What Will Replace Paper Money In The Future?
There is a common feeling amongst many financial analysts, accountants, philanthropists and sci-fi fantasy novelists that in the future we will be able to replace our existing financial system of paper or metal money and replace it with something cheaper to produce, universally recognised and easy to value.
With our current system of paper money which can be destroyed, lost or of course stolen, it was always a fundamentally flawed tool of commerce. There is now a range of viable alternatives which with the right infrastructure could be brought in to replace paper money for ever.
With everyone and their dog owning a bank account with a credit or debit card these days, it would be fairly easy to start phasing out paper money in certain countries. The only thing standing in the way of you starting today is the amount of places which still don’t accept card payments. This is changing rapidly though as even things like taxis now accepting card payments when only a few months ago you would have to ask them to pull over so you can get them money from a bank machine.
After a drastic shake up on our planet, perhaps after an apocalypse or something, one way of dealing with our finances would be to change our system from a market economy to sharing economy. This would involve no banks or money at all. All jobs and goods would be equally shared out so that you would never want for anything and you would always have something to do. In this society money would be no object as everything would be free to everyone.
With the amount of financial systems coordinated by our payment service providers and online credit card gateways it can be easy to forget that there is always another, often much better, way of doing things. With a fraction of the world’s population controlling the vast majority of wealth, and the banks controlling so much of our lives we need to look at viable alternatives. Whatever our future holds, it is not likely that paper money will b a part of it. With digital money accounting for the vast majority of all the money in the world now, with just a bit more investment in infrastructure it shouldn’t be too far off. Once that is sorted, hopefully we can start working towards living without money entirely someday.
