Description
Title: Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto & the War for Our Wallets
Author: SCOTT BRETT
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 25/05/2021
Imprint: BODLEY HEAD
Price: $35.00
Publishing status: Active
Description: We are often told that the move towards a cashless society is ‘natural progress’, but there is seldom reference to the powerful groups that are vigorously pushing for it. What happens when physical money is replaced completely by digital transactions? In the great battle for global monopolization, different ‘watchers’ are trying to capture and hoard data. Google has search patterns revealing your desires, fetishes and intellectual interests. Facebook has a treasure trove of its users’ special moments and projections of vanity. Yet, if we really want to see what a person is motivated to act upon in society, we should examine their payments data. In our large-scale modern economies, a significant amount of a person’s life is spent buying things, and this data provides a clear idea of their priorities, habits and beliefs. However, the great information firewall is being completely offline, leaving data black holes. In Cloudmoney, Brett Scott uncovers a long-established lobbying infrastructure set up by an alliance of partners, including financial institutions, governments and international agencies, to wage a covert cold war against cash. Who benefits from a cashless society and who is left behind? And will the departure of cash also signal the departure of true privacy?
Review: 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
Cloudmoney is a brilliant, fascinating and utterly accessible book – a pioneering and political guide to the fast-evolving web of global finance. Combining anthropological insight with the financial acumen of an industry insider, Brett Scott lays out the long view on how tech and finance are rapidly merging to supercharge corporate capitalism. If you want to understand what money is – and what it is in danger of becoming – start right here — Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics
Your head has been deliberately filled with falsehoods and confusion about money. This brilliant book helps you understand how that happened, who profits from our collective financial ignorance, and how we might best fight back. Filled with dazzling insight and admirable clarity, this is a book you’ll soon be recommending far and wide — Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved
The rush to a cashless society isn’t about convenience. It is about power. Brett Scott cuts through the hype with this brilliant critique of digital money and the rise of fintech empires, while offering a compelling alternative vision. Don’t miss this book — Jason Hickel, author of Less Is More
An important reflection on the new world of finance. Brett Scott writes with gusto about blockchain, crypto and the power nexus between Big Tech and the banks in a cashless society — Lionel Barber, author of The Powerful and The Damned
ISBN: 9781847926654
Pages: 288