As central bankers and governments around the world move us inexorably towards cashlessness, there remains considerable resistance. In Italy, prime minister Giorgia Meloni tried, much to the displeasure of the European Commission, to enable Italian businesses to refuse card payments for transactions under 60 euros ($64). While in Nigeria, people have taken to the streets to protest cash shortages as the country switches to new currency by February 10 as a step towards encouraging more digital payments. And in Switzerland, an advocacy group recently collected enough signatures to force the authorities to hold a referendum on introducing clauses to ensure the country cannot go entirely cashless. 

Writer Brett Scott has been covering how the banks are working towards a cashless world and what’s in it for them. His 2022 book, Cloudmoney, chronicles “cash, cards, cryptocurrency — and the war for our wallets.” He’s skeptical about the idea that the world is heading, irrevocably, for a future where cash doesn’t exist, where we can pay for everything with the swipe of a smartwatch or the blink of an eye.

Scott argues that a cashless society would sound the death knell for small businesses, and wipe out any remaining privacy we have, paving the way for a fully-fledged surveillance system. He’s campaigning for us to hold on to cash —- old, slow, and dirty as it may seem — if we want to hold onto our freedom.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.