[forty]

Absolutely, state trust is obviously a cultural thing and probably depends a lot on your current and past relationships with the state. And yes I trust state were I live. When I compare to the US, one explanation is that in my country, the state pays for security, health and education for example, so it's a win-win relationship (I pay quite a lot of taxes now, but given my family history, I would probably be hard working in the fields for a very low income hadn't the state paid for my education, so I'm happy to pay). In this context it's easier to befriend the state, than when it would happily let you die if you cannot afford a hospital.

As I said in another comment, I think cash is also controlled by the state, so a totalitarian regime which would have issues with it could probably make it worthless anyway, don't you think? (You could smuggle cash from other countries, but cash from your own country wouldn't help too much). Also I'm pretty sure totalitarian dictators are some of the main benefictors (is that a word?) from the lack of traceability of cash.

[novok]

No it doesn't work that way, because a re-monetization takes a long time and a lot of resources. Why re-monetize when you can use the system already in place?

In Iran, cash still worked and people used it to get smuggled out of the country, even when you were given 5 minutes to get out of your house and see it burn in front of your eyes, or neighbors would steal everything without consequence because you were now parted of a hated minority, you could still get cash via the minority community and family and get out.

If the revolution happened in 2040 vs 1979 iran or 1930s germany, and all finances were controlled by the centralized state via digital accounts, with your minority affiliation tags matched fairly well through a vast adtech apparatus, would those people really have that much to stand on? No, not nearly as much.

In germany during bismarck's time, they created the first welfare state in the 1880s. 30-50 years later the weimar republic, hitler and the holocaust happened. Just because the state is giving you something of value for your money TODAY, does not mean they will continue to do so TOMORROW in your lifetime.

I feel like you don't need %100 total financial surveillance to properly fund a welfare state about honestly minor amounts of cash, but governments are slowly trying to get there. It's very dangerous, and governments are always at risk to go full genocide. The rich use other methods and frauds and almost never use actual cash, other than businesses with a lot of small cash transactions (drugs). I don't think the current surveillance regime is very good for that purpose either.

Large scale criminal behavior is usually enabled by some other governmental policy. The US war of drugs basically funding the narco gang states of northern mexico and creating instability there is a great example of this.

[forty]

Of course any state can go bad. It's the collective duty of the citizens to make sure that doesn't happen.

I'd be curious to know how cash helps people in china for example. Is it common to have people flee the country with bags of cash? Are there things that you can only buy with cash in order to avoid problems with authorities?

My point is: nowadays, do they need to monitor every financial transactions to be able to control everything you do? If they can know everything you do anyway, what is cash protecting you from?

[gambiting]

Cash helps marginalized people in the society everywhere, not just in china. But China specifically has a (large?) number of North Korean defectors, all of whom really need to avoid being found out or they will be sent back to NK. I imagine those people rely on cash to survive.

It's the same elsewhere, be it UK, US or Germany - illegal immigrants rely on cash to survive, as they usually can't just open a bank account with a card. And yeah, some people will always say that it's actually great that illegal immigrants can't access those facilities, after all they are illegal. But I think that's a very cruel view of the world, people in various hardships will always exist and cash is the only fallback that exist if the official banking system rejects you or is inaccessible for you. And it's not just illegal immigrants - people have had their bank accounts closed and placed on some kind of black list by mistake before, how is that going to work if cash is removed entirely? It's already a big problem in most societies, as for instance employers in a lot of places aren't allowed to pay you in cash - so even if you are 100% legit and work a normal job, you suddenly can't be paid legally, even though cash itself still exists and is legal.