How Feasible is a Cash-Less Society?

vocaljess asks a question that has been on many a mind over the past decade, if not longer: "I just today realized that it has been over a week since I physically handled cash money. Due to the use of checks, debit cards, online shopping, automatic bill pay, direct deposit, etc, my family operates on a cash-less basis in the vast majority of our business transactions. With more and more establishments accepting credit/debit cards, how many others are heading the same way?" Are the advantages of a cash-less society really all that advantageous? One of the largest proposed advantages of a cash-less society is one of limited-theft, well even though money in a cash-less society wouldn't be tangible, it's no less theft-proof...it just takes a theif of a different calibur to pull it off. Do you feel we are heading toward a cash-less society? Do you think if such a thing were to happen we'd be any better off than we are today?

"Think about this: if the cumulative value of everything in the world were expressed in measures of gold, which theoretically backs the majority of world currencies, does enough gold physically exist to back the paper money value, or has the paper money itself become valuable?

And what about this: how is it that the people who depend upon cash are usually in the middle of the financial spectrum, neither the poorest nor the richest? In most extreme poverty situations, transactions are based on barter. For most middle class people and above, transactions involve checks, credit, and electronic fund transfers. For the working poor, most transactions are done in cash. How does all of this add up to the trend toward a cash-less society, where money is nothing more than numbers in a computer transferred from one account to another, to another? How far off is that future?"

Comments

Re:Not possible, lower class vices need cash

[hexx]

When the lower class sorts (you know, Joe Sixpack and friends) amuse themselves, cash often plays a part. You can't stick a dollar bill in a stripper's thong with a debit card, you can't buy marijuana with a credit card, pool games take quarters, and most bars only take cash.

This is faulty (and plain dumb) reasoning.

1. You can't stick a debit card in a strippers thong, but you can stick something like a Disney Dollar... strip bars can sell "Stripper Dollars" - good only at their establishment - for money.

2. You can't buy Marijuana with a credit card? Why not? Maybe it'll be sold as "spicy oregano". Maybe it'll be sold as a "relaxation service" to hide the trail. Cash-less society does not mean one person can't pay another person. People will just learn to hide what was really bought/sold.

3. Pool games taking quarters and bars taking cash is just silly - I've seen pool tables and vending machines that take credit cards, and bars that take cash only are a relic of days gone by - it's easy (albeit sometimes expensive) for a legitimate business to accept credit cards.

And of course, the "lower class" abstraction is just silly. I'm not lowerclass, and I go to strip clubs!!!