by Oliver Wilson
Apr. 28, 2024

As we adjudicate the revolutions of 21st century banking with new additions such as crypto currency and more digitized money, the government has inevitably asserted itself within every monetary ordeal. Most notably, the newest push for banking intervention has come in the form of ”Central Bank digital currency”, or ”CBDCs.” It is paramount to prevent the passing of a CBDC to ensure citizens’ privacy and prevent tyranny.

A CBDC is a form of digital fiat-currency, often compared to crypto, issued and operated by the central bank. Traditionally, crypto currency is a decentralized currency, meaning the only person to control money is the owner, a system similar to owning gold. The difference between crypto currency and normal dollars is that crypto currency transactions, in their decentralized nature, offer two privileges that should not be granted to the government. Transactions are very easy to track, and a wallet would be traceable to its owner. CBDCs are an especially problematic topic because there would exist no reason for them not to be implemented ubiquitously, meaning the scale of the consequences would be extended to every American citizen, not just those who volunteer.

In considering a CBDC there are several citizen concerns. The most surface level being attributed to the citizen’s loss of privacy under an implemented CBDC system. Per the fundamental surveillant nature of what a centralized currency is, American citizens would no longer have a right to their financial privacy. Because of the diversity in the monetary storage options Americans currently have, there exists a buffer between citizens and the government. A CBDC, however, would ensnare all transactions and dealings of citizens into watch, granting the government the capacity to see everything a person has bought, sold and from whom. A privilege of this kind would indeed sacrifice the right to privacy citizens currently have under the constitution and court consensus.

Another concern prominent in the monetary debate is the danger and cost benefit to a CBDC. The loss of privacy from a CBDC will be exploited for expanded government tyranny and control. Government claims that a CBDC would be useful to crack-down on illegal dealings, but the alternative to our current working monetary systems is an extreme loss of freedom and tyranny unlike any other in modern American history. 

To understand the potential dangers of a fully regulated government currency, we need not look any further than our allies to the North in Canada. In 2022, a string of trucker led protests broke loose across the country against the Trudeau leadership and affiliated Covid-19 mandates. These protests prompted prime minister Trudeau to implement an ‘Emergency Act’ to limit public gatherings, among other regulations, but most strikingly to swiftly seize assets connected to donations sent to the trucker protests. The Canadian government claims that it implemented these policies to prevent further economic damage, but that is merely argumentative justification for plundering Trudeau’s oppositional supporters. The fact remains that this incident proves that governments are not deterred from tyrannical regulation and anti-democratic monetary measures. In fact, a judge in a Canada court later found these measures to be an overstep of governmental powers. This incident is also a reminder that it is already easy to steal from citizens in the modern age, yet concurrently that a CBDC would make these measures dangerously and unnecessarily easier, given an approximate $1 million dollars still managed to reach their donnees.

Even more relevantly, China’s CCP is one of the first to implement a CBDC, further demonstrating the tyrannical potential of such currencies. The eCNY, a digital yuan bolsters China’s government control over finance, commerce, consumption, enables tracing of financial transactions from bank accounts, phone numbers and even upholds social credit scores. Additionally, the eCNY is able to be used for control by means of efficient coercion like redacting money from accounts of people the government believes are engaging in wrongdoing, including disobeying mask mandates, or ”bad” speech.

In the face of such adverse and dystopian consequences the question is raised, what is the point of a CBDC? And the government’s argument has remained ambiguous, seemingly so as not to emphasize it’s uncompelling tyrannical basis. To digitize a bank’s functioning? To prevent tax evasions? The stated purposes are clearly not worth the potential downside of unchallenged tyrannical domination. Ideally, no anti-freedom incentivized policy China implements for its people should a progressively free society replicate. 

The prevention of the passing of a CBDC is essential to upkeep human rights and freedoms, the alternative is one of needless utility and with severe consequences.