Before anyone starts with a “the problem with idea X” argument they should do a little research first. Rushkoff’s last book counters most of your points and in most cases completely demolishes them.

Rushkoff has been very clear that a shift to a decentralized currency system would have a devastating effect on elderly populations who depend on savings. However, making this change won’t come through a massive, instantaneous shift. This is something that must be accomplished through small local DECENTRALIZED action. It’s more of a social problem than a policy one.

I’ve read a few of his books and what he said about the plague makes perfect sense, but it’s just not explained fully in this 15 minute speech. In the late middle ages people had devised local currencies that allowed the rise of the middle class and an abundance in the lower classes. Populations increased and there was a reliance on this new localized economy. There were also common lands that peasants could farm and sell the crops for local currencies. When the monarchs banned localized currency these economic systems collapsed. To make things worse monarchs sealed off the common lands (most notably the enclosure in England) in order to graze sheep for wool or raise other cash crops. This devastated the middle and lower classes and there was a dramatic rise in the population of the “wandering poor”. Large groups of wandering malnourished poor living in unsanitary conditions provided the perfect conditions for a plague.