Looking Forward: The Role for Government in Regulating Electronic Cash

In his 19th century novel, Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy described a man who falls asleep in Boston in 1887 and awakens in the year 2000 to find that the United States has evolved into a utopian society. No longer are paper or metallic currency in circulation. Instead people pay for everything with paperboard cards that carry a certain value in dollars. To make a purchase, a person need only hand the card to the merchant, who deducts the purchase’s value from the card (Bellamy).