The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
Cloudmoney

Cloudmoney

Why the War on Cash Endangers Our Freedom

Summary

Who really benefits from a cashless society?

Many of us rarely use cash these days. And the reach of corporations into our lives via cards and apps has never been greater. But what we're told is inevitable is actually the work of powerful interests: the great battle of our time is for ownership of the digital footprints that make up our lives.

Cloudmoney tells a revelatory story about the fusion of big finance and tech, which requires physical cash to be replaced by digital money or 'cloudmoney'. Diving beneath the surface of the global financial system, Brett Scott uncovers a long-established lobbying infrastructure waging a covert war on cash under the banner of progress but at the cost of our privacy, politics and individual freedom.

'A wonderfully revolutionary text' YANIS VAROUFAKIS

'Scott has struck an important vein that is vital in a digital age' FINANCIAL TIMES


'Brilliant, fascinating and utterly accessible' KATE RAWORTH, author of Doughnut Economics

Reviews

  • If people could see clearly how their money is created, they would rebel - especially now that it is digitised. Brett Scott's highly readable and topical Cloudmoney is, in this sense, a wonderfully revolutionary text
    Yanis Varoufakis

About the author

Brett Scott

Brett Scott is a campaigner, monetary anthropologist and former broker. He is the author of The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, and has appeared in a wide range of TV shows, radio broadcasts and documentaries, including BBC World News and Sky News.

He has written extensively on financial reform, digital finance, alternative currency, blockchain technology and the cashless society for publications like the Guardian, New Scientist, Huffington Post, Wired Magazine and CNN.com, and also publishes the Altered States of Monetary Consciousness newsletter.


His Twitter is @suitpossum
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more