Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, thinks that the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States would grant the government a significant increase in power at the expense of individual liberty.
DeSantis warns in a speech that he gave at Fort Myers Technical College that a US CBDC would give the government a significantly increased amount of control over how people spend their money.
The Republican governor claims that a CBDC would allow the federal government to monitor individuals’ transactions and prevent them from making purchases in real time.
“I think anyone with open eyes could see the dangers that this type of arrangement would mean for Americans who want to exercise their financial independence, who would like to be able to conduct business without having the government know every single transaction that they’re making in real-time,” said one commentator. “I think anyone with open eyes could see the dangers that this type of arrangement would mean for Americans who want to be able to exercise their financial independence.”Â
CBDCs, according to DeSantis, go against the values upheld in a free society and would catalyse a shift that would see power shift from the many to the few.”Sometimes when the government does something, it will provide what seems to be a kind of benevolent rationale for what they are doing; however, in reality, it is nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Simply put, I believe that digital currency issued by central banks is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Because of this, there will be a significant shift in the balance of power away from individual consumers and towards a centralised authority.
And that is just fundamentally incompatible with the existence of a free society. A law that is intended to prohibit the use of CBDCs in the state of Florida was signed into law by Governor DeSantis last week. The bill modifies the definition of money in the state constitution to read: “The term does not include a central bank digital currency.”
