Re: Why Switzerland succeeds

On 7/31/2026 1:12 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:08:01 -0400, Wilson <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> 
>>
>> Switzerland has 26 cantons, each with its own constitution, tax rates,
>> and laws, and the result is one of the wealthiest, most stable countries
>> on earth. That is not a coincidence.
> 
> Let them try it with us politicians.
 >
A top-poster, eh?

The US is soaking in economic success and wealth.

Its one of the wealthiest, most stable countries on earth with 50 
states, each with its own constitution, tax rates, and laws. The US is a 
constitutional federal republic and a representative democracy.

The success of the United States and Switzerland is similar through 
strong economic innovation, robust institutional frameworks, and 
decentralized governance.

Both nations consistently rank near the top of global economic and 
business competitiveness charts by fostering environments that reward 
high productivity and enterprise.
 >
> 
>> You want to understand why Swiss GDP per capita sits around $92,000
>> while the EU average hovers near $37,000? Start here. Cantons compete
>> for residents and businesses the same way firms compete for customers.
>> Zug kept its corporate tax rate at roughly 11.9%, attracted commodity
>> traders and crypto firms, and watched its population and tax revenues
>> grow. Cantons that taxed aggressively lost mobile capital and productive
>> citizens to neighbors with lighter burdens. This is Tiebout competition
>> working in real life, not a textbook diagram.
>>
>> The federal government in Bern handles defense, monetary policy, and
>> some foreign affairs. Everything else defaults downward. Cantons set
>> income taxes. Communes set property levies. Citizens in Appenzell
>> Innerrhoden voted on local laws by a show of hands in the Landsgemeinde,
>> an open-air assembly, until 1990 for most matters. The feedback loop
>> between decision-makers and the people paying for those decisions stays
>> tight. That tightness disciplines spending in ways no central auditor
>> ever will.
>>
>> Free market thinkers have stressed this for generations: political units
>> must be small enough that exit is credible. When the cost of leaving a
>> bad jurisdiction drops, politicians face real consequences for bad
>> policy. Switzerland kept that cost low by design. A business or family
>> in Basel-Stadt dissatisfied with cantonal policy drives forty minutes to
>> Baselland. No visa. No language barrier. No bureaucratic labyrinth. Just
>> a move.
>>
>> The EU spent decades building the opposite architecture, consolidating
>> regulatory power in Brussels and eliminating the jurisdictional
>> diversity that forces governments to stay honest. Switzerland refused to
>> join. Its per-capita wealth, its low public debt, and its functional
>> civil society arrived because the Swiss preserved the one institutional
>> feature every centralized state destroys first: the credible right to leave.
>>
>> https://x.com/Handre/status/2083122999721353311?s=20