A few years ago in Russia, when protesting was still barely legal and possible, prominent opposition leaders were 'fined' for ~1M USD each for damages to businesses what happened due to some protest activity. Banks simply deduced every account balance by -50000000,00 RUB and have a nice day.
Whoever thinks that 'but that was bad, evil Putin's government and our nice, good government would never do such a thing' should think again. The government should not have such power at all, neither directly, nor via bank proxy that would 'independently' refuse you service.
When you happily cheer that in EU you can't pay with 500 EUR bill (because tax evasion, crime, etc!!!), you are basically helping the government create means to financially strangle anyone the government doesn't like. One day it might strangle you.
How could they not have the power? All power the banks have is directly derived from their ability to operate as they do within a currency regime that is directly controlled by the state. Best case is it's your state; plenty operate in a system controlled by a foreign state.
People in countries that are still free should take it away from them and legally protect direct money transfer between people. Cash, anonymous cryptocurrencies,etc, so that no middleman can ever take someone's money.
The problem I have with this debate is that it's targetting the wrong thing. Of course tyrannical states are a problem, but they are a problem because they can ride roughshod over your rights. Having a legal right to money transfers or whatever is only worth the value of the legal right. If the legal right is ignored or revoked, you're in no better a situation than never having the right in the first place.
The problem is a political one - if you want your state to be not shit, then you need to make your state not shit, not campaign for some magic work around to the state.
Whoever thinks that 'but that was bad, evil Putin's government and our nice, good government would never do such a thing' should think again. The government should not have such power at all, neither directly, nor via bank proxy that would 'independently' refuse you service.
When you happily cheer that in EU you can't pay with 500 EUR bill (because tax evasion, crime, etc!!!), you are basically helping the government create means to financially strangle anyone the government doesn't like. One day it might strangle you.