First of all, let's set the record straight. Advocates of a cashless system

• are pushing for, not merely a cashless society, but a cashless world, but
• don't want to necessarily ban all currencies, at least in the beginning,
• want to impose a system that will fail in more astounding ways - but just much further down the Road to Ruin - rather than admit that fiat (government-forced use of paper currency with no intrinsic value) money has failed,
• want to avoid the images of Weimar Germany, when people had to carry bags (and push wheelbarrows) of worthless money to the bakery to buy a loaf of bread...and the more recent images of Trillion Dollar Zimbabwean notes (i.e. make the coming hyper-inflation invisible to people who would otherwise be burdened by having to take stacks of fiat (dollars, Euros, pounds, rubles, yen, and renminbi) along on shopping trips).

The REAL reason is that advocates of a cashless system don't want the failure of fiat currencies to provide any kind of realistic match with the value of material things!

The Ponzi-scheme advocates are taking the ultimate step. Rather than admit:

• that the sheer bulk and logistics of printing and distributing fiat has placed mortal limits on global fiat systems has failed,
• that going back to some kind of asset-backed monetary system in which transactions involve an exchange of values is the answer.

The government, the Fed, the re-named Plunge Protection Team, and the Treasury's Equalization Stabilization Fund ultimate solution (i.e. the Real reason) is to merely eliminate the paper part of fiat which would destroy all linkage between Goods, Money, and Value by attacking the prices of precious metals, ores, oil, and other commodities that provide fundamental economic measures.

The government's motivation in going the ultimate step into cashlessness is obvious. When your liabilities (debts and obligations) exceed your assets by hundreds of trillions of dollars, and when you see no point in the future at which assets equal or exceed liabilities, you will not want to take the distasteful route of bankruptcy and beginning again with a workable monetary system. What will appear much more attractive is a cashless system that permits your infinite computerized creation of electronic digits to which you will assign monetary value.

The cashless system that governments want not only destroys linkage between goods, services, money and value, but destroys all limits on spending. The brilliantly diabolical part of digital money isn't even in the Big Brother awareness of everyone's every financial move, or the automatic taxation and currency control it provides. It isn't even in setting banks free from having to handle paper and coins. The ultimate goal of advocates of cashlessness - the REAL reason - is the total lack of fiscal restraint AND fiscal responsibility it provides!

The government doesn't really care if fiat currencies continue to circulate because, with cashlessness, it relieves itself of having to print any more paper or mint any more coins.  It might not even care too much if private entities print and circulate regional scripts. The government might not even mind the use of gold and silver or cyber-currencies in a sub-economy.

The prized thing to government of a cashless system (i.e. the REAL reasons) is in having total freedom:

• to decide value,
• to install cyber-digits as compensation, and
• to have a Congress relieved of fiscal responsibility for a "happy ever after" spending spree.