Comment by senorrib
20 hours ago
Currency is already managed by the elected government, and every democracy in the world traces electronic transactions. Some (like Italy) forbid cash payments in large sums altogether. So what's the boogieman here?
20 hours ago
Currency is already managed by the elected government, and every democracy in the world traces electronic transactions. Some (like Italy) forbid cash payments in large sums altogether. So what's the boogieman here?
Currency is a barriers bond that affords a degree of decentralisation-in-operation and use that isn't afforded by digital payments, even crypto for practical purposes.
bearers* bond. Too late to edit.
The boogyman is just what you described, and every democracy in the world absolutely does not trace electronic transactions.
Some have a more hands off approach, including size of transactions and flagged behaviour as indicators of when payment processors must report to the government.
The Goverment should absolutely have no idea who spends what, where. Warrants and court orders, check values should be required before anyone can know. The potential to suppress political opponents, to squelch legitimate protest, to interfere with elections, is too dangerous.
Simply because some countries, like the US after 9/11, decided to give up this aspect of a free people, does not make it right.
If I have the choice of being tracked by my government or a private profit driven company I’ll choose the former any day.
The company will sell all data to my government anyway if prompted.
Of course no tracking at all is the best option and I’m a huge proponent of cash - but it’s not always practical.
AFAIK, in India, payments more than Rs. 50k is tracked.
In anycase, the governments have the capability, what remains is just the intend. And we see how intends could change at the whim of a leader.
Governments have a monopoly on violence and thus technically the ability to do whatever they want. But it matters how theoretical that ability is and how publicly apparent misuse of the ability will be. Having all transactions flow through the government makes abuse both trivial and invisible to the public.
They do trace and log them, though.
They do not. They have to get a warrant to get such logs from a bank.
Yes, and this is a bad thing, and free societies are impossible without the possibility of payments that the government doesn’t want you to be able to make.
Cryptocurrency solves that problem well, which is why governments have moved hard to effectively nerf it everywhere.
> the possibility of payments that the government doesn’t want you to be able to make
The idea that visa and mastercard provide these ...
Visa and Mastercard don't, but right now cash more or less does. If the state has a monopoly on digital payments, and can thus mass surveil all digital payments without any scrutiny, the state has a huge incentive to disincentivize or bar the use of cash. Then all it takes is a bad actor to come into power and abuse the system.
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The Italian government has no power over foreign cards, and will be careful to not hinder those transactions lest they want to lose their tourism income.
When it comes down to it they do have power over the use of foreign cards in their jurisdiction. But the further indirection from the government does matter and makes abuse harder.
Realistically the most they can do is exercise power over cards issued by Italian banks. They can't do anything about cards belonging to Italians, which have been issued by foreign banks, unless they ban all foreign cards. In which case they will lose all tourism and destroy their country completely.