Cash – between the strategy and anti-systemism

The promise of the omnipresence of digital services is the foundation of the latest model of capitalism. Although increasingly ruthless and much little green than it convinces, digital capitalism tempts us with the airiness of virtual services. As artificial intelligence grows, large techs offer quite a few facilities that make us more and more susceptible to interference and surveillance. In this situation, conscious usage of cash is not only proof of economical pragmatism, but besides a fresh form of civilian resistance. Under certain conditions, paper money can be the most valuable evidence of stableness and affirmative aspects of systemic governance.

When I conducted for the civilian Affairs Institute in December 2024 interview with Prof. Elżbieta Mączyńska, devoted to the function of cash in society and capitalism of the digital era, I better realized that the fresh technological revolution is not waiting just around the corner. She's already profoundly changing our world. And this makes not only the generation born just after the war, but besides people from my yearbooks, who – in an optimistic script for Poland and Europe – will stay on the labour marketplace for a long time, and then face the time of retirement, will last another extremist economic, social, political transformation.

Threats of Digital Capitalism

Those who are professionally or passionately following popular discipline literature devoted to digital capitalism are well aware of the speech of the titles themselves. And how different authors and authors make disturbing diagnoses. Shoshana Zubboff: “The age of capitalism of surveillance. Fighting for the future of humanity on a fresh border of power”; Max Fisher: "In chaos modes. How Social Media Reprogrammed Our Minds and Our World"; Kuba Piwowar: "Technology That Excludes. Measurements, data, algorithms’. Finally, the book, which we devoted quite a few space to with prof. Mączyńska: “Cloudmoney. Cash, cards, code. War for our wallets” by Brett Scott. The following image emerges from them: no 1 believes in the net and digital reality anymore as a powerful tool to blow up the system; libertarians and anarchists present have little net benefits than speculators and cyber criminals.

We can kick against the wall, we should do it, but it is clear that we are all customers of digital capitalism. And the client is little and little our "sir", a hostage of reality, whose conditions are increasingly brutal – besides politically – dictated by creators of digital instruments, trends and opinions.

From American private insurance companies, which usage algorithms to send people distant without money and hope, to fashionable apps, through which overwrought Indians deliver food to the driven Polish people, through the expanding force of sharks financiers on the spread of digital banking – the strategy is moving towards closure, ruling the planet not through democratic rules, but the logic of facts made.

In addition, all digital transaction, all digital amusement leaves a lasting trace in the system: we are like an open book for the powers of neocapitalism, or as Yanis Varoufakis wants – technofeudalism. On an unprecedented scale in human history, we give approval for surveillance.

That is why democracy in the classical kind is disappearing – the powerful of this planet know so much about us that they request social engineering alternatively of negotiating mechanisms.

The fresh discipline of politics suggests that digital capitalism – despite not so old dreams – does not request an inclusive society over which banners of freedom, equality and fraternity and liberal democracy with more or little present social democratic elements are flung. He does not even request global rights – the current interests are enough. The Excel table replaced not only labour rights; it no longer applies only to individuals, workers sent to the streets. It became the most crucial global law. And it concerns nations.

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When I wrote for the civilian Affairs Institute over six months ago column “Oligarchy, parsley and a pair of gold in the wallet. Why pay in cash”I was aware that we don't think about this kind of thing besides often, excavating bills and coins from our wallet. erstwhile I talk to friends outside a more left-wing bubble, I hear that they tend to keep cash with them, but even more frequently they pay with the aid of digital instruments. They do not argue with arguments of a type: cash is useful in situations of unexpected accidents of all kinds; we should not let legal/political restrictions on the usage of paper money to be imposed, but they frequently do not realize the problems of digital capitalism.

For regular bread-eaters, even if they had already stopped seeing as holders of various credits financial institutions as reliable, digital instruments are a symbol of progress, modernity and convenience. If a smartphone lets you start a home theater, prepare a dinner, make a date, settle things at the office, why not give you the chance to manage your home wallet? I draw attention to this due to the fact that it is very crucial that the cash movement does not close in an activistic, post-inteligent niche.

People usually realize why a grocery store or a hairdresser prefers cash. But they don't necessarily gotta read with baking on their faces from the cover to the cover of the banded volumes about capitalIsurveillance. Nevertheless, it is worth asking ourselves how to popularise books specified as Cloudmoney, which clearly describe how digital capitalism is trying to convince us not only about the inalternativeness of its services.

Digital capitalism wants to be an alternate form of human reality.

And there are less and less Robinson Cruzoe and Fridays in this planet (I know, it is simply a very politically incorrect association).

Portal of the Institute of civilian Affairs [“Week of civilian Affairs“ – ed.] offers quite a few texts analysing the benefits of utilizing cash and challenges or the threat of digital capitalism. 1 more issue is worth being aware of: the cash movement must become part of our socio-political life. And pop culture. Rafał Górski, head of the Institute of civilian Affairs, most likely even woken up at night, will tell about the steps taken in Poland, so that the “cash fight” will take a clearer shape. Initiatives specified as the fresh debate "Is cash leaving for lame?" show that it besides requires an expert dimension. And that's a good prognostic, due to the fact that the public, although programically declaring dislike of talking heads, is inactive utilizing their opinions, moving debates to social media.

A well told story, besides about the benefits of defending "cash and gold", has a better chance of becoming a constant trend. He'll most likely lose to the hottest discussions of the day on an ongoing basis, but the continuously sustained signal has a better chance of getting through to mainstream than the problems that lie behind the waste. Reprivatisation issues – even if we are not satisfied with the results – have besides waited a long time for their moment, until at any point they became a hot political theme, and present they are a clear, contextually easy recognisable component of our public debates. Cash defence issues do not carry specified a dramatic burden of content, but it is besides easier to convince the average Jan Kowalski that there is something sick in the absence of alternatives to non-cash transactions. And that politicians, while inactive maintaining control of lawmaking, should treat cash as an crucial socio-economic component and 1 of the guarantors of civilian liberties.

Pop culture, digital capitalism and cash

There is 1 more thing – pop culture. We can break hands on this, but people value more what they consider fashionable, prestigious, enjoying more social estimation. Commercialized pop culture is simply a natural ally giants of digital capitalism, especially at a time erstwhile marketing had long come out of the old-fashioned framework: boxes of TVs, spelts of fat newspapers, radio announcements, street billboards and even older PRL-stacks.

The marketing of the digital era of capitalism is with us erstwhile we keep before our eyes its most important, most useful and most dangerous tool – smartphone. decades ago, many people seemed besides extravagant to say, "Turn the tv off, start thinking." present it would sound even more crazy to say, "Turn off your smartphone, start thinking."

Few are saints and ascetics of anticapitalism of everyday life – how can consumers of digital facilities convince that cash can be cooler than BLIK? Who will pay and who will pay for specified a social campaign? Who would it be addressed to? With what instruments? Or do you gotta wait for a tiktoker – a neophyte? What if he goes viral? Or is simply a well-known author already sitting over a book that he will later screen Netflix? The author will, of course, present the peripeties of the heroes, whose somewhat crushed money in his pocket he saved from life’s tragedy. And let him publically defend the cash of an crucial presidential candidate, reaching out to young voters. And I hope he's credible about it. These are not trivial cases, if we think that cash must be defended and promoted not only within our small bubbles. It's not just about chasing a bunny.

It is clear to readers and readers of this column that action for cash is simply a fresh form of civilian resistance. This is simply a fresh guerrilla conflict against a strategy that imposes its logic as 1 reality. A strategy that has tools that neither 19th or 20th century capitalism had.

At the same time, which shows well the ambiguity of the situation, the fight for cash is as systemic and pro-state as possible, due to the fact that paper money stabilizes the economy in situations of expanding crises.

It remains a credible financial instrument erstwhile there is no power and no coverage erstwhile in a material planet it is essential to deal with specified measures.

Cash will operate and at the time of the large water, and at the time of the failure of the energy strategy and at the minute of weakening the full network infrastructure. It will then be 1 of the simple economic, social and cultural symbols of governance. This ambiguity of cash, both systemic and anti-system role, is simply a truly good subject on the viral, debate, political rally.