The Demise of Italy and the
Rise of Chaos
Roberto Orsi
by Roberto Orsi
Future historians will probably regard Italy as the
perfect showcase of a country which has managed to sink from the position of a
prosperous, leading industrial nation just two decades ago to a condition of
unchallenged economic
desertification, total
demographic mismanagement, rampant “thirdworldisation”, plummeting cultural
production and a complete political-constitutional chaos.
In a previous post on this very blog, the dire situation of Italy’s economy has been
briefly sketched. A few months later, the scenario of a serious disruption of
the Italian state’s finances is building up, with tax revenues contracting 7% in July, a deficit/GDP ratio projected again well over the 3% mandatory
threshold and public debt well over
130% of GDP. It will get worse. The government knows
perfectly well that the situation is unsustainable, but for the moment it is
only capable to resorting to an extremely short-sighted VAT rate increase (to a
staggering 22%), which will depress consumption even more, and to vague proclaims about the necessity of shifting the tax burden way
from wages and companies to financial rents, although the chances of this to be
implemented are essentially negligible.
Throughout the summer, Italian political leaders and
the mainstream press have hammered the population with messages of an imminent
recovery (la ripresa). Indeed, it is
not impossible for an economy which has lost about 8% of its GDP to have one or
more quarters in positive territory. However, it is a profound distortion of
elementary semantics to call a (perhaps) +0.3% annual rebound as “recovery”,
considering the economic disaster unfolding in the last five years. More
correct would be to talk about a transition from a severe recession to some
sort of stagnation.
But unfortunately, like characters of a Greek
tragedy, Italian leaders were deprived by the gods even of this illusionary and
pitiful dream of a stagnation. Economic data of the summer months indicate that the economic downturn is far from
being over.
A recent study indicates that 15% of Italy’s manufacturing industry, which
before the crisis was the largest in Europe after Germany’s, has been
destroyed, and about 32,000 companies have disappeared. This data alone shows
the immense amount of essentially irreparable damage which the country is
undergoing. In the author’s view, this situation has its roots in the immensely
degraded political culture of the country’s elite, which, in the last few
decades, has negotiated and signed countless international agreements and
treaties without ever considering the real economic interest of the country and
without any meaningful planning of the nation’s future. Italy could not have
entered the last wave of globalisation under worse conditions. The country’s
leadership never recognised that indiscriminate opening to Asia’s light
industrial products would destroy Italy’s once leading industries in the same
sectors. They signed the euro treaties promising to the European partners
reforms which have never been implemented, but fully committing themselves to
austerity policies. They signed the Dublin Regulation on EU borders knowing
perfectly well that Italy is not even remotely able (as shown by the continuous
influx of illegal migrants in Lampedusa and the inevitable deadly incidents) to
patrol and protect its borders. Consequently, Italy has found itself locked up
in a web of legal structures which are making the complete demise of the nation
practically certain.
Italy has currently the highest taxation levels on
companies in the EU and
one of the highest in the world. This factor, together with a fatal mix of
awful financial management, inadequate infrastructure, ubiquitous corruption
and an inefficient bureaucracy, which includes the slowest and most unreliable
justice system in Europe, is pushing all remaining entrepreneurs out of the
country. This time not only towards cheap labour destinations, such as East or
South Asia, but a large flux of Italian companies is pouring in neighbouring
Switzerland and Austria, where, despite the relatively high labour costs,
companies will find a real state cooperating with them, instead of sabotaging
them. A recent event
organised by the Swiss city of Chiasso (next to the Italian border) to illustrate the investment
opportunities in the Tessin Canton was attended by a crowd of 250 Italian
entrepreneurs.
The demise of Italy as an industrial nation is also
reflected by the
unprecedented level of brain drain, with tens of thousands young researchers, scientists,
technicians emigrating to Germany, France, Britain, Scandinavia, as well as to
North America and East Asia.
In sum, everybody in the country producing anything
of value, together with most of the educated people is leaving, planning to
leave, or would like to leave. Indeed, Italy has become a place for some sort
of demographic pillaging from the perspective of other, more organised
countries, which have long seen the opportunity to easily attract highly
qualified workers, often trained at the expenses of the Italian state, simply
by offering them resonable economic prospects which
they will never see if they remain in Italy.
All this seems not to preoccupy the Italian
political leadership. On the one hand, the country is the prisoner of a
cultural duopoly: it is either the Catholic culture, or the socialist culture.
Both are preoccupied with universal ambitions (somehow eschatological and
increasingly anti-modernist) which make the national perspective unviable to them. Indeed, the Italian
state was created by liberal-conservative and monarchist modernists, sometimes animated
by virulent forms of anticlericalism, essentially the opposite of the current
political elite. It is not surprising that what the former accomplished gets
dismantled by the latter. The problem is not so much, however, the dismantling
of the nation state, but that the nation state is not going to be replaced by
any meaningful political project, leaving its space, essentially, to chaos.
On the other hand, Italy has entered a period of
constitutional anomaly. Because party politicians have brought the country to a
near-collapse in 2011, an event which would have had severe consequences
globally, the country has been essentially taken over by a small number of
technocrats coming from the President of the Republic’s office, the bureaucrats
of several key ministries and the Bank of Italy. Their task is to guarantee
stability to Italy vis-à-vis the EU and the financial markets at any cost. This
has been so far achieved by sidelining both the political parties and the
parliament to unprecedented levels, and with a ubiquitous and constitutionally
questionable interventionism from the President of the Republic, who has
extended his powers well beyond the boundaries of the still officially
parliamentary republican order. The President’s interventionism is particularly
evident in the creation of the Monti government and in the current Letta
government, which are both direct expression of the Quirinale. The point here
is that, where politicians have failed, bureaucrats and technocrats hope to
succeed. The illusion, which many Italians are cultivating by believing that
the President, the Bank of Italy and the bureaucracy know better how to save
the country, is now widespread. They will be bitterly disappointed. The current
leadership, both technocratic and political, has no ability, and perhaps even
no intention, to save the country from ruin. On the contrary, it would be easy
to argue that Monti’s policies have exacerbated the already severe recession.
Letta is following exactly the same path. But everything has to be
sacrificed in the name of stability. The technocrats share the same cultural
backgrounds of the political parties, and in symbiosis with them have managed
to rise to their current positions: it is therefore hopeless to think that they
will obtain better results, since they are also unable to have any sort of long
term vision for the country. They are actually the guarantors of Italy’s
demise.
In conclusion, the rapidity of the decline is truly
breathtaking. This is certainly not exclusive to Italy, as arguably most if not
all Western countries are undergoing rampant thirdworldisation. Italy has
simply less economic and social “capital” to burn in comparison to Germany and
other Nordic countries. But it must be clear that, continuing on this way,
there will be nothing left of Italy as a modern industrial nation in less than
a generation. But just in another decade or so entire regions of the country,
such as Sardinia or Liguria, will be so much demographically compromised that they may never recover. The
founders of the Italian state one hundred and fifty-two years ago
had fought and even died hoping to bring Italy
back to a central position as a cultural and economic powerhouse within the
Western world, as the one it occupied in the late Middle Ages and
Renaissance. That project has now completely failed, with the abandonment the
very cultural idea of having any meaningful political ambition going beyond the
sheer day-to-day management on the one hand, and the messianic (but effectively
pointless) universalism of saving the world on the other even at the expenses
of one’s own political community. Unless some sort of miracle occurs, it may
take centuries to reconstruct Italy. At the moment, it seems to be a completely
lost cause.
This entry was posted in Italy, Roberto Orsi, Uncategorized and tagged austerity, brain drain, Corruption, mismanagement. Bookmark the permalink.
45 Responses to The Demise of Italy
and the Rise of Chaos
lallo says:
October 11, 2013 at 8:25 am
L’Italia è messa malissimo. e’ evidente. Ma è tutto il mondo
occidentale (sottolineo tutto) che sta estinguendosi. Alcune parti, per
sopravvivere, si stanno sbranando le altre, ma il destino è segnato per tutte.
La globalizzazione selvaggia, il capitalismo fuori controllo, hanno creato un
motore di impoverimento dei paese benestanti destinato ad accellerare quando
verranno al pettine i problemi ambientali globali (Fukushima, la
desertificazione e la polluzione cinese). La realtà è che sopravviveranno i
paesi capaci di realizzare una propria, indipendente, economia di sussistenza.
Ma ancora oggi, nessuno si preoccupa di programmare politiche in questa
direzione. Roma 2010 è dunque come la Roma dell’impero romano. Segnala il
crollo di un intera civiltà. Allora ci volle poi un millennio per ricreare
condizioni minime di ricivilizzazione. E Oggi?
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 11,
2013 at 10:45 am
E’ ovvio che la situazione italiana è presente in molti altri Stati. Su questo
non c’è dubbio
Reply
Giovanni says:
October 11, 2013 at 7:11 am
Partecipo in italiano per evitare figure ma soprattutto perchè principalmente mi rivolgo a
Voi “Cervelli Italiani” già emigrati .
Attratto da spunti interessanti leggo il tutto e mi
si rileva una filippica triste e inconcludente. Scopro che l’autore ha origini
italiane e da nuova coriosità proseguo leggendo i commenti … i più tristi dei
quali proprio da miei connazionali.
A voi “Cervelli Italiani già emigrati”, o in
procinto di , auguro buon viaggio e che possiate cogliere tutta la fortuna che
i vostri nuovi paesi vi offrono.
In Italia rimaniamo noi italiani senza cervello,
certi di regalare a tutto il mondo un Ri-Rinascimento, sicuri che ne
apprezzerete la qualità solo a nostra morte sopraggiunta. ORGOGLIOSI di essere
cittadini italiani senza cervello e consci che per giochi semantici quali
ITALIA, EUROPA, MONDO non ne avevamo tempo e voglia perché altro c’era da fare.
Reply
nicola says:
October 11, 2013 at 7:44 am
Io invece penso che finchè molti italiani si rifugeranno in questa mentalità campanilistica,
addirittura invitanto -un pochino offesi- gli altri “a guardare a casa loro”
non ne usciremo mai.
Forse non è chiaro il fatto che in una situazione
mondiale già complessa di suo, noi siamo il peggio nel peggio; non possiamo
permetterci di fare i risentiti, men che meno di fare la parte degli
inconsapevoli (cosa che già siamo fin troppo, se è vero -com’è vero- che in 25
anni almeno di vita politica abbiamo avuto sotto il naso e per scelta una delle
peggiori classi politiche dell’età moderna, del mondo civile).
Reply
Giovanni says:
October 11, 2013 at 8:10 am
Condivido il suo
pensiero, … anche perchè di campanilistico e offensivo il mio non ha nulla.
Reply
nicola says:
October 11, 2013 at 8:16 am
Penso che non sia difficile per i cervelli
migrati, augurarci le stesse
fortune, signor Giovanni…..
Più che i senza cervello, in Italia rimarranno
sicuramente coloro che vivono in un regime oligarchico (credendo di vivere una
democrazia), coloro che lavorano in una morsa monopolista (credendo di lavorare
in un mercato libero), coloro che si cibano di meravigliosi frutti di una terra
spesso irreversibilmente inquinata (credendo di alimentarsi nel bio-eden
mediterraneo), coloro che versano mensilmente importanti somme previdenziali
(illudendosi di ritrovarsele in tasca, perlomeno, in età senile), coloro che
pensano le Istituzioni abbiano come “mission” la tutela del cittadino (venendo
al contrario abbandonati dalle stesse), coloro che vivono nel rispetto delle
norme (scoprendo poi che le stesse non sono finalizzate al miglior
funzionamento civico, ma ad un mero gettito sanzionario), coloro che delegano
funzionari politici alla tutela della cosa pubblica (e scoprono con troppi anni
di ritardo, che gli stessi si ritengono autorizzati ad una sorta di
auto-sistemazione personale), coloro che danzano e festeggiano felici sul ponte
della meravigliosa nave Italia (senza accorgersi che il Titanic, a confronto,
era una portaerei inaffondabile).
Il fatto è che il campanilismo spicciolo, mixato ad
una buona dose di snobismo da nobili decaduti (ma tanto decaduti) non porterà
da nessuna parte, soltanto contro un muro, altro che Rinascimento, signor
Giovanni.
Non può esservi alcun orgoglio di vivere in una
nazione totalmente monopolizzata dalle organizzazioni mafiose, altro che
balle….
Reply
Giovanni says:
October 11, 2013 at 9:51 am
Sig. Nicola, il Marchese Felipe de
Aragona la ringrazia del Bignami e mi suggerisce di sottolinearle:
in Italia rimarranno sicuramente coloro che vivono
in un regime oligarchico (credendo di vivere una democrazia)
L’Italia non è riportabile alla Corea del nord ma
oltre ai libri stampati il termine democrazia non vi ha mai trovato riscontro.
coloro che si cibano di meravigliosi frutti di una
terra spesso irreversibilmente inquinata (credendo di alimentarsi nel bio-eden
mediterraneo)
I sistemi di distribuzione alimentare e accordi
farlocchi hanno reso praticamente impossibile trovare cibo coltivato in Italia
se non spendendo 4 o 5 volte tanto e scoprendo poi che fa pure più schifo.
coloro che versano mensilmente importanti somme
previdenziali (illudendosi di ritrovarsele in tasca, perlomeno, in età senile)
Nessuno che conosco vede le somme previdenziali
versate come un possibile ritorno in età senile se non i complici delle attuali
brutture in prossimità di pensione. Questi si sono poi visti spostare l’età
pensionabile più avanti.
coloro che pensano le Istituzioni abbiano come
“mission” la tutela del cittadino (venendo al contrario abbandonati dalle
stesse)
“mission”,
“target”,”HR”,”Controlling”,”Istituzioni”… funzionano solo nei pps aziendali ma
già al loro apparire perdono fascino, figuriamoci nella vita reale.
coloro che vivono nel rispetto delle norme
(scoprendo poi che le stesse non sono finalizzate al miglior funzionamento
civico, ma ad un mero gettito sanzionario)
dover trovare giustificazione per rispettare una
norma non stà in piedi.
coloro che delegano funzionari politici alla tutela
della cosa pubblica (e scoprono con troppi anni di ritardo, che gli stessi si
ritengono autorizzati ad una sorta di auto-sistemazione personale)
Oggi i cittadini che votano in Italia non sono
neanche la metà della popolazione. (Stati Uniti e altri paesi citati in
commenti e articolo hanno addirittura dati peggiori) Crescendo ho scoperto che
chi ha aperto gli occhi in ritardo lo ha fatto mantenedoli comunque chiusi sul
suo operato e ancora li tiene ben serrati.
coloro che danzano e festeggiano felici sul ponte
della meravigliosa nave Italia (senza accorgersi che il Titanic, a confronto,
era una portaerei inaffondabile)
questa è veramente difficile…aspe… il Titanic è
certamente una meraviglia dell’ingegno umano…ma non stiamo discutendo di
“Uccide la pistola o l’uomo che la impugna?” quindi mi arrendo.
Reply
Domenico Lombardini says:
October 11, 2013 at 7:01 am
Una congerie di luoghi comuni (che
come tutti i luoghi comuni hanno un fondo di verità, ma solo quello), che non tengono conto della causa
principe del declino di Italia (e sud Europa, Francia inclusa): l’adesione ai
trattati Europei e alla moneta Euro. Noi stiamo facendo la fine della DDR
(http://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/anschluss-annessione-unificazione-germania-futuro/libro/9788868300142) e di qualsiasi altro stato che ha
ancorato la propria moneta, relativamente più debole, a una relativamente più forte: da qui la
desertificazione industriale, da qui la irresponsabilità accentuata dei
politici, i quali ora non devo far altro che attuare ciò che arriva da
Bruxelles (o da Berlino). Che l’Italia abbisogni di una riforma morale è altro
discorso, che non attiene al declino materiale italiano ma al declino umano,
oserei dire antropologico di un paese e delle sue genti.
Reply
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Sara says:
October 11, 2013 at 4:34 am
I sadly agree…
The decadence of Italy is there..every single day..
we look astonished at the lost of culture, of democracy, of rights, of money (of course…)
In a few years, because of corruption and of the
typical italian way of thinking “tengo famiglia” (I keep a family) excusing
everything.. Italy is falling down at always lower levels.. and nobody feels
guilty! (This is also typical..)
I think most of the fault is of journals and tv
journalists, which are servants of corrupted parties and corrupted politicians
and don’t alert people of the laws which are made against people, against free
market, against rights…and always supporting our ruling class which is
corrupted, in bad faith and terribly low level.. If you speak with most of our
representatives in the actual Parliament they even don’t speak a correct
Italian.. and we have a President representing 100% this ruling class..
Bad times..
In Europe they ignore this state of things .. maybe
everywhere in the world the though is how to take advantage of this state of
things..
because they always give new economic rules.. and
don’t preteng / do ANYTHING about corruption in Italy..
They think to take advantage.. but if nothing will
be done, we will infect also other countries.. Corruption is a terrible illness
(think of Africa!!!)
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 11, 2013 at 10:36 am
We are european only when we give money to them or we should
pay attention for migrants, but when we ask help
they don’t help us and we’re not considered “european”
anymore. In some parts of Europe we’re definied as “nigger of Europe” because
of low civilization (according to them) but we welcome migrants, they not. But
we are uncivilized and racist.. In italian: the case of the ox who say horned
to the donkey
Reply
alex says:
October 11, 2013 at 3:56 am
It’s interesting to watch this virtual community of
Italians that, just like me, have left Italy to invest
their resources and succeed elsewhere. In short Italy is a joke, but
not a funny one any more. Keep up the good work everyone
Reply
Gigi Parigi says:
October 11, 2013 at 12:24 am
é curioso: per leggere delle interessanti analisi
sulla situazione italiana bisogna andare su un sito inglese.
come si spiega?
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 11, 2013 at 10:39 am
La situazione italiana la puoi capire benissimo
leggendo La Repubblica o il Corriere della Sera o Il Fatto Quotidiano e via di lì. Mi piace però come all’estero puntualizzino ed evidenzino meglio i
dettagli
Reply
Valter Mura says:
October 10, 2013 at 9:31 pm
Penso che un po’ tutto l’occidente debba pensare al
proprio declino, compresi quei paesi che oggi, come diciamo noi ancora galleggiano su
questa dannata crisi, magari
camminando sulle teste di qualche altro un po’ più sprovveduto. See you soon
ladies and gentlemen
Reply
paul simon says:
October 10, 2013 at 8:27 pm
Very sad truths.. unfortunately the thought of a
federal Italy has been around since the 1800s to no avail (geeks may read Carlo
Cattaneo, etc. ): way too intellectual in a place where the hottest selling newspaper was
Gazzetta dello Sport until I left in 1994, I am afraid…
Much better we leave it to the Germans and the IMF
to run the country after the unevitable default, soon to happen, and focus the
incumbent remaining population on mozzarella, good weather, “tette al vento”
and vacations, after all, until global warming really kicks in, it still is the
Florida of Europe.
I would die to have a chance to vote Merkel to run
it, after assuming our public debt, which Germans just deserve for winning the
FX wars and sucking up our spending power dry while our leadership was having
dinners & after hours with talented advisors such as the Sandra Milos,
Moana Pozzis, Nicole Minettis, etc.
Merkel for president is practical, doable and
largely preferable to let anyone else in sight show us more of this shame…
I left the country with top grades from a prime
university as I could not find a job to pay the rent….I do not regret a single
day missing to help the D’Alemas and Berlusconis, the Fondazioni Bancarie, the
Ndrine, the Lay Lombard missonaries with altar-embedded motoryachts of Comunione
e Tangentone, plus all the countless mobs prosper off my back and that of my
family.
Do you realize Italian medias show shoes of drowned
baby immigrants every day and NOBODY talks about chasing the criminals who
brought them here?? Why can’t they buy drones to shoot them in Lybia like
Obama, or shoot their patrons in some province of Italy where the mobsters
probably sit comfortably watching their pre-paid one-way shipping
accomplishments unharmed. Why does Italy need F35s if they do not know how to
use them?
What are they doing with the radars of the military
marine and aviation, looking for the Costa Concordia still, or the Itavia-jet
near Ustica since the 1980s??
Until the “cultura della furbizia” is done with for
good, Italians deserve to enjoy what they created, most of them, from the
grocery store merchant to the largest family fortunes, played the same game at
different levels of the food chain and they will harvest what they planted.
Radetzky march!!!
Reply
Beppe Caravita says:
October 10, 2013 at 7:56 pm
The long story of Italy show:
1. Fragmentation has been a clear failure;
2. Centralized state has been a clear failure (except, for a while, roman empire).
In the middle?
Reply
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Paolo says:
October 10, 2013 at 6:55 pm
The demographic and cultural conformation of Italy
is really not that different than any other country in the world. Can anyone say Germany is a cohesive country with its north south and now east west cultural and economical differences? Great
Britain which already recognized its diversity by adopting the name UK (a
collection of smaller, often disagreeing kingdoms)? The US, made of people from
all over the world? Brazil, with a plethora of ethnical, cultural, linguistic
differences? China, divided by language, religion, ethnicity and economic
rifts? Syria anyone?
No one country, no one region, no one city, no one
family can describe itself as truly united and cohesive.
The problem of Italy is indeed moral, cultural,
strategic and pragmatic. The corruption of its ruling class has become
PAINFULLY clear. The country is in the hands of a “PUTTANIERE” and its
“LECCACULO” (please forgive me, it must be said), while its few true dedicated
servants languish in a quagmire of rules, bickering and plain and simple
stupidity.
This is why I left, 20 years ago. I saw it coming
and I wanted nothing to do with such immorality.
Italiani, sollevatevi, ribellatevi, riprendete la
vostra DIGNITA’.
Reply
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Dott. Giuseppe Ortigoni says:
October 9, 2013 at 12:49 pm
“The founders of the Italian state one hundred and fifty-two
years ago had fought and even died hoping to bring Italy back to a
central position as a cultural and economic powerhouse within the Western world, as the one it occupied in the late Middle Ages and
Renaissance.”
And that, dear sirs, is the issue. Italy, as such,
never has been anything. Not in the Middle Ages, not in the Renaissance. Simply
because, as such, Italy does not, nor ever did, exist. And the very invention
of Italy was a political manoeuver, based upon no solid demographic, economical
or cultural elements whatsoever. I’m sorry but, there is no “Italy”. Italians
have nothing more in common than, say, a French and a German do. They might
appear a “unit” to a foreigner’s eyes, but just as much as all Europeans are
similar to, for example, Asian people.
Let me be absolutely clear on this: there is no
Italy. There is no shared sense of pride, culture, or anything. We are just a
bunch of regions, with the most different and often radically opposite
historical, cultural, linguistic, demographic backgrounds, that were forced to
live together under one name. Just like Europe, but way more forcefully.
And to command this cattleship, a series of central
government that were no more than puppets and thieves at best, they knew there
was no Italy, there was no future for the political construct, so they saw fit
to grab as much as they could while they were in office. Can’t really blame
them there, anyone would, if given such a hopeless task.
Let me reiterate: there is no real Italy.
Disregarding how uniform the stereotype of “Italian” culture might look to
foreign eyes (and such stereotype is based on a very small demographic sample
of the Italian population, and limited to a very precise geogrpahical and
cultural context), there is no such thing. There is no shared Italian culture,
cuisine, history, geography, climate and what the hell, there is not even a
generally accepted Italian language.
There is no Italy. It is time that the world (Italy
included) starts to realize this.
Reply
nanci says:
October 9, 2013 at 11:30 pm
totally agree. we don’t even like each other.
Lombardy’d rather be with Swiss, for instance. Sardinia is not Italy. they
never wanted to be.
anyway, I’m so sorry. we can’t explain how or why Berlusconi has been in charge for 20 and is still around. foreign friends ask
me and I don’t know what to say.
I’m so sorry, sad and a bit ashamed. I’d love to be
proud.
Reply
Paolo2 says:
October 10, 2013 at 9:27 pm
Berlusca hasn’t been in charge for 20 years. It has
been for more or less ten; same as the left ex comunist.
Anyway I can easly explain why Berlusca has been in
charge for so logn:
Berlusconi exists because the ex-comunists exist too. And they are so pathetic and brainless to
force the majority of the normal people to vote everything, even a monkey if
the case. Only to prevent people with foolish and absurd ideas to be in charge.
The federal project was proposed by lega nord, but
that party and his projects were rudely opposed by the left; with their
“trinariciuti” (threenostriled, with three nostrils to smell better the wind of
public opinion) politicians accusing them of racism.
Then that party rotted away along with the
puttaniere.
Reply
Enrico says:
October 11, 2013 at 12:26 am
I might have an answer on why berlusconi has been in
charge for 20 years (and Italy has totally failed in the contemporary
socio-economic development): because MEDIASET AND FININVEST have been in charge (of italians’ brains, eyes, hears and mouths) for 35 years. Everybody’s’ Brains! Mine
and yours included. When cultural models are disastrous for 35 years, then
economic, industrial and investment decisions are a disaster as well. They just
mechanically follow. So If somebody ask me if it has been the television (and
the cultural models in general) the principal (not the only one! But the main
one) reason why Italy is currently in this state my answer is: YES without a
doubt. I’m maybe naive, but that’s what I’ve always thought and that’s what I
still strongly think.
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 1:35 pm
I totally agree with you. Expecially when you said:
“Let me be absolutely clear on this: there is no Italy. There is no shared
sense of pride, culture, or anything. We are just a bunch of regions, with the most different and often radically opposite historical, cultural, linguistic, demographic
backgrounds, that were forced to live together under one name. Just like
Europe, but way more forcefully.”
We must start to realize this: we are italics, not
italians. I’m sicilian italic, Lombardy is lombardian italic etc. I wrote an
article in italian where I spoke about this —>
http://corrieregiovane.blogspot.it/2013/10/e-meglio-fare-gli-stati-uniti-ditalia.html.
Do you think it’s time to do the correct Italy, the
“United States of Italy”? I think.
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 2:00 pm
It’s like Spain, andalusians, catalans, basques: they are not spanish,
they are iberians
Reply
Dott. Giuseppe Ortigoni says:
October 10, 2013 at 2:16 pm
In my opinion, it’s not much a matter of denomination,
as much as a matter of “should not be together”. There really is no reason to consider the Italian
regions as one single sovereign state: the fact that such a construct has been invented and imposed should not be grounds for further speculation, and the fact that
said state has failed at everything since its invention, should be proof enough
of its inadequacy. No other European country has racked up such an astonishing
amount of fails under every possible respect: economy, wars, demographic,
culture, instruction, corruption, and whatnot. Italy has failed at every
possible meter of judging a nation, many a time: it should be indicative of
something wrong at a deeper level than “just” mismanagement and corrupt
government.
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 2:33 pm
“United States of Italy” is NOT just a denomination,
it’s a new way for Italy, a federal republic. In my opinion, USI is a great
idea. Every single Regions govern itselves, what did they do after Italian unification? USI
should be already done in 1861 because it was (and it is still) the best thing to do. This is the truth
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 5:02 pm
Maybe we have two difference ideas for “Italy”
Valter Mura says:
October 10, 2013 at 9:09 pm
Holy crap, this is what we italian are :
quarrelsome & ashamed of our country..
Congratulations to all Italians here around, that’s what the world wants to know about us (bravi)
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 11, 2013 at 10:19 am
Nope, you’re
wrong. We’re not ashamed of our country, we’re discussing about a way to have a better
country by a different type of government. What do you think, we want a not
united italy? That’s not the discourse.
Federico says:
October 10, 2013 at 5:40 pm
I agree with you, Italy is just a name, but
there is not a real sense of a nation, and that is
perfectly natural if you see the history of our country, that is much much
younger than every other western state of Europe… after all Italy is just 150
years old!
You speak of regions, in many cases
I would tell provincies as, for example, in tuscany, where I live, every
province has a different culture and you cann actually feel it and see the
difference, The fact that there is no war anymore doesn’t mean we became a
nation all of a sudden. Making a central and one state of the peninsula has
been a real big mistake.
But right now, in this historical period, is maybe
too late to propose something as a “USI”. That is because the first “italians”
are starting to appear, people till the age of 25-30 are starting to feel
italians, so probably, in a couple of generations, there will be a wider
italian feeling across the nation (if it will still exist).
Anyway something as a federal state for Italy, or a
similar type of government, could be the only solution to come out of this
chaos. Every region/province is so different now that NEEDS a different type of
managment. But I strongly doubt that something like this will ever happen.
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 7:27 pm
Totally agree with you. I made every summer 1.200 km
Catania/Bergamo by car and I see the huge differences between Sicily and
Lombardy, not only economic, in history, mentality, do business, do agriculture,
etc They have different way of life. Tuscany is totally different, such as Trentino or Sardinia or Liguria. In sum, every Italian Region is totally different with the
others. And i feel the differences.
I think USI is not too late, yeah sure it should had
been already 152 years ago but i think now it’s the perfect time to show
federal Italy is much better than the “united” Italy. I hope that the
Government with the open poll of Constitutional reforms could realize that the
future of this country is one: United States of Italy.
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Every Region is able to govern itself, such as every
City is able too. It’s time to watch to the American model of Government.
Reply
max says:
October 10, 2013 at 7:47 pm
Sure, Italy is a large country with a lot of
regional differences. But the same could be said for Germany, where the Bavarians are proud of not being Germans. Still, Germany is the leader nation in Europe and in
the world. And looking to the USA, New Yorkers, Californians, Texans feel being very different
from the rest of the country. Not to mention the British.
So, looking at those other countries, the arguments
telling that the Italian crisis is due to Italy’s lack of homogeneity have no
real grounds.
The real reason for Italy’s crisis is in the fact
that the majority of Italians have accepted corruption in the government and
government’s contiguity to organized crime as a “fact of life”. This has led to
a series of extremely incompetent and short-sighted governments which have
spent public money extremely inefficiently, with consequent explosion of public
debt.
The only viable way forward for Italy is that the
majority of Italians realize that only the pursuit of the public interest leads
to a healthy and prosperous society. Until then, the country will continue on
its way to Greece.
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 8:31 pm
Yes but for example Germany and USA are federals,
Italy not.
Reply
max says:
October 10, 2013 at 10:29 pm
20 years ago when Italy was a global economic and
cultural superpower, it was not a federal nation, so the issue of being federal
or not seems to me irrelevant to understand the reasons of the crisis and how to go out of it. Frankly, I don’t care.
What is different between the 80′s and today? The
PUBLIC DEBT: today Italy
has a public debt of 130% of the GDP, i.e. ~5-6% of the GDP every year are used to pay
interests on the debt. That enormous amount of money is taken away from the
real economy to fuel the global financial speculation. Without the public debt,
the state would be able to invest that 5-6% of GDP in the public interest.
Imagine what could be possible to do with that amount of publicly invested
money.
Why have we arrived to this situation of unbearable
debt? During the ’80s corrupt and inept politicians did two critical things: 1)
separation of the Italian central bank from the ministry of finances, and 2)
privatisation of public banks. The public banks owned the central bank, so
their privatisation implied to the privatisation of the central bank.
When the state owned banks, the public banks
massively purchased public debt, keeping the interest rates low and virtually
at zero cost. If the public banks lend money to the state it is like moving your
money from one pocket to the other. The debt is only virtual.
With the privatization of banks the situation has
changed, leading to the situation we face today. Money is not moved from one
pocket to the other, but is given mostly to financial speculators who don’t
care about public interest, healthcare, pensions, education.
By coincidence, Germany has not privatised its
public banking system, so it keeps on taking advantage of massively lending
money to itself, thus keeping the public debt under control and not draining
huge amounts of cash from the real economy towards the financial speculation.
Dott. Giuseppe Ortigoni says:
October 11, 2013 at 9:18 am
“20 years ago when Italy was a global economic and
cultural superpower, it was not a federal nation, so the issue of being federal
or not seems to me irrelevant to understand the reasons of the crisis and how
to go out of it. ”
In 1993 Italy was definitively NOT a global economic
or cultural superpower. I’m not
really sure on which basis you claim this. Yes, the media made you guys believe so, but the foundation
of the current social devastation were there already, growing, and nobody
really cared.
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 11, 2013 at 10:14 am
Has Italy never been federal? Never. The federalism
introcuded by Northen Lega is not a real federalism, is a fiscal federalism.
Real federalism is the USA model when every single Region has its own rules,
its own laws, its own bureaucracy etc
Luigi says:
October 10, 2013 at 8:15 pm
Non sono d’accordo, per il semplice
fatto che questo discorso, vale per tutte le nazioni
del mondo. Ogni stato è composto da tante culture,
diverse, lingue diverse, l’Italia ha la particolarità che è stata governata
negli ultimi 20 anni da persone totalmente incompetenti. Luigi
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 10, 2013 at 9:03 pm
Questi “ultimi” 20 anni sono strumentali. In realtà facevano vedere dei dati internazionali
come il declino italico è sessantennale in termini di sviluppo e di PIL
Reply
max says:
October 10, 2013 at 10:34 pm
Scusa, ma la storia del declino sessantennale non mi
quadra, si andrebbe indietro all’inizio degli anni cinquanta, quando l’Italia
era appena uscita con le ossa rotte dalla guerra.
Reply
Mario Antonino D'Aquino says:
October 11, 2013 at 10:11 am
Appunto. I dati dicevano che il rapporto tra
crescita e PIL si é abbassato sempre più dal ’52 al 2012.
