5 ms·

Well, as a Swiss I can only state for the record that the government is not the enemy. Essentially: The government is us.

short_sells_poo 7y ago
Swiss resident (but not Swiss citizen) here. I believe Switzerland is a very unique case in that the Swiss have a culture of local (ie. Canton and Commune) level decision making via direct democracy. You grow up wielding a certain power, and you know your decisions matter and will affect your everyday life. This ingrains a close relationship between the citizens and their representatives. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it is possible to just take the Swiss model and transplant it elsewhere. It requires a multi-generational cultural conditioning to develop the civic mind that the Swiss have nurtured. It is also not clear how scalable it is ultimately. It requires a certain amount of enlightenment without which the system would not work.
- CaptainZapp 7y ago
  I agree and you do raise a very important point. One of the hall marks of the Swiss system is to push as much power as possible to as locally as possible. Communities have a lot of power in their decision making as long as such decisions do not violate cantonal (state) or federal laws. It demands, though, quite intense interaction with policies and referendums (there are usually about three referendums about various subjects on local, cantonal and federal level per year) and that said, I would wish that there would be more engagement and a higher ratio of voters actually going to the polls.
- RajuVarghese 7y ago
  It also requires a certain willingness to compromise. In Switzerland one sees is all the way from the local government (gemeinde) up to the top (the federal level). Compromise is not a dirty word here; when politicians do it they are not (usually) looked at as 'giving in to the enemy'.
  - CaptainZapp 7y ago
    That's an extremely insightful comment and very true. Not that it's universally adhered to by all proponents, but generally that's very much the understanding how the system should work. As a for example: Switzerland has a "president". But that doesn't really matter since that changes annually and another member of the federal council gets to be president. Except representative the "president" is not more powerful than any other member of the council.
    - PetitPrince 7y ago
      To further clarify: The president have mostly a ceremonial and diplomatic role. What is considered the Head of the Executive Branch in other countries is collectively represented here by the Federal Council. The Council is made of 7 peoples elected proportionally from the various political party by the Federal Assembly (== parliement). The Council should also by picked so that all regions of Switzerland are represented.
- jariel 7y ago
  "It requires a multi-generational cultural conditioning to develop the civic mind that the Swiss have nurtured. It is also not clear how scalable it is ultimately." It also requires ancient banking roots that enable it to sit on the largest 'pot of gold' in the world (1/3 of the entire world's foreign investment) and put the management surpluses into its treasury. And to add, much of that 'gold' was, and is, owned by some really, really bad people and stashed away in the mountains specifically because said keepers don't have qualms about the origins of said wealth. Surplus money makes a lot of things a lot easier. (Much like the tone of a startup: flush with cash? It's all good times. Going out of business? Death marches!) Switzerland for all its great things is a little like Lux, Norway, and Monaco, which is to say it's hard to separate their exceptionalism from their 'special status' of having huge piles of immense easy per capita wealth. Also, to headline a post indicating 'national events shut down' which is an interesting but not particularly exceptional act, with the statement "We are the most X in the world, etc. etc." is slightly cringe-worthy. A lot of major events have been cancelled in a lot of places with similar risk exposures.
  - Mvandenbergh 7y ago
    You are probably being downvoted because the Swiss system of direct democracy: -has existed for much longer than Swiss banking being particularly significant -existed already when Switzerland was one of the poorest countries in Europe Also, banking is only significant in a small part of Switzerland.
    - jariel 7y ago
      I fail to see any evidence for how 'direct democracy' is the primary, or even relevant social artifact which drove the special directive highlighted in the article (i.e. cancellation of public events), or even any evidence that such 'direct democracy' provides superior social organization. It's really odd that someone would even bring that up. Switzerland was the last country in the modern world to allow women to vote (1971) - and it was direct democracy that specifically blocked women from voting; a popular plebiscite in 1959 (obviously by men only) specifically prohibited women from enfranchisement. So much for popular progress? In Canada, women could vote in 1917. In Turkey, 1934. Finland, 1906. India, 1950. The reason that Switzerland will be able to address the Coronavirus pandemic effectively will not be 'direct democracy', it will be wealth. Switzerland became wealthy largely due to a national economic strategy of banking secrecy, asset protection, and of course enabling evasion of taxation and other authorities. At almost 10% of the economy relative to assets under management, the banking sector in Switzerland is indeed substantially larger than other sectors relative to the sectors of other nations [1]. In the US it's 1%. Canada 2%. Luxembourg, in the last 70-ish years, went from a backwater to even wealthier than Switzerland on a GDP/per-capita basis for similar reasons: it became a tax haven, a policy driven by no less than the outgoing EU Commission head JC Junker who was the PM of Lux. There is no real economy in Monaco, of course, but its high-income status is also derived from its special variation of tax haven. Even Irleand's massive economic renaissance in the last 20 years has largely been driven by asymmetrical tax benefits for large American tech corporations. And of course, Norway's sovereign wealth fund which owns 2% of all public stocks in the world is derived from another existential special economic bit: Oil. When Corona hits, the 'rich' countries will be the safest (I think the US may possibly be an exception), and I think it will have little to do with their relative forms of government. Aside from their deep social ties to China, I think Singapore, for example, would be one of those ideal 'safe places'. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267352/size-of-the-banking-sector-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/267352/size-of-the-banki...
- ht85 7y ago
  > You grow up wielding a certain power, and you know your decisions matter and will affect your everyday life. This ingrains a close relationship between the citizens and their representatives. As a Swiss citizen, I think the feeling of individual power plays a minimal role. Unless you're some kind of political advocate you don't really wield any power and you do know that your single vote will almost never matter. I think the big difference (and the real strength of a direct democracy) is the feeling you have that if a given system is in place, it is because a majority of the people - without discrimination - wanted it. Or, from the other side, that if a majority of people disliked it, they do have the power to change it.
- GuB-42 7y ago
  Also, Switzerland is a small and rich country. The smaller the group, the less hierarchy you need. I think that Switzerland is at the size limit of what direct democracy can support. In fact, it is not fully direct. Wealth also helps. The richer you are, the more you can focus on your role in running the county and make informed decisions. That's because you have all your basic needs covered and don't really need to think about about your survival, leaving you open to higher level activities. The classical example is Athenian democracy (the original). It worked because it involved only about 30000 people of the highest social class. Women and slaves didn't count.
  - cjslep 7y ago
    Swiss democracy and the Old Helvetic Confederacy precedes its modern wealth (early 20th century) by half a millennium (14th/15th centuries?). The old leagues and communes of Graubünden, which had some semblance of communal voting based democracy, was happening in the 1200's or earlier, long before Swiss wealth. What it takes is a way different culture than the modern American mindset.
  - dgellow 7y ago
    Looking at the country's history, you will see that Switzerland isn't rich since a long time. The country is considered successful economically since around 1848[0]. But the confederation is known to have been formed around 1291 (that's the official date that is part of the national myth, the actual date could be slightly different). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history_of_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history_of_Switzerland

short_sells_poo 7y ago

Swiss resident (but not Swiss citizen) here. I believe Switzerland is a very unique case in that the Swiss have a culture of local (ie. Canton and Commune) level decision making via direct democracy. You grow up wielding a certain power, and you know your decisions matter and will affect your everyday life. This ingrains a close relationship between the citizens and their representatives. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it is possible to just take the Swiss model and transplant it elsewhere. It requires a multi-generational cultural conditioning to develop the civic mind that the Swiss have nurtured. It is also not clear how scalable it is ultimately. It requires a certain amount of enlightenment without which the system would not work.

CaptainZapp 7y ago
I agree and you do raise a very important point. One of the hall marks of the Swiss system is to push as much power as possible to as locally as possible. Communities have a lot of power in their decision making as long as such decisions do not violate cantonal (state) or federal laws. It demands, though, quite intense interaction with policies and referendums (there are usually about three referendums about various subjects on local, cantonal and federal level per year) and that said, I would wish that there would be more engagement and a higher ratio of voters actually going to the polls.
RajuVarghese 7y ago
It also requires a certain willingness to compromise. In Switzerland one sees is all the way from the local government (gemeinde) up to the top (the federal level). Compromise is not a dirty word here; when politicians do it they are not (usually) looked at as 'giving in to the enemy'.
- CaptainZapp 7y ago
  That's an extremely insightful comment and very true. Not that it's universally adhered to by all proponents, but generally that's very much the understanding how the system should work. As a for example: Switzerland has a "president". But that doesn't really matter since that changes annually and another member of the federal council gets to be president. Except representative the "president" is not more powerful than any other member of the council.
  - PetitPrince 7y ago
    To further clarify: The president have mostly a ceremonial and diplomatic role. What is considered the Head of the Executive Branch in other countries is collectively represented here by the Federal Council. The Council is made of 7 peoples elected proportionally from the various political party by the Federal Assembly (== parliement). The Council should also by picked so that all regions of Switzerland are represented.
jariel 7y ago
"It requires a multi-generational cultural conditioning to develop the civic mind that the Swiss have nurtured. It is also not clear how scalable it is ultimately." It also requires ancient banking roots that enable it to sit on the largest 'pot of gold' in the world (1/3 of the entire world's foreign investment) and put the management surpluses into its treasury. And to add, much of that 'gold' was, and is, owned by some really, really bad people and stashed away in the mountains specifically because said keepers don't have qualms about the origins of said wealth. Surplus money makes a lot of things a lot easier. (Much like the tone of a startup: flush with cash? It's all good times. Going out of business? Death marches!) Switzerland for all its great things is a little like Lux, Norway, and Monaco, which is to say it's hard to separate their exceptionalism from their 'special status' of having huge piles of immense easy per capita wealth. Also, to headline a post indicating 'national events shut down' which is an interesting but not particularly exceptional act, with the statement "We are the most X in the world, etc. etc." is slightly cringe-worthy. A lot of major events have been cancelled in a lot of places with similar risk exposures.
- Mvandenbergh 7y ago
  You are probably being downvoted because the Swiss system of direct democracy: -has existed for much longer than Swiss banking being particularly significant -existed already when Switzerland was one of the poorest countries in Europe Also, banking is only significant in a small part of Switzerland.
  - jariel 7y ago
    I fail to see any evidence for how 'direct democracy' is the primary, or even relevant social artifact which drove the special directive highlighted in the article (i.e. cancellation of public events), or even any evidence that such 'direct democracy' provides superior social organization. It's really odd that someone would even bring that up. Switzerland was the last country in the modern world to allow women to vote (1971) - and it was direct democracy that specifically blocked women from voting; a popular plebiscite in 1959 (obviously by men only) specifically prohibited women from enfranchisement. So much for popular progress? In Canada, women could vote in 1917. In Turkey, 1934. Finland, 1906. India, 1950. The reason that Switzerland will be able to address the Coronavirus pandemic effectively will not be 'direct democracy', it will be wealth. Switzerland became wealthy largely due to a national economic strategy of banking secrecy, asset protection, and of course enabling evasion of taxation and other authorities. At almost 10% of the economy relative to assets under management, the banking sector in Switzerland is indeed substantially larger than other sectors relative to the sectors of other nations [1]. In the US it's 1%. Canada 2%. Luxembourg, in the last 70-ish years, went from a backwater to even wealthier than Switzerland on a GDP/per-capita basis for similar reasons: it became a tax haven, a policy driven by no less than the outgoing EU Commission head JC Junker who was the PM of Lux. There is no real economy in Monaco, of course, but its high-income status is also derived from its special variation of tax haven. Even Irleand's massive economic renaissance in the last 20 years has largely been driven by asymmetrical tax benefits for large American tech corporations. And of course, Norway's sovereign wealth fund which owns 2% of all public stocks in the world is derived from another existential special economic bit: Oil. When Corona hits, the 'rich' countries will be the safest (I think the US may possibly be an exception), and I think it will have little to do with their relative forms of government. Aside from their deep social ties to China, I think Singapore, for example, would be one of those ideal 'safe places'. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267352/size-of-the-banking-sector-in-selected-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/267352/size-of-the-banki...
ht85 7y ago
> You grow up wielding a certain power, and you know your decisions matter and will affect your everyday life. This ingrains a close relationship between the citizens and their representatives. As a Swiss citizen, I think the feeling of individual power plays a minimal role. Unless you're some kind of political advocate you don't really wield any power and you do know that your single vote will almost never matter. I think the big difference (and the real strength of a direct democracy) is the feeling you have that if a given system is in place, it is because a majority of the people - without discrimination - wanted it. Or, from the other side, that if a majority of people disliked it, they do have the power to change it.
GuB-42 7y ago
Also, Switzerland is a small and rich country. The smaller the group, the less hierarchy you need. I think that Switzerland is at the size limit of what direct democracy can support. In fact, it is not fully direct. Wealth also helps. The richer you are, the more you can focus on your role in running the county and make informed decisions. That's because you have all your basic needs covered and don't really need to think about about your survival, leaving you open to higher level activities. The classical example is Athenian democracy (the original). It worked because it involved only about 30000 people of the highest social class. Women and slaves didn't count.
- cjslep 7y ago
  Swiss democracy and the Old Helvetic Confederacy precedes its modern wealth (early 20th century) by half a millennium (14th/15th centuries?). The old leagues and communes of Graubünden, which had some semblance of communal voting based democracy, was happening in the 1200's or earlier, long before Swiss wealth. What it takes is a way different culture than the modern American mindset.
- dgellow 7y ago
  Looking at the country's history, you will see that Switzerland isn't rich since a long time. The country is considered successful economically since around 1848[0]. But the confederation is known to have been formed around 1291 (that's the official date that is part of the national myth, the actual date could be slightly different). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history_of_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history_of_Switzerland