Consider the implications of this for a second, if you will. (Entire article here.)
Humans paying in cash, a largely non-traceable form of monetary transaction, would be flagged as suspicious. The measure of a non-suspicious human then becomes a reflection of their allegiance to a corporate entity (since if one cannot use cash, one would most assuredly use credit cards). Therefore, to not be suspicious, one much be fully traceable by corporations and governments. A bit too 1984-ish for my tastes.
People who have managed to make/save enough cash, once a measure of true financial independence, are now the suspects. Where I come from, people who pay in cash often don’t have the means to extensive lines of credit; they are regularly people of lower socioeconomic standing, immigrants and minorities. From that perspective, such a move as this suggests an increased stratification of social demographics.
Furthermore, such a policy would only encourage the continued abstraction of monetary value (as cash, a material mode of monetary representation, is called “suspicious”), arguably one of the contributing factors to this latest global financial fiasco. The more it is just numbers bankers are pushing around, the easier it is to push competing companies and countries into default. (I realize I am being rash, but too bad.)
We live in a complex world and our methods of analysis and response are in dire need of re-innovation.