In this text, Lily H. Chumley traces the making of the US dollar as a paper currency tied to histories of sovereignty, aesthetics, and competing institutions. She shows how the design of dollar bills speaks to historical junctures and helps us see the cultural potency of this money as much as its transformation into a global currency. Understanding the dollar as physical currency opens up the space to consider the persistence of cash alongside struggles to reform money today, from digital to new sovereign monies.
Cash is dead; long live Cash ///
If money is becoming digital, why are we still making so much cash? Advocates of the cashless society tend to show little interest in paper money. Payment companies and researchers who study them act as if cash were withering away. But reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Even as mobile payment systems and peer-to-peer payment and lending apps proliferate, people keep finding needs for cash.
While cash in mattresses is flammable and cash theft hard to trace, paper money is still cheaper and safer than digital money for many small, everyday purchases. Cash is anonymous. It’s the first choice for unhoused and undocumented communities, for children, for people who are legally subject to income reporting to maintain their education or benefits status, for elderly people who struggle to manage the risks of digital accounts.
Cash is less vulnerable to taxation or garnishment than bank accounts. It’s sometimes preferred for gig work, service work, tipped labor, and informal markets. Paper money is unencumbered by prepaid debit card fees, check-cashing fees, and interest payments. When interchange fees go up, incentives to adopt new digital payment platforms go down, or payment markets consolidate, people around the world go back to cash. Cash allows merchants to refuse fees, avoid taxes, and pass the savings to customers. In select locations, you can get three to five or even ten percent off when you buy in cash, enough to cover ATM fees, and better than the “cash-back” rewards from credit cards.