On Politics

I am a German living in Switzerland. I grew up in a family that discussed politics at the dinner table, and at pretty much any other occasion. We are not, I believe, particularly unique in this; politics seems to be a popular topic amongst Germans according to my bubble™. That said, it is my impression that there is simultaneously a frustration with politics in Germany; the sensation that nothing ever meaningfully changes anyway.

When I moved to Switzerland, my appetite for conversations about politics faded completely, at least in the form I grew up with. I do still discuss political issues with friends, but they are for the most part scoped to an upcoming vote. They have never - not a single time - been about a political party or personality, nor about deep yet abstract political philosophy.

This article outlines why I believe that is the case.

The Culture of Political Debate

Growing up, I went to France or Italy on vacation a lot, as one does living in South Germany. Getting there often involved crossing Switzerland by car, and I distinctly remember listening to the radio during one such drive through Switzerland (yes, I am that old). Even as a teenager, I noticed how differently political issues were publicly discussed in Switzerland compared to Germany.

In the political section of the hourly news, the moderators explained an item that was part of an upcoming vote, and then called upon a virtual podium panel for comment. The panelists were representatives of various colours: communal politicians, local organisers, and interest group leaders. And all of them respectfully argued their position on the item in question extremely concretely. At no point did the conversation devolve into a debate about abstract political ideals or ideological principles. It was strikingly real: these were people with clearly formed opinions about a concrete issue, discussing the pros and cons of a specific implementation of legislation.

Political debate in Germany, whether it is in the media, in parliament speeches or at the family dinner table, is almost never like this. Once one has witnessed the Swiss version, the overwhelming majority of public political discourse in Germany feels performative. On the rare occasion when legislation or proposals thereof are discussed in some detail, it's a purely informative presentation: party A is proposing X, party B is proposing Y, they hold opposing views and are either trying to find compromise or publicly voicing their opposition, depending on whether they are in a ruling coalition together or not. Rarely, if ever, is the discussion not one sided; rarely, if ever, is either side willing to analyze the actual pros and cons of their position; rarely, if ever, does one come away feeling better informed.

Examples are Plenty

There are many examples one might use to illustrate this point. I'm not going to provide you with links, mostly because a single link juxtaposing the debate on a similar topic wouldn't do much good to support my point. If you are so inclined, a good place to start is the debate around the retirement system: both Switzerland and Germany are ageing societies with a growing deficit in funding their respective retirement systems, and both have systems relying partially on a "generational contract" where current retirees receive money supplied by current contributors, and partially by a savings-based private component. There are more parallels and some differences, but the important bit here is how the debate is being held.

In Germany, the debate revolves around restructuring the private component (which has been a known weak point for two decades now), pushing a private but partially tax exempt component that has existed for a while but isn't yet very popular, and introducing a small stock market based component into the mix (called "Aktienrente"). In Switzerland, the private and tax exempt components are already much stronger and widely used, and the stock market component has made up about half of the mandatory contribution system for decades already; the debate is about raising the value added tax (VAT) to close the gap in the "generational contract" component that is expected to widen in about twenty years time.

In Germany, the points of debate are about whether a stock market component is "secure" - the fear being that stock market based investment with public money is "gambling the retirement funds" - and whether private components should exist in the first place or if they just exist to feed an industry that heavily lobbies for them. In Switzerland, the points of debate about how much of a VAT adjustment is really necessary given past such measures and their realized outcomes, and whether the gap can be more easily closed using other funds, perhaps raised from industries which are specifically strong and profitable in Switzerland.

There are more examples like this, but this is a good one given the parallels. It goes without saying that you should take my words with a grain of salt - I'm trying to describe my subjective perception of something that is inherently vague¹, and my summary of both the debates and the points of debate above are not exhaustive, nor definitive. I am trying to convey a sense of what political discourse feels like in Switzerland and Germany respectively, not providing scientific proof of anything.

Nothing is Perfect

None of this means that Switzerland is perfect and Germany sucks when it comes to political discourse. There are prominent examples of rather heated, much less level headed political debate in Switzerland, particularly when it comes to questions of joining the European Union or immigration. You might refer to the popular initiative 'No to a Switzerland with 10 million! (Sustainability Initiative)', which proposes the idea of limiting the Swiss population to a maximum of 10 million - sitting at 9.1 or so at the time of writing - with first countermeasures bound to be deployed at 9.5 million. The initiative makes a good number of claims which are vaguely substantiated at best, whereas the opponents of it make claims which are based in numbers but don't really consider the intangibles of the issue. The debate around the initiative "feels" more like German political discourse than what I'm now used to from Switzerland; it's maybe still not quite as loaded with plain xenophobia on one and idealism on the other side as the immigration debate tends to be in Germany, but it's definitely not the same style of discourse one experiences in the context of the above example of the retirement system.

Conversely, there are forums in Germany where politics is debated in a meaningful way, too. I've experienced this mostly in the communal context, where concrete budget decisions are made based on the needs of the community or city. It's not always a level headed or fair discussion there, nor are the decisions always made in a way that makes immediate sense to me, but at least the debate tends to be very concrete and largely (!) devoid of ideology. Other places where this can be found are inner-party discussions on a certain level, and certain blogs and Youtube channels that do their best to shine light on topics without the taint of abstract principle and ideology. But alas, the public discourse dominate these various forums do not.

Conclusion

I personally no longer find much value in discussing politics in the abstract. It makes it easy to agree or disagree with one another based on the exchange of vague opinions, and the actual issue is lost in translation and semantics more often than not. This isn't a good use of my or anybody's time; it doesn't inform political action in any way, nor does it meaningfully shape collective opinion in society. As such, unless discussing a concrete proposal that is up for a vote, I prefer to abstain from political discourse and keep my vague opinions to myself.