You can argue that the history of the modern world is the history of financial repression.
After the Spanish empire's sovereign debt, payable in gold and silver, collapsed due to over-issuance, the next global empire, the Netherlands, innovated with the financial repression known as the central bank. This bank would issue paper 'money,' redeemable in precious metals, and backed by the power of the entire establishment. More debt could now be issued to benefit the elites, as long as proper caution kept the system stable. Dutch money and debt turned out to be stable for centuries.
When Dutch decline came, due to over-issuance of public debt, the British global empire further expanded the ability to issue paper money. A major further innovation in repression was the global colonial system, where the labor and real resources of colonies were effectively used to prop up the value of the paper money. (Colonial governments just happened to want to hold paper pound sterling for reserves, rather than gold.) Because of the over-issuance of money and debt by the elites, financial crises still occurred every decade or so in Britain for much of the 19th century.
By the 1870s, Britain had to institute a further step in repression known as the international gold standard, which standardized all major economies on gold rather than silver, and enabled major central banks to bail out each other in financial crises. (The demonetization of silver wreaked major economic pain in the US and was the basis of the 'cross of gold' speech by William J. Bryan during his 1896 presidential candidacy.) This new system was effective: the British elites issued so much paper money that, by 1914, gold represented only 3% of their money supply, even though the paper was still redeemable for gold at the long-established rate. (This last part was crucial for the elites' claim that 'free markets' were operating to keep money issuance honest.)
Of course, such a system couldn't possibly last. The elites' next advance came in the form of the two world wars. One step at a time, the wars concentrated power and investor confidence in the United States, the new 'free-enterprise' economy. Gold flowed into the US, and the dollar was so trusted that it gradually became the major form of reserves held around the world. The US elites were able to issue dollars and debt for personal enrichment and empowerment, without regard to the ability to redeem dollars for gold. And they did issue.
When inflation eventually threatened the faith in dollars, the US innovated a new twist on the British colonial system, alliances with dictatorships. Under this system, oil and labor pools like China were effectively used to prop up the value of the dollar. With various geopolitical maneuvers, the US was able to keep oil and manufactured goods artificially cheap in dollar terms. Since your dollars could always buy these things cheaply, you had faith in dollars.
How did the US elites use the stability provided by this latest repression? You guessed it: issuing more money and debt. But since this eventually caused the twin crises of 2000 and 2008 in the US itself, the elites have been forced to use minor manipulations to keep their system stable for now, while waiting for the next major step-up in repression.
And that major step can be none other than the abolition of cash. An all-electronic money system will have multiple benefits for the elites. They will be able to collect all their taxes, including (possibly higher) taxes on profits from investing in gold and Bitcoin. They will better observe and control all financial markets, as well as the lives of all people. But most of all, it will allow them to use truly negative interest rates, that is, literally taking money out of bank accounts to 'encourage' people to spend and invest their money. (They will argue this is no different from what they have been doing all along, with inflation at a higher rate than the return on 'safe' assets like insured bank accounts and Western government bonds, and they will be right. According to their logic, past repression justifies the future one.)
So the major historical pattern is clear from the political and financial elites' point of view: gain the trust of the world by advertising that we are operating a free-market, liberal, stable system. While that trust lasts, grab wealth and power by issuing financial assets, and propping them up with state power behind the scenes. When the system eventually becomes unstable, do what we can to keep things stable, until we can change the system so profoundly that we take a major step in financial repression, while still claiming to operate a free market. This will bring a new era of stability. Repeat the cycle.
For those of us who love freedom and abhor all manifestations of financial asset inflation, down to environmental pollution, all is not lost. Today, the anti-establishment political sentiment and disunity among big countries should stop an actual abolition of cash. (Though the elites try to remove large-denomination cash to pave the way for any future abolition.) Only a major terrorist attack can bring the necessary political momentum to shove an all-electronic money system through.
I am speculating that the core Western elites actually want such a terrorist attack. There is a well-documented list of leaks to the media after 9/11 by obviously high-level US officials that apparently served no purpose except to help al Qaeda. (For example, it was leaked that the US had found a way to track bin Laden's electronic communications -- he quickly stopped using them. No one was investigated for these leaks.) Also, the US and its allies were somehow never quite able to squash ISIS. Today, the US and is allies continue to fund 'rebels' in Syria, who they know are al Qaeda and ISIS associated jihadists, in the name of overthrowing an oppressor, even though the US supported many oppressors in the past, including the Shah of Iran, Noriega of Panama, Mubarak of Egypt, and Erdogan of Turkey.
I understand that it may be hard to believe the elites are capable of helping terrorists, except it would not be the first time Western elites bring death to their own people for the sake of preserving their system. The British elites sent Britons to their deaths in World War I, for reasons that are still not quite understood. That is, until you analyze money. Objectively, without Britain's involvement, British money and debt would likely have suffered a hard landing after a likely German victory had propelled Germany to the global imperial seat. The wasting of British strength in fighting the Germans, on the other hand, worked neatly to concentrate postwar imperial power on a friendly US which would help ease British money and debt through a gentle decline. (The latter was what actually happened.)
Remember that, while crying tears over 9/11, the US used the occasion to take a sequence of legal steps that culminated in vastly increased surveillance by its intelligence apparatus, some of which has been exposed to be economic rather than anti-terrorist. Thus, it falls to each of us to understand the system, spread the education, and stop or slow down the march of global empire.
Unlike ancient empires, modern empire needs soft power because it doesn't have the required level of hard power. The spread of awareness is the ultimate method of denying it, by exposing the 'city on a hill,' the 'liberal rule-based order,' the 'free-enterprise system,' the 'honest broker' and the 'trusted debtor' for what it really is -- an alliance between top financiers and politicians to blow imperial financial bubbles.
