2y ago

Austrian leader backs far-right idea of enshrining cash in constitution

www.euractiv.com Austrian leader backs far-right idea of enshrining cash in constitution

Austria's conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer wants the right to use cash enshrined in the constitution, he told Austrian media in remarks published on Friday (4 August), an idea the far-right Freedom Party has been pushing for years.

Austria’s conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer wants the right to use cash enshrined in the constitution, he told Austrian media in remarks published on Friday (4 August), an idea the far-right Freedom Party has been pushing for years.

44 comments

The far anything can go screw itself, but we definitely need to hold on to physical currency.
- Exactly. I was in Sweden recently and it's opressive how difficult it is to use cash. For everything it's only card or apps, I didn't even bother to get any local cash. But I had a few SEK from years ago and I couldn't use them.
  In Portugal is not on the constitution but it's law, a business cannot force the client to pay by other means if the client has enough cash to make the payment for payments under 3000€ (above this you actually can't pay cash by the same law :P).

What's wrong with the idea?
- It's a non-issue meant to deflect from real problems. It's also summer, so there's nothing going on and the news are blowing everything out of proportion.
  Analysis of the whole thing (in German):
  https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000181809/nehammer-findet-keinen-verbuendeten-fuer-bargeld-vorstoss
  
  There is a lot going on in Austria. It's just that it is climate change related floodings, and far-right people don't like that kind of debate.
- The intention.
  Cash has many benefits over cards, like independence from electricity, privacy, accessibility and you don’t have to worry about wether or not a store accepts your cash (at least if you ignore currency meddling).
  But the far right does not care about those things. They support the idea because of some NWO conspiracy bs and the law they would propose will probably have some specific details to reflect that, even if it’s just by ambiguity.
  
  The ÖVP has adopted the FPÖ's (far right's) talking point but not the specific law AFAIK. Also, they would probably only pass the law with agreement from their green coalition partners. It might be possible for them to cooperate with the FPÖ in the Nationalrat to pass the FPÖ's idea of the law, but that is extremely uncommon and would be very unpopular with the Greens. This is really only an issue for the next election in about one year.

Cash should never be got rid of entirely, but surely it should be up to the business if they want to take cash and then the free market decides if that decision costs them customers or not?
- This card-only thing is already happening in some places and it's frustrating. For one, you tend to find out after you're done shopping or while your order is already being prepared, so you're being put on the spot. For two, for the store, it makes sense to go cash-free as long as they lose fewer customer payments than they save on cash-handling — but for those few customers who are caught by this, and who may be unbanked or have an incompatible card or high card fees or are just privacy-minded, it becomes harder/impossible to buy stuff at all.
  
  Fees are standard and handled by the retailer, not the customer, and outside of American Express, what "incompatible" cards are there? Almost every bank uses a Visa or MasterCard which are accepted pretty much everywhere worldwide. I don't know what you mean by "unbanked" as legally everyone is entitled to a basic account, at least in the UK. If you're so privately minded you won't use a card, that sees like a self induced problem with your own paranoia.
  
  If you're unbanked, that is a you problem. Not a problem that society has to succumb to.
  I want to live in a country that isn't 50 years behind every other just because some backwards hillbilly decides that "the banks shan't know what i spend my paycheck on".
  If you're that concerned, stop using the Internet. Full stop.
- Citizens should have right to privacy. Cash, monero etc are important.
  
  Then this people that seek privacy can go and shop somewhere that does take cash to maintain it, but if the market shows that they're not the majority they can't expect every shop to cater to them. It's like me expecting all restaurants to go fully veggie because I personally don't eat meat.

A cashless society is an obedient society. So you bet that's the future in ten years.

Not sure if smart by conservative party to take away one of the talking arguments of the far-right or a red herring to distract from actual important topics (i.e. climate change).

44 comments