Some libertarian impressions regarding my recent visit to Switzerland
April 11th, 2011
To an American libertarian Switzerland might just seem like Shangri-La. I was fascinated to be learning more about the Swiss people and their land while I was there for my first time last week!
Switzerland is a defensive stronghold surrounded by gorgeous obstacles called mountains which are riddled with tunnels fused to blow should an invasion occur. The people generally have a republican gun culture, possibly even more so than the United States, and reserve military personnel keep their battle rifles at home (though this was recently challenged, referendum saw the policy reapproved).
Despite being square in the middle of Europe’s perennial battlefields the Swiss have managed to stay neutral, becoming rich in the process by providing a safe and secretive zone to store and grow capital and keep it from becoming obliterated. It doesn’t appear that they make too much distinction in whose capital they are storing, as their banks protected Jewish money during the Holocaust, as well as the money of all sorts of current and historical baddies, state actors and private.
They have a system of federalism second in fame only to America’s. Their cantons (provinces) retain a substantial degree of sovereignty, though it has been progressively weakened since 1848 when they switched from being a confederacy to a federation. This process, emanating from religious differences between Catholics and Protestants, led to a civil war in which the secessionists in the German cantons were forced back into social contract “agreement” with the central Swiss state (controlled by the cultural Italians and French of the Swiss community).
So while I was attending the Interlibertarians conference for Swiss and Italian libertarian activists in Lugano as a representative of the Language of Liberty Institute I was only too happy to ask plenty of questions regarding Swiss history, culture and their struggles to promote our shared values.
Many of these Swiss values (coincidentally libertarian) which I was exploring are currently under attack, as the major political parties and the left in general seek to cede Swiss independence to the European Union, constrict the republican gun culture and the increasingly statist banking system (the biggest bank, United Bank of Switzerland, was recently bailed out by the Swiss state) as well as suffocate the federalism which has generally protected against the problems of centralized power much of the rest of Europe now faces. Not to mention, Switzerland has one of the most ridiculous agriculture policies in the whole world from what I was told, with farm subsidies approaching 100,000 Swiss franks per year per farmer. (This statistic is unverified, however.)
While hearing people talk about these concepts I began a meta-discussion in my head about why Swiss values are so different from the rest of Europe and the world at large. Where do these self-reliant and republican virtues come from? (I received some insight on the topic in the context of Switzerland but am still working through the origins of these ideas. If anyone out in cyberspace has thoughts on the matter I’d appreciate your sharing them with us!)
The Swiss Alps have historically been a rather harsh place to live, with Swiss peasants combing out a meager agrarian and pastoral existence since time immemorial. Neighboring monarchies rarely found it worthwhile to venture into the higher elevations to try to extract tribute from a bunch of hardheaded and impoverished mountain peasants. In fact, the story of William Tell goes far beyond his precise marksmanship of shooting an apple off of his son’s head. He was a (possibly mythological) resister of 14th century Habsburg domination and is now a legendary figure of Swiss folklore for his efforts toward their enduring independence! Their ability to prevent their own domination means that the Swiss people never had to endure the painful transition from being thoroughly-colonized imperial subjects and evolving into republican citizens. They were always relatively free men and women, which very likely strongly informs the libertarian values of the Swiss culture.
Interestingly, the Swiss weren’t always noninterventionist though. In 1515 a Swiss army descended upon the city of Milan. Defeated by the French they returned home to meditate on the costs of trying to steal the things of others through conquest, and shortly saw the lesson reaffirmed by the incredibly brutal Thirty Years’ War. Less out of abstract philosophical principle, it appears that Swiss noninterventionism emerged out of a practical learning process that resulted from their failed participation in and their keen observance of the folly of war.
The modern Swiss, descendants of those lesson-learning and unapologetically independent mountain peasants, still retain a culture and attitude which is inward-looking, frugal, clean, reliable and down-to-Earth. While urban centers around the world generally have a more universal and cosmopolitan culture, traditional expressions of identity still find their exercise in the provinces, and how lucky we are for it!
Meeting representatives of groups like the Swiss People’s Party, Liberales Institut, Institut Laissez-Faire and many others intrigued me and made me varying degrees of optimistic for competition in governance in its progressively more decentralized forms.
Troubled as all places, Americans shouldn’t idealize Switzerland as a libertarian utopia, but neither should European libertarians lose all hope for their increasingly cartelized continent. Switzerland is still living its historical legacy and should be able to continue to grow into the values which we all cherish; yodeling of their positive influence from the mountain tops.
… what? You didn’t think you were going to get through a whole blog post about Switzerland without one alpine-related quip, now did you? Rookie mistake.
