Toward a cashless society.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)

In Looking Backward, his 1888 sci-fi novel-cum-utopian manifesto, socialist Edward Bellamy foretold the advent of "credit cards" and the advent of a cashless society by the year 2000. By the turn of the century, major strides had been taken in that direction, most notably the widespread use of electronic funds transfer (EFT). However, "the march toward cashlessness stalled due to wariness about invasions of privacy," complains David R. Warwick in the July-August issue of The Futurist.

Warwick, author of Ending Cash: The Public Benefits of Federal Electronic Currency, insists that those who "focus their efforts exclusively against invasions of privacy too often are oblivious to greater and more harmful social enemies," such as violent crime, drug trafficking and tax evasion. "It is patently wrongheaded to ignore these facts, particularly on the implausible expectation that electronically ...