Switzerland’s Civic Code
Although Switzerland is already one of the European countries that, upon reaching adulthood, requires mandatory conscription for all male citizens, on October 26, 2023, a popular initiative called “For an Engaged Switzerland” was presented to Parliament. Through this initiative, its promoting committee, in addition to military service (and, in the case of conscientious objection, civil service), aims to introduce what it calls “civic service,” meaning an obligation for all Swiss citizens (including women) to perform an additional service for the benefit of the community, either within the army or in an environment that, from a social point of view, is equally relevant.
Appealing to the democratic model that has characterized Switzerland since its inception, and specifically referring to Article 6 of the Constitution, which states that “every person is responsible for themselves and contributes to the common good according to their abilities,” the proponents of the initiative justify the introduction of civic service as a maneuver that would give greater coherence to the ideological foundations of the country; a measure that, therefore, would realize the original idea, the hidden matrix, the purest and most uncontaminated essence of democracy, from which Switzerland’s overall prosperity has derived: the idea of the common good.
However, if this initiative aims to secure social cohesion, or rather to strengthen national security through greater collaboration among its citizens, we should not believe that it represents such a stark anomaly within the Swiss political framework. In fact, this phenomenon can be traced to a specific ideological tendency that has become increasingly evident at least since the years of the coronavirus pandemic.
Due to old (though not entirely unfounded) stereotypes, classical liberals tend to have an idyllic image of Switzerland, mostly seen as a bastion of freedom in the midst of the bureaucratic tyranny of the European Union. In doing so, however, they forget (or may never even learn) that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Switzerland was the only country in the world to introduce the vaccine certificate obligation in a democratic fashion. Unlike any other nation, therefore, the imposition of the vaccine (a measure otherwise widespread worldwide) was not established by the government (except for an initial legislative prescription), but by popular vote. Consequently, in the face of protests in other countries from the skeptics, who argued that the state’s proposed anti-COVID measures were illegitimate because they were not democratic, Switzerland’s example rises ironically, almost demonstrating the convergence of democracy and collectivism, as inevitable as it is unsettling.
From this perspective, the echo of the anti-democratic thought of the anarcho-capitalist philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe, though at first glance eccentric and excessively provocative, now seems to be able to reclaim a not at all indifferent kernel of truth. “Democracy has nothing to do with freedom,” Hoppe writes. “Democracy is a milder variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been interpreted otherwise.” This, however, means that we are forced not only to agree with Hoppe but also to recognize, at the same time, the argumentative soundness on which the civic service initiative promoted by its committee is based. The continuity it outlines between Switzerland’s political tradition, entirely devoted to the active citizen participation enshrined in the Constitution, and the collectivist spirit embodied by civic service—as a socially useful service to which individuals are bound as debtors to the democratic environment that allowed the emergence of their constitutional rights—now clears itself in all its coherence.
Paradoxically, the arguments used by the opponents to criticize the initiative do nothing but confirm and corroborate its logic, on which, in theory, its success in the national vote of November 30, 2025, should depend. For critics of civic service, the committee’s error would not lie in an ideological calculation but in a material one: in other words, it would be a good initiative if it were not “too costly,” ironically, precisely for the community. Thus, the opposition does not challenge the conceptual framework of the committee; rather, it consistently plays its game on that very framework.
If Switzerland—the symbol of liberalism and property rights in the world—reveals itself to be permeated, on both sides of its internal debates, by the spirit of collectivism, we are compelled not only to rethink, beyond clichés, its socio-political structure but also to demystify the theoretical framework of liberalism itself, of which it is, in fact, the quintessential emblem. Deconstructing Swiss and liberal collectivism will mean denying it (or allowing it to deny itself) in its own contradictions, and denying it will mean de-collectivizing it, that is, individualizing it, rendering it individualism. The idea of the common good, according to which the individual is always indebted to the democratic idea that enabled their existence, will be negated, leaving space instead for the anarchic enjoyment of the selfish individual, along the lines of what was conceived by the philosopher Max Stirner. The transition will therefore be from being debtors (from owing something to someone) to being proprietors (to owning oneself).
