It'd never work here. Iceland has a tiny but extremely well educated and well informed population that, despite some segments of it having been carried away by the temptation of easy money pre-2008, is full of common sense, understands the meaning of the word "cooperation", and actually knows exactly what they want and how to achieve it. For the most part.

So you got it right from the onset. The model is not applicable everywhere. Actually it's not applicable nearly anywhere. Including in most of the so called First World.