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The system we had in the US pre New Deal was much more like Switzerland. Decentralization works just fine out of the box. The problem is that human instinct tends towards power which requires more centralization to accumulate.

The system was introduced around 170 years ago and it was done very suddenly after a civil-religious war won by protestant liberals.

On the federal level yes but that only reduced the autonomy that the cantons had, it didn't introduce a fundamentally different system of government, most decisions were still taken on the local level.

Liberalism is dead Switzerland is ground zero.