Contanti e coscienti - Le Alternative -

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The articles of Cassandra Crossing I'm under license CC BY-SA 4.0 | Cassandra Crossing is a column created by Marco Calamari with the "nom de plume" of Cassandra, born in 2005.

An article from a few years ago by Cassandra on cash (it's not the first). Although the topic is delicate we find that Cassandra always manages to address it in an intelligent way.

This article was written on June 29, 2020 from Cassandra

Cassandra Crossing 462/ Cash and Conscious

The new assault on cash, between false dichotomies and denied freedoms.

It's been a while since, perhaps as a side effect of the pandemic, we've heard any rants about limiting or abolishing cash.

The propaganda technique used is always the same; the creation of one false dichotomy, based on some widely shared alternative.

A false dichotomy is to present a complex issue as a choice between only two alternative possibilities, when in reality there are numerous others.

By appropriately selecting the second part of the dichotomy we can “demonize" anything. Pilot any choice.

A classic of the past was “Do you want security or privacy?”

The obvious answer, particularly when the person posing this dichotomy is an insider or a public official, is "I want security and privacy”, you are paid to provide me with both.

The underlying cause that makes these slogans effective is that Italian citizens are now on average incapable of reading and understanding an article of medium complexity, much less summarizing its main points in a few words.

When Cassandra went to school in her pinafore, these “ability” they were essential to pass the fifth grade exam.

Here it is, thanks to this conceptual illiteracy, an elementary and obvious dialectical artifice like the false dichotomy becomes a very powerful weapon of mass distraction to control public opinion.

Being able to state a false dichotomy, without the interlocutor immediately reporting it and mocking the dishonest interlocutor, gives it a huge edge in any discussion; more than having white checkered, more than playing football at home.

This is why when a well-known and otherwise meritorious journalist chooses the fight against cash as his new forte, reusing the Evegreen slogan "Cash or fight against tax evasion", it is surprising that no one mocks her.

We want cash and we demand the fight against tax evasion.

We have the right to do so because we pay those who have to do it, and because in other countries tax evasion is a secondary problem.

As Manzoni said, if the previous "cries" did not serve "to exterminate the good ones", it is very unlikely that one more could change things.

Another false dichotomy is that investigations against criminals are made more difficult by the use of cash.

Are the Internet and smartphones not enough? They are the most powerful investigative weapon ever invented.
Isn't it enough for everyone to have a potential cyber detector in their pocket?

Or have conventional, non-computer investigations been prohibited by law? Has seeing someone who lives in a mansion or drives a supercar become illegal?

The truth is that cash is now the maximum expression of freedom that national states first recognized and still leave to their citizens today.

With that piece of paper or metal the State recognizes that it is (at least in this) unconditionally debtor and vassal of the citizen.

Just like the writing printed on the old lira banknotes said "Payable on sight to bearer”; they gave you gold if you went to the Bank of Italy. No questions asked.

“Valid for the extinction of any debt, public or private”.

The state recognizes itself as your debtor, with your unconditional power to demand the debt at any time.

Now modern currencies are very different, more like financial games not convertible into gold, but the substance has not changed. If you have cash, if you have a euro in your hand, the European Union guarantees its payment. When you want.

Otherwise you have some bits somewhere that maybe, just maybe, you can convert back into cash when you need them.

But in addition to this indisputable right, honest citizens need cash today more than ever.

It is the only simple and highly effective weapon to be able to limit the continuous theft of personal data that the internet and electronic transactions allow, and which no one does anything serious to combat.

To paraphrase Captain Kirk “Cash, the last frontier... of freedom”

And if it's not so clear...

Marco Calamari