MPR photo/Tom Weber

How close are we to a mostly cashless society? According to the majority of people surveyed recently by Pew, mobile-device swiping will have largely replaced cash and credit cards within a decade. What would the changes mean for us?

Susan Crawford, visiting Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard's Kennedy School and co-director of the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Technology, joined The Daily Circuit to talk about what a cashless society would look like.

"There is nothing more imaginary than a monetary system," she said. "The idea that we solemnly hand around printed slips of paper in exchange for food and water shows just how trusting and fond of patterned behavior we human beings are. So why not take the next step? Of course we'll move to even more abstract representations of value."

David Wolman, contributing editor at Wired Magazine and author of "The End of Money" also joined the discussion.

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