When Money Is No Longer Truly Yours

In 2022, during the Freedom Convoy protests, the Canadian Government did not need to detain its protestors. They simply used emergency powers to freeze their bank accounts.1 This moment exposed a deeper vulnerability in modern money: when wealth exists only through banks and digital platforms, access to it can be controlled from outside the individual. The issue was not simply whether protestors were right or wrong, but whether any government should possess the power to financially silence its citizens without first using the courts.2 If money can be frozen with a command, then payment is no longer just an economic act; it becomes a question of freedom, ownership and political power. We should not fear cashlessness or any technological advancement; rather, we should fear a society where the absence of physical money removes the final barrier between personal freedom and political control. The future of money will determine not only how we pay, but who holds power. A cashless society is therefore not automatically dystopian, but it is dangerous unless cash remains as a safeguard for freedom.

Money Has Always Been Technology

Money has always been a part of technology. Even though every single change in the form of money—from cowrie shells to gold coins to paper notes—was initially met with scepticism, this not only altered the economy of the countries but also changed the relationship between the government and the people.3 The motive to shift to a cashless society is not a different mindset, but the outcome is completely different—a complete elimination of physical currency would mean the elimination of anonymous economic life altogether. Whether this change will be advantageous or disadvantageous to us does not depend on the cashless society, but depends on who controls it, who does not have the opportunity to enjoy its benefits, and so on. Thus, a cashless society is neither a utopia nor a dystopia; it is a mirror, and we will not fear its reflection, but our reluctance to look carefully at it.

Cash as Unconditional Property

Cash is the last form of unconditional asset. John Locke asserted that whatever you earn from your own hard work, or from bodily labour, including money or crops, is entirely yours; no one else can claim it.4 Nobody can freeze it or control how you will use it. This is exactly the way physical and tangible cash works. No bank can instantly freeze physical cash, and no payment platform can block its use at the point of transaction.

Digital money works entirely differently. You cannot really have ownership over it when, at the end of the day, it's just a number in a bank system. You just have a guarantee that it will be granted to you whenever you request it. However, sites can shut down, accounts can be frozen, and access can be restricted—without you even getting to know about it. Your money may still exist on paper, but if you cannot buy food, pay rent, or withdraw savings, ownership becomes a legal fiction.5 The balance remains visible, yet the freedom it was supposed to provide has disappeared.

This is not just speculation. Because of India's 2016 demonetisation, over 86% of all currency in use became invalid, preventing workers and labourers from conducting business.6 Although demonetisation was not a cashless policy, it shows how quickly access to money can be disrupted when monetary power is centralised. In each case, money existed, but we did not have full ownership over it. A cashless society does not eliminate your money; it simply puts the access to it in someone else's hands.

Crime Does Not Disappear, It Upgrades

Crime reduction is the most enticing argument for a cashless society; the surface statistics can back this claim: illegal transactions become difficult to hide, and theft decreases.7 Supporters portray this as a public-safety benefit. However, the common population makes the mistake of mistaking displacement for elimination. The absence of cash does not eliminate crime and theft. Instead, it upgrades it. While physical danger requires close proximity, cyberattacks on banking infrastructure, identity fraud, and deepfake identity fraud can be done anonymously.8 Ironically, cashlessness makes it easier for criminals to commit more sophisticated crimes.

Examining the distributional effects is completely relevant in today's day and age. The beneficiaries of reduced crime are mainly the middle class, who carry the least amount of cash, live in places under police control, and have never kept most of their assets in cash. The emerging victims of this crime are the elderly, who have recently opened bank accounts and are unfamiliar with today's technology.9 We are not eliminating crime, but making it more technologically sophisticated, which proves to be disadvantageous to those who are least able to defend themselves.

Systemic Risk

Another important issue is systemic risk. In a cash-based economy, money is mostly spread out, so one breach will not cause much impact on the economy and the people. However, in a fully digital society, everything is interconnected, so a single cyberattack could potentially cause a lot of damage.10 Locke believed that a government is legitimate only if it protects people's security.11 Thus, even if digital systems are able to reduce small crimes, they would still fail by Locke's standards if they can cause large-scale damage.

When Money Becomes a Tool of Control

When all transactions can be traced and accounts can be switched off, money stops being money. It becomes a tool of control. This is not speculation. In 2022, the Canadian Government used its emergency powers to freeze the bank accounts of citizens who donated to truck protests.12 They had not committed any real crime, but their financial lives were suspended. This happened in a stable democracy of a developed country. If such a situation could take place there, it can happen with any country. The main question is whether we can build systems strong enough to stop them.

Two philosophical traditions respond to this issue very differently. Utilitarianism would permit this if the total benefit would outweigh the harm it causes—if freezing a few accounts stops a larger problem in the economy.13 However, this idea has a flaw: just because the majority agrees with a decision does not mean it is always the correct one. Libertarianism would completely oppose financial surveillance, as it is an intrusion on one's freedom.14 Neither option can be said to be completely correct.

The truth is that a cashless society is not entirely autocratic. It just provides potential autocracies a ground which they never had before. Physical money will always be ungovernable because it can be held and spent without any government record. If we remove that option, every financial transaction will become trackable, reversible and visible.

Three Mistakes Beneath the Argument

A cashless society has many benefits in the world: efficiency, transparency, reduction in certain kinds of crime and corruption. However, these traits are not the same as justice. A society can be both convenient and dangerous. The argument for cashlessness has been stated frequently and loudly.

Beneath the surface of this argument lie three mistakes, the first one being ownership. People agreeing to a cashless society are actually agreeing to a property that can be suspended, revoked, or modified. Digital money can never be truly anyone's. Secondly, there's crime. Taking away money does not eliminate criminals' incentives; it just increases them. The third is the most important one—power. When an entire financial institution becomes digital, the government of that region enjoys immense power. Canada has demonstrated this; unfortunately, it will not be the last country to do so.

Conclusion

Locke stated that the government is meant to protect people's rights, their freedom, and their work.15 A cashless society, if formed, is not necessarily evil. However, letting it become a controlled body and giving immense power to the government could potentially stop people from buying, selling, and changing the economy without using any direct force.

The danger is not that cashless payments are convenient; the danger is that convenience may teach people to surrender safeguards they will only miss once they are gone. Therefore, we should not fear digital payments themselves, but we should resist any society that eliminates cash entirely. A safe future is not cashless, but cash-optional.

Bibliography

1. Tasker, John Paul. "Banks Are Moving to Freeze Accounts Linked to Convoy Protests." CBC News, 16 Feb. 2022, www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-banks-ottawa-protests-1.6353968.

2. Zimonjic, Peter. "Most Bank Accounts Frozen Under the Emergencies Act Are Being Released, Committee Hears." CBC News, 22 Feb. 2022, www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergency-bank-measures-finance-committee-1.6360769.

3. Davies, Glyn. A History of Money: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. University of Wales Press, 1994, pp. 12–41.

4. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Edited by C. B. Macpherson, Hackett Publishing, 1980, ch. 5, §27.

5. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Edited by C. B. Macpherson, Hackett Publishing, 1980, ch. 9, §123.

6. Chodorow-Reich, Gabriel, et al. "Cash and the Economy: Evidence from India's Demonetization." The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 135, no. 1, Feb. 2020, pp. 57–103.

7. Rogoff, Kenneth S. The Curse of Cash. Princeton University Press, 2016, pp. 54–78.

8. European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). ENISA Threat Landscape: Finance Sector. ENISA, Feb. 2025.

9. Age UK. "More Than 1 in 3 Over 65s (4.7 Million) Lack the Basic Skills to Use the Internet Successfully." Age UK, 2024.

10. World Economic Forum. The Global Risks Report 2023. WEF, 11 Jan. 2023.

11. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Edited by C. B. Macpherson, Hackett Publishing, 1980, ch. 9, §123–131.

12. Woolf, Marie. "RCMP Gave Banks Police Info on Ottawa Protesters with a List of Accounts to Freeze." CBC News, 8 Mar. 2022, www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-names-banks-freeze-1.6376955.

13. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Edited by Roger Crisp, Oxford University Press, 1998, ch. 2.

14. Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books, 1974, pp. 150–182.

15. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Edited by C. B. Macpherson, Hackett Publishing, 1980, ch. 11, §138.