[dnautics]

The underlying assumption is that governments don't care about how you spend money. This is patently untrue, because "liberal" governments explicitly use taxation as global social modification schemes, for all sorts of things beyond income redistribution - from minimizing percieved vices (alcohol, tobacco) to minimizing environmental footprint, etc.

The idea that this sort of activity is able to be decoupled from surveillance is one of the more unfortunate delusions in politics.

[icebraining]

Those schemes don't usually depend on knowing what each particular citizen bought; the tax is imposed on the product, not on the person, so you'll pay it even if you use a perfectly anonymous currency.

That said, I do agree that governments care about the contents of the purchase; around here, all sales must be invoiced with certified software, and a copy of all invoices issued must be delivered monthly to the IRS by businesses. As the buyer, you can opt to remain anonymous, but they're trying to push people into not doing so.

[notvladputin]

Why did you specify liberal governments (is this not something all governments do?), and put it in quotes?

[mintplant]

I would guess because Taler's tagline is "Electronic payments for a liberal society!"

[oberstein]

Other less liberal governments will simply ban something they consider sinful instead of try to make money off it while letting their populace (who they are supposed to care about) slide into hell (if the thing is truly sinful). Historically this doesn't work so well in the US, but in other places like Singapore it works better.

[vacri]

Not true at all. Conservative governments often desire things like trade protection tariffs. They may ban 'immoral' things rather than merely tax them differently, but they are still very interested in controlling the flow of money.

[spacecowboy_lon]

And which sort of "liberal" do you mean classic 19 century free-trade ones, American Liberals, uk style Liberals??