Switzerland is rich because it's a hub for international trade and finance, and therefore has an "effective market" that is much larger than their actual popula

Switzerland is rich because it's a hub for international trade and finance, and therefore has an "effective market" that is much larger than their actual population. Same was true of England in its heyday. If you cut off international trade and finance Switerland's economy would be a tiny fraction of what it is today. It's strangely difficult to get intelligent people to understand the basic concept of more people -> bigger economy. Intelligent people a lot of times think that if the logic for something is too obvious and simple it must be false, because if it was true, their favorite intellectual / institution would be saying it. That's why a lot of times, lower status people actually have more accurate perception of politics than higher status people, because all they have is common sense and their wits, and not some status driven perspective on "the truth", because by definition lower class people aren't winning status games so all they are left with is the truth.