Letters on Liberty: Why Cash Keeps Us Free

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Sunday 20 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

Open debate has been suffocated by today’s censorious climate and there is little cultural support for freedom as a foundational value. What we need is rowdy, good-natured disagreement and people prepared to experiment with what freedom might mean today. Faced with this challenge, the Academy of Ideas decided to launch Letters on Liberty – a radical public pamphleteering campaign aimed at reimagining arguments for freedom in the twenty-first century.

In his Letter – Why Cash Keeps Us Free – author and comedian Dominic Frisby writes in defence of notes and change. In an economy propped up by tracked transactions, you’re always at risk from the whims of financial institutions and governments, he argues, where banks are free to confiscate your funds to save their own heads. The price for free speech becomes more severe when governments are able to identify and cut dissenters out of the financial system. He writes that Big Tech companies are within their rights to keep an eye on what you buy and sell, making a profit on any data they retain. Cash, Dominic argues, is a pro-liberty, pro-privacy solution to the growing problem of authoritarian intervention.

Join Dominic and respondents to discuss the potential pitfalls and triumphs of a cash economy. Does a younger generation simply view cash as outdated, savouring the ease of plastic and online transactions? Does a cash-in-hand focus leave the economy vulnerable to tax evasion? How can those who depend on cash preserve their ability to rent property, or to invest in the stock market? Are cash savings really the best way to protect yourself in the event of a market crash? And is there something cultural to a love of cash – friend of the market-stall trader, scorned by the city slicker?

SPEAKERS
David Axe
career in financial services; political campaigner; democracy chair, Together

Dominic Frisby
writer; comedian; author, Bitcoin: the future of money?

Nico Macdonald
adjunct professor of entrepreneurship and innovation, University of California Education Abroad Program; co-author, BIG POTATOES: The London Manifesto for Innovation

Simon Nash
environmentalist; speaker; activist and founder, Green Oil bicycle lubes; chair, Green Drinks London

CHAIR
Justine Brian
director, Civitas Schools; commentator on food issues