Your Money and Your Life: Cash Transaction Reporting Legislation, Neo-Liberal Philosophy and the Governance of the Self

Opponents of enactments such as the Financial Transactions Reports Act 1988 (Cth) and Proceeds of Crime Act 1987 (Cth) have principally based their opposition on the basis that such legislation and the regimes which it supports represent a fundamental attack on traditional domains of ‘privacy’. This paper questions the validity of such small T critiques and suggests that such analyses may play into the hands of ‘New Right’ agendas, rather than acting contrary to them. The assumptions lying behind the introduction of financial transaction reporting (FTR) are examined in the context of a variety of ‘New Right’ analytical frameworks. In particular the paper examines FTR in light of the assumption that commercial actors should be ‘free’ of government intervention to pursue their entrepreneurial activities. In this and other respects it is asserted that FTR acts contrary to, rather than as component of, a New Right agenda. The paper also explores the applicability of the Foucauldian notion of ‘governmentality’ in respect to recent developments in financial reporting and monitoring. The manner in which FTR legislation has influenced the ‘conduct’ of commercial actors is examined in some depth. So too is the question of the potential limits (if any) to the encroachment by the state into the previously ‘private’ conduct of both those who operate and those who use the banking and financial system.