Indirect Democracy — You’ve been duped

Photo by Aditya Joshi on Unsplash

Let me start with a bit of background information. I live in Switzerland. We vote on 2–5 issues each quarter. This can be anything. There are insignificant ones such as “Should all cows have horns?” or “Do we want Wolves in Switzerland or not?”. But also much more relevant topics: Taxation of Companies, Retirement age, CO2 laws, Immigration, Affordable Housing etc.

It’s a powerful tool for people to participate in politics. But here’s the crux.

We’ve had in recent years a few interesting referendums. For example Corporation Liability Initiative. Roughly said it would’ve meant that every company is responsible to ensure all their suppliers of raw materials and other products have to adhere to swiss laws (employment- and environmental law).

Or more recently: Make Animal Husbandry more strict. Basically only allow organic label standards (Bio-Suisse), which are pretty high.

I’m getting frustrated because we seem to be running into the same problem each time:

Most people agree. In principle, it would be a good thing to accept this new law. It would be the right thing to do.

But.

What’s the point of Switzerland doing it, if no one else does?