavior, customs and values which accompanied the human race for thousands of years. Scott writes: “The uncashed cafes appearing in my erstwhile Camberwell territory in South London contrast sharply with the barbershops and grocery stores run on the same street by immigrants from Ghana or Eritrea. The increase in the importance of digital payments is in parallel with the gentrification process, in which “bad” shops with informal ethos are pushed out by boutiques to pave the way for standardised networks.’

In Poland we are besides dealing with this process, his best example are the Żabka network and in the cafe manufacture Green Caffe Nero. It is crucial that Caffe Nero in the UK already uses a non-cash model in part of the premises, and during the "pandemic" requested vaccine certificates from customers. In our country, thanks to the bill proposed by the current president and the attitude of the President-in-Office of NBP, this trend has been stopped. It is worth mentioning that it is the NBP, like another central banks, that is the issuer of cash, and digital money is the domain of commercial banks. At the same time, however, the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister acted in Poland in the other direction, promoting the thought of non-cash Poland.

Governments and central banks do not advance cash but present a neutral attitude.

This is due to the fact that they do not control the information and even the financial sphere. This conservative attitude imposes the fear of losing popularity and vulnerability to accusations of being backward, unmodern or wanting to "return to the mediate Ages".

However, a neutral attitude towards aggressive promotion of all kinds of digital payments is actually an admission that average citizens are subject to pressure, and frequently coercion by large corporations, which do not hesitate to maximize profits violently or cunningly to defraud proven habits and models of life.

In another place, Brett Scott points out that cash and electronic money are completely different entities and ways of paying. Digital money compares to chips that we receive at the casino for the purposes of playing in its walls, but erstwhile you go to the street it is worthless. In this sense, it points to the senselessness of the phrase "payment by card" while it serves, like car keys, only to initiate a process, but just as you can't drive a car without a car on the streets, you can't “pay by card” outside the system, which is frequently located behind the ocean. People instinctively sense it, and in times of danger specified as war, natural disasters or epidemics crowd out for cash at ATMs, unless of course it is besides late.

Although the largest organization focused on the fight against cash called Better Than Cash Alliance is co-financed by specified ominous institutions as the Gates Foundation, however, Scott defends himself against falling into the alleged conspiracy explanation and attributing the processes of crowding out cash to individuals or groups of individuals.

He claims that it is simply a widely understood strategy that forces competing elites of power to automate, control, fight for data, surveillance.

On the another hand, the passiveness and convenience of grey members of society makes the process well described the metaphor of sliding, which is characterized by the following: “Maintaining the correct posture of the body requires an active choice, while shifting is simply a passive process in which I carelessly let gravity to take control of my body. The feeling of the user of digital payments in places like Stockholm is much more like the second than the former. The “force of gravity” is expanding rapidly, as more and more people are losing their will to avoid falling into the depths of financial institutions. All invisible chains of dependence that operate within the networks of economical interdependence drag people and deform the structure of the economy. As this fresh situation becomes the default feature of all systems — for example, the parkomats abruptly “turn to cashlessness” — trying to usage cash inactive in this situation requires active efforts, as does maintaining an upright posture of the body; the cash user is becoming increasingly incumbent with the environment, as if he were resisting a rising wave. It's getting tiring, so it's easier to just let go and sync with others. The second is simply a passive process, but will be described as if it were an active consumer choice."

It is besides very interesting to consider the effort to make digital alternatives that would let you to enjoy comfort while avoiding surveillance and supervision by the oligopole controlling the system. However, as he concludes this part of his work: “Tokens of bitcoin are inactive mostly perceived as a collector’s investment, something that can be bought and sold like everything else, and the technology underlying them has been integrated into the coordination of oligopolistic cartels, which is nothing fresh in the past of capitalism. Stablecoins (decentralized digital money linked to the conventional dollar) and CBDC (digital central bank currencies) surely make a stir in the monetary system, but despite the differences, all these digital options have 1 common feature; they can be incorporated into large Tech's operation, and even emitted and put into motion through platforms of this sector. The most subversive form of money in the planet can so be the simplest and most unfashionable: cash".

In his opinion, the hopes of all the cyberanarchists or orthodox libertarians proved to be a naive parareligion, which is best symbolized by “Etno-dressed financier, who, in a yoga position with a blissful smile, tells that blockchain can become a spiritual revolution in the planet of finance.” Equally pathetic are the visions of technologists specified as Ray Kurzweil from Google "the prophetic advent of technological "identity", which is the thought that through a series of intertwined innovations people will lead to "automation of automation" and a critical minute erstwhile intelligent machines will start to make another machines and a immense technological "superintelligence" will be born, with which we will be able to become gods of our environment."

All this leads one more time to the conclusion that Teodor Kaczyński Unabomber was right, who, like Amish, and erstwhile Plato in a mindless cult of fresh technologies saw 1 of the fundamental threats to our humanity.

Brett Scott begins his deliberations with a description of the situation in which on board the British Airways aircraft he attempted to pay in cash, and erstwhile he was denied the sale of coffee, a helpful co-passenger offered to aid and pay with his card. Neither this fine man nor stewardess saw Scott trying to manifest anything.

And yet it seems to us average bread eaters are not much more than this kind of regular manifestations in a shop, cafe or office.

As Czesław Miłosz wrote: the avalanche of the run from this changes after which stones roll. alternatively of drifting inertly, let us stand upright and not be bombarded with “development”, “progress”, “innovation”, defrauding with the word “smart” as a prefix, and in accordance with the words of Wojciech Młynarski’s song “let us do our own”.

Text prepared by the Institute of civilian Affairs under the task "Institute of civilian Affairs – we think, act, change" financed by the National Institute of Freedom – Centre for the improvement of civilian Society from the civilian Organization improvement Programme for 2018–2030.