I didn’t realize the US or Switzerland were authoritarian dictatorships. /s
We’re talking the goals and ideals of a liberal democracy, not closed, authoritarian state built on one family rule and mythology of said family. Apples and oranges if you ask me.
If you’re working an internship that is, while unfortunate, kind of par-for-the-course.
My comment pertains to entry level full-time jobs. Take supermarket cashier, for example, At Migros and Coop, that pays just shy of CHF 4000 (gross). Now that’s barely enough to live on in Zurich, but nevertheless, it is a living wage in that it’ll allow you to maintain your dignity as a human being.
I’m not sure there’s a legal minimum salary in Switzerland. It is customary, however, for employers to pay a living wage along the lines just mentioned - at minimum. If they don’t, they’ll be publicly shamed (assuming they have a large enough footprint for the media to take notice).
Your wage falls way outside of that… but again, it’s an internship, for which there appear to apply different rules - something that’s not unique to Switzerland, btw.
Also: If you’re struggling, you should speak up and explain your situation to your employer. That is also something that’s part of the culture here. Be polite about it, obviously, but explain your case - perhaps they are willing to give you a bump.
You’re welcome 
I also wanted to mention another aspect of the foreigner experience here that reminds me a bit of the US - I think people who were born here, and specifically those that are part of a well-established community (Turkish, Italian, Portuguese, Serbian to name a few) are held up to a much higher standard than those who arrive here later on. In my case, I was 16 when I moved to Switzerland and people keep complimenting me on my French and on how well integrated I am because they automatically assume that it was harder for me. So there is a tendency to want to reward what is perceived as “hard work”, and thus people who are born here and are realistically speaking as swiss as the swiss themselves sometimes have to go above and beyond to prove that they really “deserve” the citizenship.
Just one of the many quirks of this charming place I guess. When I’m in work meetings with colleagues from the German and Italian cantons, they’re usually done in English and I keep wondering how and why this country is still functioning. But somehow it keeps chugging along just fine :)
Where I would take a little issue on this is that nowhere does it say Switzerland is a liberal democracy. I think it has a democratic system which is very pervasive and about which there is a lot of agreement, but it is liberal in the 19th century sense - that is to say, supportive of an extended bourgeois franchise and extensive consultation, but not necessarily liberal in the sense of being signed up to the general rights of non-citizens. Athenian democracy, after all, was bang onside slavery, repression of women and the subjugation of any smaller city-states they could subjugate. As I think I remarked above, democracy doesn’t mean nice. It’s just that there’s a scale from ana-
and auto- through oligo- to demo-, but at the end of the day people are making decisions about other people that the other people may not like, even anarchists.
Indeed! Regarding identity, when I first got here I was very confused by the abundance of swiss flags everywhere (including above some kind of swamp… or pond… next to where I lived). Sometimes they’re painted on a mountain side as well. As if they were afraid we’d forget who is hosting us.
I do appreciate direct democracy although it does not always work the way we want it to (i.e. very bad no good referendum results). At least it encourages people to keep themselves somewhat informed on relevant issues, and creates dialogue. I’m mostly trying for the citizenship so that I can vote at the national level and then bitch about the results if it doesn’t go my way 
According to wikipedia, it’s a Federal Republic. So is the US. So they have even more in common, technically speaking.
My point was that BOTH countries have more in common with each other than with North Korea, politically speaking. Apples and oranges.
No, it isn’t unique. Since the Agenda 2010, Germany has seen the “Generation Praktilum”, which now spans about two generations IMO.
But without going into too much detail, in Switzerland and elsewhere, internships ate used to undercut market prices. Frankly, my boss couldn’t afford to pay me more, he is already earning less through the project than I cost. He made this decision willingly to get into a certain market segment. Ad did I when I took the internship.
Trouble is: as far as ib could find out so far, this is very regularly b the case here.
When I see the weird political posters and leaflets accompanying many decisions, I often think of misinformation rather than information, but I know what you mean.
I don’t participate in this processes, and have no vote, of course. But with the historical background of the Weimar Republic, as a person from the “large canton”, I have my reservations. I used to favour referendum decisions, and actively campaigned for them in the past. But voting yes or no on complex issues doesn’t have the same appeal to me now as when I was young …
See, you can easily reject citizenship for your neighbour based on weird questions like in this case. It affects one person, so that might be weird and possibly unfair, but the damage is limited. One more Wimbledon win by Federer, and it’s forgotten already (qed…). But migration in general, the “*Ausschaffungsinitiative” or decisions on how the Swiss franc is going to be backed (“Echtgeldinitiative” I think they call it), or even the decision on nuclear energy? That can horribly go haywire if populists prevail. It somehow works, but I am not sure people have really informed opinions on many issues…
Still, it’s quite interesting to watch and discuss with some people outside my own political sphere. Many views surprise me, which, I think, is a good thing (for me). I live and learn…
I’m thinking more in terms of “influencing countries I am not a citizen of” and the comparison of North Korea has two points of reference.
First, the citizens of NK have no meaningful ability to speak out against or to change their system or to emigrate. The Swiss have all three, and have not chosen to change their immigration and citizenship policies. If those policies are a result of general public consensus, they’re not liable to change them because bloggers from the USA, or Canada, or the UK start nagging them about it.
Second, over a seventy year period of rule by the Kims, the rest of the world resisted them just once, when they invaded the South. Other than that they’ve been able to do as they choose. If the world’s democracies choose to let the Kim family’s totalitarian kleptocracy rule as they have for seven decades, do you think anyone’s going to take any action against the Swiss because one of their cantons blackballed someone??
A good point. I may start to describe my political philosophy as “19th century liberalism”.
Well, why not? How else are people (not just the Swiss) supposed to start to consider whether the way they do things is right if all they get is feedback from themselves?
They don’t have to change but why shouldn’t people be able to express what they think about it?
Also:
By your definition, none of those things is true. If there was a sufficient consensus that what was happening in North Korea was wrong the Kims would be hanging from lamp posts in minutes.
Um, so far, people have limited themselves to saying they think it’s wrong and that maybe the Swiss should reconsider their system. No one that I can see has suggested doing anything else.
I’m pretty sure people have been saying that North Korea is behaving badly quite a lot over the years.
As I said upthread, every non-Swiss has the right to bitch about Switzerland, and every Swiss has the right to pay it no mind.
I think that a major part of the reason is because of China. They want stability and they certainly don’t want a refugee crisis that a war would bring. There have been plenty of cases where we’ve not forcibly changed another country’s government (even there are times we have). There were various justifications and strategic reasons for doing so.
So we can’t even talk about our opinions on it because we’re not going to march in and make them change their immigration policy? And who the hell was talking about that anyway? Why would anyone want to invade Switzerland because they have some problems with racism. But ignoring it won’t make it go away, either. Talking about it might do some good.
It’s the kind of attitude that you see during elections, why vote if nothing is going to change?
While that’s not exactly a direct comparison the general point of it applies. Discussing it more than likely won’t affect anything that happens in Switzerland, but if everyone anywhere took that approach that seems fairly regressive to me. We can have a meaningful discussion about it, as i’m sure other people might be having in other parts of the world. Over time this might impact some change
No, you aren’t. You are - as am I - a citizen of a nation that’s a member of the European Union. If your country decides to leave, poof there goes your EU citizenship.
Have they? In Germany every 5th Turk is on social benefits. That’s a worrisome number for people who didn’t come as refugees.
Yes. Usually attorneys and judges, who challenged and killed of these rules. Like opening marriage to same sex partners.
I’m not dissing the US system. It apparently works and great social advancements came from there or were adopted there faster, compared to other large or semi large countries.
But it feels kind of strange that it’s so often that big changes start with the Supreme Court ruling and the legislation following, while it’s reversed over here, where legislators make or change laws (in some cases years or decades behind reality) and then waiting if someone challenges these laws right away with the Supreme Court.
Huh? They basically have to conform with nearly all rules cooked up in Brussels with having no say in parliament there and they pay nearly a billion a year. That’s not counting their share in transeuropean traffic projects.
It may be additional to citizenship of the member state but it is real. A lot of remainers here in the UK (myself included) are angry about potentially losing it.
In general, many have created wealth.
Not so much personal wealth, however.
While I agree it is a worrisome number, your statement seems to imply that this is the immigrants fault. I assume you are familiar with the unfortunate situation in regard to education among people of Turkish descent in Germany. Educational statistics, as far as I am aware, are improving since the late 1990s, especially in regard to female third generation inmigrants.
Unquestioned is the contribution of Turkish immigrants to overall wealth in Germany. That they didn’t participate of that wealth proportionally is a problem.
Which has nothing to do, by the way, with shopping habits.
