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Lois Bujold has referred to California -- or California before it got "wonky" -- as the inspiration for Beta Colony. "Very politically correct, very liberal, with some hidden illiberalities." Big on sexual freedom and education -- 60s and 70s California, and Pat Brown's California of the nearly free colleges, not the dying school system of Proposition 13 California. And in universe Beta is an America colony, and the only American colony.
Nonetheless, the more I learn about Switzerland and think about Beta, the more the two seem to line up in my head. Coincidence, my selective filters, or the natural result of highly democratic states? You may judge.
Government:
Switzerland is famously the only direct democratic country in the world; day to day government is conventionally representative, apart from a collegiate seven-person executive, but the people have a real power to check laws and propose their own, voting 4 times a year on maybe an average of 12 referenda or initiatives per year.
Beta's government has never been relevant enough to be even sketched, apart from being democratic of some sort, but we know that "Betan votes" are proverbial to both Aral and Miles, and Miles considers it radically egalitarian compared to other "so-called democracies" like Vervain. Cordelia's crew votes to ignore its captain's orders. An easy way of cashing this out would be that most democratic planets are representative democracies, while Beta has a strong direct component -- at least Swiss in level, if not stronger.
It works in another way: while the US itself has no federal direct democracy, half of its states do, more so than most other countries. As an American colony it's reasonable for Beta to start with such mechanisms; as the only American colony, it's reasonable for it to be unique in this.
Science:
Beta is famously advanced and a leader in research, as advanced as Earth -- the richest and most populous planet -- with key discoveries such as uterine replicators and artificial gravity, a persistent lead in weapon design, and a leader in biotech.
Switzerland is not so famous, but when I dug around regarding the "in five hundred years Switzerland invented the cuckoo clock", I found the Swiss have many famous scientists and engineers to their name. More rigorously, look at Nobel laureates per capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_laureates_per_capita Of countries big enough to be significant, Switzerland and Sweden have a sizable lead, 24% more than Denmark or Austira. A third more than Britain, twice as many as Israel, nearly three times as many as Germany or the USA, which I would have thought led in research funding.
Swiss arms I don't know much about, but they have an export industry up to 0.42% of exports, largely to advanced countries like the US. They also have an ongoing fight about selling arms to countries low in human rights, and whether they should be loser about selling defensive systems. I imagine that's a recurrent fight in Betan politics as well.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Critics_outraged_over_easing_of_arms_exports.html?cid=38100552
It's also got lots of top biotech firms, and a large precision manufacturing sector.
Welfare and Jobs:
Welfare states aren't particularly uncommon, but Beta is indeed fairly generous: Hathway tells Baz, an immigrant, that he can register at a Shelter to get food (and presumaby shelter). He seems about to indicate that getting work is easy too, though gets cut off so we're not sure if there was guaranteed work or just a matchmaking service. From Cordelia we know that at least public comconsole access -- like library computers? -- is a right; I imagine someone writing after 1991 would make it more like public wireless broadband.
Switzerland is also generous, though perhaps not exceptionally so. Of more note is employment: unemployment rates of 1-3%, youth unemployment of 3% -- extraordinary for Europe -- and the second highest OECD employment-population ratio, just behind Iceland. So it's not just a matter of people lazing off; they actually do find jobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio
Currency:
Mark calls Betan dollars hard currency, in distinction to Barrayaran marks. The author's model for this is almost certainly the US dollar.
Swiss francs are also considered hard currency. As a small country its money doesn't have a big role in foreign reserves, but it is respected, and was a refuge in the eurocrisis until the central bank threatened to print francs as needed to protect their trade balance.
Interestingly, democratic Athens also had hard currency, with wildly popular and widespread coins of reliable silver content, and a brand maintained at public expense. Along with being a center of culture, philosophy, and perhaps what passed for Greek science, and having safety nets for its citizens...
Immigration:
Switzerland is fairly friendly to refugees it lets in, but rather slow to give out citizenship, and increasingly prickly about immigrants in general (now 25% of the country.) We don't know Betan policies, except that Beta controls total population growth even at the level of individual births, which is like regulating immigration from the next generation.
Military:
Switzerland is famously neutral, with universal male conscription. Beta is odd... in the first book, we see it not being neutral, and coming to Escobar's aid. But we also see that it didn't have an expeditionary military, and had to make one up out of the BAS and thin air, without even ready uniforms. So it would seem to have been neutral and demilitarized for a long time. Perhaps it had in-system forces fortifying the wormholes, but clearly no force projection. Of course Switzerland was born in the middle of the wars of Europe, while Beta grew for two centuries in total isolation, and after that could simply fortify a few wormholes with the best weapons in the galaxy.
Prostitution, drugs, and suicide:
Beta colony has legal though heavily licensed prostitution -- Licensed Practical Sexuality Therapists, who need an associates degree in psychotherapy. Not high status, "not dregs", a personal service job like being a hairdresser. Drugs don't really come up, apart from "creme de meth" [sic], which we saw on a ship docked *at* Beta.
Prostitution is simply legal in Switzerland, age 16+ until late last year, now 18+. Brothels, unions, etc. Zurich is experimenting with its own drive-in sex boxes, to get streetwalkers off the street. Drugs aren't particularly legal (compared to Portuguese decriminalization), but Zurich has also experimented with a park safe for drug users, and national policy aims at harm reduction more than punishment. Switzerland has had assisted suicide since 1941, with "suicide clinics" in Zurich.
Conclusion: Again, I'm not saying Lois had Switzerland in mind; that seems very unlikely. I'm just struck by the parallels between the most democratic world of the Nexus, the most democratic country of today, and (less documented here) the most democratic city-state of Greece: welfare *and* hard currency *and* scientific advancement (it's the Nobels/capita that really sparked this piece) and, of course, reluctance to share or dilute their highly valuable citizenship.
Nonetheless, the more I learn about Switzerland and think about Beta, the more the two seem to line up in my head. Coincidence, my selective filters, or the natural result of highly democratic states? You may judge.
Government:
Switzerland is famously the only direct democratic country in the world; day to day government is conventionally representative, apart from a collegiate seven-person executive, but the people have a real power to check laws and propose their own, voting 4 times a year on maybe an average of 12 referenda or initiatives per year.
Beta's government has never been relevant enough to be even sketched, apart from being democratic of some sort, but we know that "Betan votes" are proverbial to both Aral and Miles, and Miles considers it radically egalitarian compared to other "so-called democracies" like Vervain. Cordelia's crew votes to ignore its captain's orders. An easy way of cashing this out would be that most democratic planets are representative democracies, while Beta has a strong direct component -- at least Swiss in level, if not stronger.
It works in another way: while the US itself has no federal direct democracy, half of its states do, more so than most other countries. As an American colony it's reasonable for Beta to start with such mechanisms; as the only American colony, it's reasonable for it to be unique in this.
Science:
Beta is famously advanced and a leader in research, as advanced as Earth -- the richest and most populous planet -- with key discoveries such as uterine replicators and artificial gravity, a persistent lead in weapon design, and a leader in biotech.
Switzerland is not so famous, but when I dug around regarding the "in five hundred years Switzerland invented the cuckoo clock", I found the Swiss have many famous scientists and engineers to their name. More rigorously, look at Nobel laureates per capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_laureates_per_capita Of countries big enough to be significant, Switzerland and Sweden have a sizable lead, 24% more than Denmark or Austira. A third more than Britain, twice as many as Israel, nearly three times as many as Germany or the USA, which I would have thought led in research funding.
Swiss arms I don't know much about, but they have an export industry up to 0.42% of exports, largely to advanced countries like the US. They also have an ongoing fight about selling arms to countries low in human rights, and whether they should be loser about selling defensive systems. I imagine that's a recurrent fight in Betan politics as well.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Critics_outraged_over_easing_of_arms_exports.html?cid=38100552
It's also got lots of top biotech firms, and a large precision manufacturing sector.
Welfare and Jobs:
Welfare states aren't particularly uncommon, but Beta is indeed fairly generous: Hathway tells Baz, an immigrant, that he can register at a Shelter to get food (and presumaby shelter). He seems about to indicate that getting work is easy too, though gets cut off so we're not sure if there was guaranteed work or just a matchmaking service. From Cordelia we know that at least public comconsole access -- like library computers? -- is a right; I imagine someone writing after 1991 would make it more like public wireless broadband.
Switzerland is also generous, though perhaps not exceptionally so. Of more note is employment: unemployment rates of 1-3%, youth unemployment of 3% -- extraordinary for Europe -- and the second highest OECD employment-population ratio, just behind Iceland. So it's not just a matter of people lazing off; they actually do find jobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio
Currency:
Mark calls Betan dollars hard currency, in distinction to Barrayaran marks. The author's model for this is almost certainly the US dollar.
Swiss francs are also considered hard currency. As a small country its money doesn't have a big role in foreign reserves, but it is respected, and was a refuge in the eurocrisis until the central bank threatened to print francs as needed to protect their trade balance.
Interestingly, democratic Athens also had hard currency, with wildly popular and widespread coins of reliable silver content, and a brand maintained at public expense. Along with being a center of culture, philosophy, and perhaps what passed for Greek science, and having safety nets for its citizens...
Immigration:
Switzerland is fairly friendly to refugees it lets in, but rather slow to give out citizenship, and increasingly prickly about immigrants in general (now 25% of the country.) We don't know Betan policies, except that Beta controls total population growth even at the level of individual births, which is like regulating immigration from the next generation.
Military:
Switzerland is famously neutral, with universal male conscription. Beta is odd... in the first book, we see it not being neutral, and coming to Escobar's aid. But we also see that it didn't have an expeditionary military, and had to make one up out of the BAS and thin air, without even ready uniforms. So it would seem to have been neutral and demilitarized for a long time. Perhaps it had in-system forces fortifying the wormholes, but clearly no force projection. Of course Switzerland was born in the middle of the wars of Europe, while Beta grew for two centuries in total isolation, and after that could simply fortify a few wormholes with the best weapons in the galaxy.
Prostitution, drugs, and suicide:
Beta colony has legal though heavily licensed prostitution -- Licensed Practical Sexuality Therapists, who need an associates degree in psychotherapy. Not high status, "not dregs", a personal service job like being a hairdresser. Drugs don't really come up, apart from "creme de meth" [sic], which we saw on a ship docked *at* Beta.
Prostitution is simply legal in Switzerland, age 16+ until late last year, now 18+. Brothels, unions, etc. Zurich is experimenting with its own drive-in sex boxes, to get streetwalkers off the street. Drugs aren't particularly legal (compared to Portuguese decriminalization), but Zurich has also experimented with a park safe for drug users, and national policy aims at harm reduction more than punishment. Switzerland has had assisted suicide since 1941, with "suicide clinics" in Zurich.
Conclusion: Again, I'm not saying Lois had Switzerland in mind; that seems very unlikely. I'm just struck by the parallels between the most democratic world of the Nexus, the most democratic country of today, and (less documented here) the most democratic city-state of Greece: welfare *and* hard currency *and* scientific advancement (it's the Nobels/capita that really sparked this piece) and, of course, reluctance to share or dilute their highly valuable citizenship.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-19 03:28 (UTC)From:My impression of Beta is that they are more fractious a political economy with quite the vigorous system of voting. And their mania for voting would reflect the American ideal where early in history we did things like voting on the leadership of military units or which way expeditions should go. It seems very much like how the Lewis and Clark expedition decided what to do in some instances with everyone, including the black slave and the Indian woman, getting a vote.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-19 03:34 (UTC)From:Beta's too vague and I don't know enough about Switzerland to grok that distinction. Didn't know that about US history, though, neat.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-19 18:53 (UTC)From:Well, here is an example I know from reading a book on Swiss history. For the second half of the 20th century the Federal Council, the executive, always had the same composition of parties. For the first 40 some years of the Federal government one party held all the seats on the council. Switzerland moves slowly towards change. I recall that recently a rising party had so many seats in the general parliament that finally they got one seat on the council. From comments made about voting or not voting for "Steady Freddy" I suspect Betan politics to be more... vigorous and less polite.