Tag: Switzerland

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Dank der Direct Democracy

For the last week, I’ve had the arduous duty of traveling across beautiful Switzerland, studying their very robust system of voter initiative and referendum. An important issue came up: is so-called “direct democracy” good or bad for business, for economic growth?

Years ago, a Swiss professor suggested that allowing voters a direct say “will ruin the Swiss economy.” (Sound familiar?) But a 2002 analysis by a Swiss business group, Economiesuisse, found that the facts showed otherwise.

Swiss cantons (states) with greater initiative and referendum rights had on average 15 percent greater GDP than those with lesser processes. Municipalities that required budgets to be approved by voter referendum spent 10 percent less per head. Also, public services cost noticeably less in cities and towns with voter initiative rights.

St. Gallen economist Gebhard Kirchgässer put it plainly, “In economic terms, everything is in favor of direct democracy — nothing against.”

But what about in America, where we hear so much about ballot initiatives “ruining” California?

Well, the recent American Legislative Exchange Council report “Rich States, Poor States” found a similar pattern. ALEC ranked all 50 states on a combined measure of their last ten years of economic performance and various factors of “economic outlook.” The top seven spots (and 12 of the top 15) were all held by states that enjoy voter initiative rights.

Ranked 46th, California was the only initiative state in the bottom five states. But even the Golden State’s low rank belongs to the legislature, not voters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall

Wait a Minaret!

In a national referendum, the Swiss just voted to ban the construction of any new minarets in the country.

Minarets are the onion-shaped crowned spires of Islamic mosques, from which Muslims are called to prayer five times each day.

At MarginalRevolution.com, economist Tyler Cowen’s first thought on the Swiss vote was, “Sooner or later an open referendum process will get even a very smart, well-educated country into trouble.”

Cowen doesn’t elaborate on what he means by “open.” But he does raise an important distinction between freedom and democracy.

I’m a huge fan of voter initiative and referendum, but a bigger fan of freedom of religion. Freedom for the individual must come first — no dictator has a right to deny it.

Nor does a revolutionary tribunal.

Neither does the Congress or a state legislature or city council. Or even a solid majority of voters in a referendum.

But Cowen misses something, too. The problem in Switzerland isn’t really their initiative and referendum. Legislators make mistakes, too . . . as do, of course, authoritarian regimes. We generally have far less to fear from government under such voter control.

In fact, though I deplore this vote, the ability of Swiss citizens to directly check the power of their government has helped make it one of the best places in the world to live. That is, one of the freest.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.