Cultural relativism aside, I’m sure we can agree on “terrible” if we talk it out. I’m not asking for a “well X country is worse than Y country, so, Y country isn’t THAT bad”. I’d say for this discussion we can go as far back as 1800 for “past” as I’m currently convinced there isn’t a country with a perfect track record going back even that short a time.

  • jenesaisquoi@feddit.org
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    14 hours ago

    The capitalism part is always funny. Depending on who you talk to, it is either a capitalist paradise or a socialist paradise. Probably because it has a lot of both. Roughly 50% of the economy is in the hands of state or state-owned companies. On the other hand, companies can also fire employees without needing a reason. There are large and powerful unions, but there are no rights to strike. There is mandatory state-regulated health insurance for everyone which covers basically everything, but it’s provided through private insurances. Lots capitalism-socialism “contradictions” for those who don’t know how the country actually works, and don’t want to spend the time to do so.

    So people tend to pick what fits their beliefs so that they can criticise the country, usually to make themselves feel better wrt their jealousy of its wealth, stability and beauty.

    • Krzd@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      usually to make themselves feel better wrt their jealousy of its wealth, stability and beauty.

      Yikes. Switzerland is an absolutely capitalist hellhole. Not for their own citizens, yes, but for everyone else. Apart from maybe 1 or 2 island nations, it’s the number one spot to store illegal money and “investments”.

      • jenesaisquoi@feddit.org
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        12 hours ago

        Switzerland implements the OECD standards for automatic tax information exchange with other nations, and has done so for a long time

        • lepinkainen@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          So let’s say a Swiss bank has a literal ton of Nazi gold from 1940s. They would automatically inform other nations of that pile?