Swiss Review 2/2018

11 Swiss Review / March 2018 / No.2 ywhere on this planet that has introduced a sovereignmoney system based on the principles of this initia- tive. There is therefore no empirical experience.” Green Liberal National Councillor Kathrin Bertschy attacked one of the key arguments of the initiative head-on during the debate: said an in- dividual bank can’t simply “create money fromnothing”. The creation of credit “is subject to restrictions, regu- latory provisions, liquidity require- ments and minimum-reserve regula- tions. There are limits. The National Bank can exert influence.” In the eyes of SVPNational Councillor and banker Thomas Matter, the sovereign money initiative seeks to “fix something that isn’t broken”. He said you might as well “flood the basement to test whether your newly purchasedwater pump works as well as the old one”. Matter believes the initiative’s authors “want to demolish fully intact, globally recognized Swiss financial institu- tions to create something radically new fromthe ruins, based on their for- mula”. This would, he adds, create un- certainty and be poisonous for the economy. Closing the gap between the constitution and reality FDP National Councillor Daniela Sch- neeberger underlined that the stabil- ity of the banking systemthe initiative is seeking to improve has already been strengthened by the too-big-to-fail regulations of 2011. Her party col- league Beat Walti warned against the initiative because it would “effectively nationalise the creation ofmoney”. Pe- ter Ulrich completely disagrees with this seemingly convincing argument. Ulrich is a former professor of eco- nomic ethics at the University of St. Gallen and economic advisor to the SovereignMoney Initiative.Writing in the NZZ , he said that the initiative would “essentially bridge the gap be- tween monetary sovereignty in- tended by the constitution and the completely different, significantly higher-risk reality of the monetary system that exists today”. After all, a referendumheld in 1891 approved the Federal Government’smonopoly over the creation of money “for coins and bank notes, which were the predomi- nant form of tender at the time, and this was reaffirmed by a referendum in 1951”. By contrast, he argued, the bank bookmoney predominant today and the virtual money on our debit and credit cards lacks the status of be- ing legal tender. National Councillor Kathrin Bertschy suggests “address- ing such issues with a degree of humil- ity” because they concern fundamen- tal elements of the monetary system, are associated with great uncertainty and conjecture and the field is not an exact science. And it could be added that it is an intellectually demanding proposal which for once does not appeal to prej- udice or resentment but to the ability to think. www.vollgeld-initiative.ch Controversial gambling law On 10 June 2018, the new gambling law will also be voted on. The Federal Council and Par- liament want to merge the existing Gambling Act and Lottery Act into this new law. The cur- rent provisions of each will largely be taken over, but some new ones will also be intro- duced. For example, casino gaming is now to be offered online, while access to foreign on- line gambling services is to be blocked from Switzerland. The block is being justified on the grounds that Swiss providers have to comply with regulations that foreign gambling sites may not be bound by, such as measures to tackle gambling addiction. The youth parties of the FDP, SVP and Green Liberals called a referendum against the law precisely because of this block, as did the Young Greens through their own committee. They are more worried about a more fundamental question, namely “whether we want to restrict access to the In- ternet to protect domestic providers”, as claimed on the homepage of the Young Liber- als. They say the law is reminiscent of “the situation in North Korea or China”. (JM) Campaigners from the committee of the Sovereign Money Ini- tiative with a puppet of Helvetia and a mask of SNB Chair- man Thomas Jordan in Berne in April 2017. Photo:Keystone