I think there's a lot of truth to this. When referendums are seldom, I believe there's a real risk of them turning into spectacle. (And at worst, a weapon for use by nationalists and fascists, like what happened in Germany in the 30s.)

When they are regular, and limited, and like in Switzerland not something pulled on a whim but actually requires some work to call, they might just work. But that also kind of assumes an informed electorate, which is perhaps the main point here – the electorate hasn't been very well informed, either way.

In Switzerland you essentially vote on 2-5 issues every quarter. I think this very regularity has educated the people.

It also helps that by law, if you vote on a proposal that would increase spending, you aso vote on how much your taxes increase. In the case of the Gotard Tunnel it was 1.6% increase in income tax for several decades (if I'm not mistaken). Swiss even vote on buying fighter jets, etc. You would be surprised how well it works.

All that said, the swiss constitution actually states that it is the job of the government to make sure the people have a good standard of living. So many social policies which would be difficult to get through constitutionally in lets say the US are rather simple in the Switzerland.

My only big nitpick in the swiss system is the lack of minority protection an little to no checks and balances by the supreme court on referenda.

Do you find the regularity of referendums naturally makes people more inclined to be educated on the issues at hand? Anecdata obviously, but nevertheless interesting.

That, and the fact that there is no real parliamentary opposition vying for as many populist points. (see my other comments in this thread).

That's not a criticism of diverse cultures, more of states living in relative unanimity being in a bubble.

The difference is that because of direct democracy and every male being armed to the teeth, the government steps in and tries to reduce inequality. That way democracy works again. I mean, Jura used to have straight up ethnic riots.

I have to disagree with you. I have a lot of friends in Sweden that do nothing but complain about the immigration crisis they are facing. In fact one of my Swedish friends is here in the US now looking for a job because immigration has become such an issue in Sweden. She can name many immigrants she knows that are collecting more in welfare from the Swedish Government than what a Doctor makes... That's kinda fucked up if you ask me...

Really? I have seen plenty of claims like that, and every time, they turn out to be false.

And how much exactly does a "doctor" make? Lönestatistik.se lists between 12k and 180k SEK/month. Quite a span.

You've somehow managed to put the phrase "they're stealing both our jobs AND our welfare" unironically in the same sentence, kudos.

All you're doing is portraying yourself as a victim and hijacking the issue back into the bullshit "are we too pc" debate again, which quite frankly most people are already sick of.

If you hang a Swedish flag outside of your house you are automatically deemed a racist by your community. ANY semblance of pro-sweden is viewed as unfair by the immigrant community because they aren't swedish, because they aren't included. They've create a culture of everyone is a victim, citizens and immigrants.

It's really a fucked up situation. A situation I hope never comes to the US.

Is that a cause or an effect though? As in, if your society evolved in such that "most problems" don't exist or aren't serious, then maybe as a consequence there isn't a lot of income disparity. But that doesn't necessarily hold in reverse. Making incomes equal by some method doesn't necessarily make the problems go away.

https://philoofalexandria.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/reynolds-...

The point in discussion, everyone likes equality in a way they having it, without they having to do anything about it. Or in other words making the rich poor in some way. Wasn't this what communism was all about.

The real issue is equality in access to basic resources, which is by and large there already. Beyond this you need to let people win and lose on merit.

You don't go around paying the same money for a haircut and brain surgery. That sort of equality doesn't work. Or to be more precise that's inequality of a very worst kind.

There's also the population size difference. London alone is larger than Switzerland, and that's not even all of England, let alone the whole UK.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/82544.stm

MPs have never been able to carry weapons in to the chamber so if it was a rule it's a bit silly (which doesn't mean it's not true given how silly the rest of the UK democracy is).

It turns out that Switzerland is smaller than the Los Angeles metro area both in GDP and population.

It seems it's comparable in size, but not smaller

Take a look http://mapfrappe.com/?show=40241 (it's a rough sketch of Switzerland but the size should be right)

Edit: yes, I think parent meant population, not actual size

Edit: Also, Wikipedia is possibly a better source for comparing sizes of landmasses.

LA for example is only about 66 percent: http://www.laalmanac.com/education/ed33a.htm

This comes up all the time, especially in "Why can't the US do X?" discussions but isn't it just the equivalent of shouting down with "That will never scale!"

Of course it might not be exactly the same. Maybe the bigger country will need more servers spun up or a tweaked algorithm (to continue the analogy), but just saying a country is smaller doesn't mean things are a No before even being tried. I'm assuming there were railroads across other smaller countries before the US had the transcontinental railroad too.

So, specifically in the context of discussing direct democracy, size does matter.

Even in the relatively recent founding history of the United States, the Federalist Papers discuss and try to address a variety of issues which can lead to this outcome.

And ultimately, I think this is what we see with the Brexit outcome and the current Trump campaign in the US. These aren't "new" concepts...throughout history we can see similar outcomes for similar events with similar reasons.

You raise an excellent point though, which is with the ease of communication in the modern era, why don't we have a more informed public? This is something I have thought about trying to tackle with a side dev project...but the issue is complex and difficult to address directly.

Side note, I believe the Roman Empire was a Republic, not a Direct Democracy :)

Nit pick: the Roman Empire, in one sense, was founded while Rome was still ruled by the Republic; in this sense, the Empire is the metropole-periphery arrangement with Rome proper ruling as the metropole and the various provinces as peripheries.

In the other sense (the sense of the Empire as a form of government within the Rome rather than the relation between Rome and the provinces), the Roman Empire was founded when Caesar Augustus was granted a variety of lifetime powers by the Senate.

In either sense, it was not founded by (or during the life of) Julius Caesar.

I also think this is something that works best on "smaller" scales - that is, not on the scale of France, or the UK, or Germany, but on the scale of Switzerland, Luxemburg, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, ...

Here in the US, I find myself wishing political discourse would rise to the level of the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/swingometer/

Here's a clip from 1979 http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/swingometer/11202.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8646445...

The only model I'd suggest that may be even better than direct democracy is liquid democracy (which is a close relative of direct democracy), but seeing as no countries have adopted it I'd say the Swiss model is the best example of how an effective democracy functions.

For those interested in learning what liquid democracy is, this is a brief introduction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_minaret_referendum,_2009

And that was a constitutional amendment referendum!

Quite far from perfect in my view.

Mathematically, 1-(1/e) percent is the ideal cut off (~63%).

What? can you explain?

And yes, what? Do explain!

Or Prop 13.

On June 6th, 1978, nearly two-thirds of California's voters passed Proposition 13, reducing property tax rates on homes, businesses and farms by about 57%. The Environment Prior to Proposition 13. Prior to Proposition 13, the property tax rate throughout California averaged a little less than 3% of market value.