It is absolutely ridiculous how the western elite insists on their people being too stupid for popular votes such as referendums and initiatives as we know them from Switzerland. Do the risks really outweigh the benefits? They don't want the people to be able to introduce stupid laws that might cause chaos, or enrich the poor on the back of the rich, i don't know.
What's sure is that the western leaders can refuse popular voting rights to their people. None of them is asking for these popular voting rights, for direct democracy, for referenda, for initiatives, at least not openly. You only hear the elite talking about the impossibility of such introduction. So you could come to the conclusion that the western populations seem not yet fed up with their leaders, no wonder, have they brought seventy years of peace and economic growth and prosperity since the second world war.
It seems to work to have the population guided by an exclusive club of the elected and economic and cultural leaders. The question is whether the western elite is prepared for the challenges of the 21st century: climate change, migration, inequality, aging and the rise of Asian powers such as India and China.
Maybe western people will lose out in the battles to come and ask in their desperate situation for better government to improve their wellbeing. Further revolutions might loom as we see them in corrupt developing countries. My hope would be that some movements would be inspired by Swiss polity and want to mirror our democratic system.
Maybe not. But i find it outrageous how aristocratic the western elite still thinks.
Even more of a mystery is the question of collegial rule. The western elite is strongly persuaded that it takes a strong leader to rule a country, to be president or prime-minister. Only such can it be assured that there is no chaos in the streets, that the people follows the rule of law, that there is order. Through the authority of that one person. Autocratic!
In reality we see that strong leaders often divide the nation into two camps: the ruling party and the opposition. Rarely is there a unifying person. And with that division comes the difficulty of finding sensible compromises that bring the nation forward, reduce inequality, fight climate change and enable a peaceful together with other civilisations. It's not that it's impossible as many western examples prove me wrong. I say mainly because the people isn't stupid and often elects good leaders. Change in western countries achieves solving some problems that bring some relief, but i think it's always running behind time and never enough to elevate the nations to broader prosperity.
Some examples such as the nordic countries exist where western style democracy worked well. But just as Switzerland, they might have profited of being geographically close to main Europe and being able such to profit from the boom of the last seventy years promoted by our ally America. The question is how they would have developed if ruled by collegial councils or how Switzerland would have performed under presidential rule.
But except in some nordic European countries, I see many losers in this world of the predominant western elitarian unipolar political system because it's a way of doing politics where the elite betrays the people by refusing it popular rights and consensus seeking collegial rule, preferring to enjoy the benefits of their position against the helpless population as much as their top-down style allows.
The Swiss system isn't immune of being mislead by its elite, yet such decisions can be picked up by one of the political parties who - in the helvetic system - can swim against the current and launch a referendum while at the same time being part of the executive. Otherwise said, through referendums the elite can be blocked and through the directorial government style it is ensured the main parties sit at the same table and discuss progress.
It's a system that was born in refusal to the rule of an unjust king. During its beginning the Helvetic Confederation didn't have a central government and the cantons only accepted one because Napoleon imposed it. We kept it once he had left. With its seven equal chairs it allows the different regions, religions and languages of Switzerland to be represented and keep the balance between them.
I don't understand this world. Not even democratic presidents - who pretend to speak for the people - can offer change in the form of direct democracy or a collegial government, and The Economist - an educated and progressive newspaper - is far from advocating such. Even we, the Helvètes, we ourselves neutral as we are, we aren't openly promoting our government style to other countries, even to ones in similar positions with diverse cultures as in Switzerland, several languages or religions, small and in the middle of geopolitical warfare as the Swiss used to be. The mainstream believes that direct democracy and a directorial executive can only work in Switzerland. Nobody really knows why. Is it tradition or culture? Surely there is some path dependency that led us and our leaders to take the decisions we took. Nothing can allow though to conclude as some Swiss* and expats think loudly or silently, that other people of other nations wouldn't be sufficiently educated yet ; too dumb or politically naive, unready or unripe for direct democracy and needy for a uniting president, that is somehow unable to live peacefully together under the rule of a collegial council ( as if could under the rule of a strong leader ).
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*geopolitical idiots,
officially too ashamed for the past errors that have made, the impurities that have shown,
and realistic about their ability to commit future errors,
thus pre-emptively considering themselves not being in a position to know better for others : pure Swiss...
12-january-2o2o
