Quote Originally Posted by lucy View Post
And who exactly would be interested in voting on the smallest thing? That's simply not necessary. I can tell you what would happen if you tried to have vote on every chickenshit proposal: After a while almost nobody would bother to go to vote.
It's relatively easy to implement elements of direct democracy: You restrict it to elections, new or altered laws and projects that cost at least a certain amount of money and of course also everything that affects the constitution. There can also be an element of referendum, i.e. a law is only put to a public vote if a certain number of people demand it.

Works pretty well around here and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the complexity of a society. I'm pretty sure Switzerland isn't that much more simple than say, England or Germany or Ireland. At least last time I've been abroad I didn't feel much like a tribal cavewoman.
How interesting!! I was not aware that the Swiss system was so different. I must read more about this - or do you happen to have some really good links you'd like to refer to?