Switzerland’s Cash Enshrinement in the Constitution Is a Win for Liberty

Switzerland is not the first country to enshrine the right to the usage of physical cash in its constitution. Slovakia, in 2023, inaugurated the movement. Hungary, a conservative bastion, followed suit in 2025. Slovenia followed later that year. There are good reasons these countries are making the protection of physical currency a political and constitutional priority.

For years, governments, establishment politicos, and central banks have been methodically preparing the groundwork for a world in which physical cash disappears altogether. Under the useful excuses of ‘modernisation’ and ‘the war against financial crime,’ the public is being led—and, increasingly, pushed—towards entirely digital systems of payment. Credit cards, payment applications, and online transfers are progressively becoming the default means of economic life. Cash, meanwhile, is being deliberately marginalised. Part of this process is, of course, organic. But it is also being incentivised.

These arguments might, on the surface, sound reasonable enough. Digital transactions are faster, more convenient and—crucially—easier to track. They promise smoother commerce for consumers and easier oversight for regulators. However convenient, these gains come at a hefty cost—the gradual erosion of financial privacy. Indeed, cash is not merely a payment method: it is one of the last remaining bastions of genuine, actual anonymity in modern economic life. By taking the decision to pay for goods in cash, citizens leave no digital footprint behind them. They do not generate a data point for corporations to monetise or for governments to scrutinise. Granted, a cash transaction might be a nuisance—but it is also none of anyone else’s business. As a free citizen, that is a tool you must be allowed to keep and deploy at will.

There’s also a point to be made here on the importance of physical cash for national sovereignty and security. Hyper-digitalisation carries with the intolerable dangers of hacking and misusage by foreign—hostile— actors. A state adversary that is capable enough could certainly, in theory, lead to economic—and, therefore, social—chaos by successfully penetrating a nation’s digital financial instruments, particularly if there is no alternative to rely on. Politicians who see financial digitalisation as a multiplier of government power ought to consider how it risks, in fact, becoming a major liability for state security.

We live in an age that is increasingly defined by mass data collection. Remove cash from the system, and every economic interaction—every purchase, every donation, every financial exchange—becomes visible to some authority somewhere, whether in one’s own country or somewhere else. In all likelihood, some of those persons or institutions will not have your best interests at heart; most likely, they are not genuine believers in political and philosophical pluralism, even if they claim otherwise, and will show little scruple in using the power they command to achieve their goals, whatever they may be. This is already our world, and what that means is that today’s infrastructure of surveillance should no longer be a fringe concern reserved for tin foil hat-wearing weirdos. It is a central front in the battle for human liberty.

It is true that those advocating for a cashless society have often insisted that only criminals have anything to fear from transparency. That is a lie—and one that is both lazy and profoundly dangerous. In the West, privacy has never been the privilege of the guilty. It is the shield of the free. The ability to speak, associate and transact without constant observation is an essential human freedom. It would have been instantly and unanimously recognised as such in Europe just a few decades ago. It is troubling—sinister, indeed—that this is no longer the case today.

The rise of central bank digital currencies has made this debate even more important. They wouldn’t really make citizens’ lives any easier—you can already buy and sell virtually anything digitally. What they would do—and what actually explains establishment interest in them—is allow the central banks themselves to become direct intermediaries in the financial lives of citizens. Today that isn’t the case, with existing digital payments at least processed by private financial institutions rather than directly by governments. What central bank digital currencies would mean is that state apparatuses would be able to monitor payments—and, thus, access spending patterns—in real time. It would allow them to freeze accounts instantly, if they so desired, or restrict their citizens’ ability to partake in certain types of transactions. In quite a few cases, of course, this immense power could be used virtuously. In many others, it probably would not. In any case, are these the decisions you would like to entrust to the political class?

Therein lies the supreme importance of the decision now taken by Swiss voters. By enshrining the right to physical cash in the nation’s constitution, Switzerland has affirmed anonymous economic exchange as a fundamental human right—which it is. Most importantly, it has given momentum to those who, elsewhere in Europe, the West, and the world, understand that it is not basic liberties that need to be adjusted to the pace of technological progress, but technology that must adapt itself to our liberties and dignity.

Will others follow suit? They likely will. Switzerland’s mature decision has recognised that the ability to enjoy personal privacy in economic life is not an outdated relic of the past. Rather, it is an irreplaceable foundation for a free society. Just as importantly, it has understood that physical cash isn’t just about personal liberty—it is a fundamental factor of national sovereignty and security in days of grave geopolitical uncertainty and interstate competition. Other peoples would do well to pay attention—before the quiet, and foolish, disappearance of cash goes from a technological trend into a political fait accompli.

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