I've been working recently on a project with Henry Farrell about possible futures and reactions to the USA's weaponisation of the dollar system, which I'll point to when it gets published somewhere. And also, in my day job, on the development of the digital euro. And so I've been thinking, in more general terms, about the way in which we've decided (not always with very much actual consideration) to turn the payment system into a tool of the state.
And so I've been thinking, in more general terms, about the way in which we've decided (not always with very much actual consideration) to turn the payment system into a tool of the state. People like David Graeber would obviously argue that payments are intrinsically tools of government, that debt-money historically precedes commodity-money and that simply being involved in a nexus of transactions makes you more governable, and maybe that's right.