In today’s world, we see people protest against government actions in a variety of ways. Some are peaceful like a candle march or hunger strike, while others are violent involving burning and destroying of public property or self immolation. Most of the peaceful protests suddenly turn violent and there is no way to find out if the people who turned violent were actual protesters or were stooges implanted by the government in the disguise of protesters. Once a protest turns violent it becomes an excuse for the law enforcement to use force and killing of the protesters. It also creates a negative sentiment from general public who now become morally against the protesters and whatever the protest was originally against. At the end of the day, the objective of the original peaceful protest is far from achieved and the protesters earn a bad name and negative public opinion. Moreover many people who in reality support the original cause don’t necessarily join the protest due to time and geographical constraints or the fear of being identified by the government.

One effective way of protest is simply withdrawing all or as much cash as people can from their bank accounts. Even if all of the balance is not withdrawn then at least they should line up at the bank branches and ATM in large numbers to withdraw cash in small amounts so that there action receives attention from the media.

For every dollar we keep in our bank accounts or Term Deposit; the bank ends up lending ten dollars due to the “Fractional Reserve System” in some countries its as high as 30 times, this is credit creation which happens just because we keep our cash in the bank. Now if we withdraw $1 from our bank account and hold it as physical cash, it reverses the process and wipes out 10 to 30 dollars for every one dollar we take out of the Banking system. In today’s world, the economies are extremely fragile and a small change in the flow of money can have big effects on the Monetary and Fiscal policies. It can give the government sleepless nights and can even bring them and the super rich to the brink of bankruptcy. As little as 2% of the population withdrawing cash can wipe out 20% of the money from the economy resulting in increase in interest rates, stock market crash, banks going bankrupt and credit rating of country going down leading to outflow of foreign funds. Most of the effects hurt the Corporations and the super rich as they have most of their money invested in stocks and have huge borrowing under the corporations.

The government can implement something know as “Demonetization” as a quick fix to force people to rush to the banks to deposit their money back into the bank accounts. But the effects of “Demonetization” are very bad for the economy and the country as people lose trust in the currency at international level and hurts the unorganized sector very badly specially in the developing world. India implemented “Demonetization” few years back and is facing one of the worst unemployment in its history. Also “Demonetization” would be a one time and short term tool, as the protesters can start withdrawing the cash as soon as new currency is available. Even if the government restricts the amount of cash a person can withdraw, the protesters can withdraw small amounts from ATMs daily.

Huge line up at the banks is a sign of “Cash Run” which creates panic in the minds of general public about the safety of their money with the bank. This causes the general public to run to the banks to withdraw cash, indirectly supporting the protesters. Also since the banks capital adequacy is managed at the National level, people in other parts of the country would also run to the bank fearing the bank going bankrupt. This will further put pressure on the government and help the protesters.

Close all the banks for few days or do not allow any cash withdrawals for few days. Again this can be only done for a few days and at a huge cost to the economy as closing banks or flow of cash in the economy is like stopping blood circulation in the body. Moreover as soon as the banks open it would go out of control even more as now the businesses and public will rush to the bank to withdraw cash for emergency use out of fear of banks closing again.

Since most of the Super Rich are highly leveraged, they are badly hurt by the rising interest rates, falling Stock market and contracting Money Supply. Foreign investors also prefer to shy away due to deteriorating credit rating of the Country. Once the effects start to show, the Super Rich who ultimately control the Government have to act and either force the Government to accept the demands of the protesters or risk losing power.