[BoringAsian]

"Having no cash is the authoritarian's fantasy."

That's a giant step in logic that I can't understand yet. How come more cashless societies seem less authoritarian then ones that societies that use cash? E.g. Britain compared to Russia. Sweden is one of the most cashless societies and they seem far from expressing authoritarian traits. I bought a greg's using a contactless card and I haven't felt this strange grip of authoritarian fear. I guess it is better to say

"Having no cash means you can speculate a authoritarian's fantasy easier"

[audunw]

> Sweden is one of the most cashless societies and they seem far from expressing authoritarian traits.

I believe this is because of a critical fact about scandinavian countries:

People trust the government, and by exchange, the government makes themselves trustworthy to the people.

It seems to me that people in the US has a deep distrust for the government. This may be because the government there is less trustworthy to start with, but I think it also goes the other way around. It creates an "us vs them" mentality which makes politicians and government workers have less respect for the people they serve.

I do agree with some of the points of the OP though. We shouldn't need some bank AND credit card company to stand between us and payments to other people and the government. Before we make the switch to cashless, we should have some kind of cryptocurrency. I don't care if it's created by the government, and that new currency is injected by them according to their monetary policy. I don't care if the government can see how much I have in that currency, as long as only they can. All I care about is being able to settle payments without being dependent on a bunch of private, opaque bank and payment companies, and their opaque infrastructure.

[squozzer]

You have a point but let me make a counter -- it's the subordinate who must prove their trustworthiness to the superior. Which in your view, seems to be the people and their government, respectively.

If you had said, "The government acts in a trustworthy manner, and the people, in turn, trust their government", then our viewpoints would be in alignment.

[gambiting]

It only doesn't feel authoritarian to a point where a bank closes your bank account without specifying a reason, and you find that you can't get a bank account and a card anywhere else, which also means that even if you work and have cash, you are excluded from 90% of the business living in a society requires.

[mickronome]

One reason most Swedes are laid back about cash is the Swedish banking laws, especially what is called 'insättningsgarantin', a deposit guarantee law.

The gist of that law is that in Sweden a bank is not allowed to close your account, or disallow you to open one except in very specific circumstances. Essentially you have to either use your bank account for something illegal, or lie to the bank. I've never once read about a case where a bank has closed the account of anyone, while it still probably happens, it's not something anyone is afraid of.

[gambiting]

Well, that's something that is missing from the UK law - there should be some sort of guarantee that everyone will have access to at least basic banking services. At the moment banks are at liberty to close any account for any reason.

[spangry]

It reduces the number of entities a government needs to control or coerce (i.e. banks), in order to have some effect on the general population (e.g. expropriation). I'd imagine that net savers in Cyprus, the people least responsible for the financial collapse in 2007, would feel much the same way.

[vixen99]

"I bought a greg's using a contactless card and I haven't felt this strange grip of authoritarian fear". What's that - QED?