“Inadequate”: thus the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, has defined the salaries in recent days and, more generally, the remuneration of work, although, unlike what was reported in the press due to a mix-up, he never said that wages are “insufficient”. But inadequate compared to what? Asking this question is far from superfluous because, first of all, we should start from here.
What is salary and when is it “adequate”?
First of all: what is, or what should be, a salary? Many believe that a salary, to be adequate, should allow those who work a at least a decent standard of living and consequently fall within a sort of civil law.
This is the thought that comes from the Catholic culture that considers the solidarity aspects, I would even say moral, much more than the economic ones. It is superfluous to observe that this is a very widespread thought both in the political class and in the trade union class. It is enough to consider how they always try tooth and nail to defend every job, always and in any case, to have confirmation of the foundation of such an assertion.
No: the salary is, or should primarily be, the reward for wealth which contributed to producing within a business activity that operates on a free market (private activity), or contributes to that activity through laws and administrative initiatives that facilitate and promote it (public activity). Only in this case does the salary assign to the worker a share of the additional wealth produced. In every other case the salary is financed in whole or in part by the transfer of wealth previously produced and assigned to others, as usually happens when public resources intervene directly or indirectly, or worse when these resources are lacking and one resorts to debt (thus transferring the burden to future generations). In both cases the collateral damage is produced of extinguishing the drive towards a physiological replacement of production initiatives to make room for those that are more efficient and productive from time to time.
Wages are one face of the Italian decline
Having made this clarification, it is consequent to be able to affirm that wages – and forgive me for the extreme synthesis – they are very adequate: adequate to the ability of the production system to support them not only and not so much in monetary terms, but above all in terms of purchasing power. The issue thus shifts: wages correspond to the wealth that the production system is able to generate, and if we consider that this wealth has not grown for years, we can calmly affirm that then yes: they are adequate both in absolute terms and in relative terms to what has instead happened and is happening in the countries with which it may make sense to compare ourselves.
They are not adequate compared to what they could have been and above all compared to a widespread concept according to which we are still a country in rich Europe, well-off, advanced. There was a time when Italy was happily heading in that direction, but for years this has not been the case and there should be a much greater awareness of this; for years wage developments are just one side of a general decline, unfortunately not only economic, of our Italy.
Which ones are they the causes of this decline it is all too well known. The ejaculatory prayer about “small is beautiful”, about the costs of energy, about the snares and strings of the many bureaucracies, about the entrepreneurial inability to make the many successful small or even medium-sized businesses grow at least at a European level, the inefficiency of justice, the inefficiency of schools and university education with the proliferation of pseudo-private universities that have been put in a position to compete with the much more serious state universities, and so on; things that everyone knows, at least those who frequent media outlets like this one in which you are reading me.
What is missing, and should not be missing in a system of full and conscious democracy, is the logical connection according to which all this is the result of choices and policies which the various governments have followed over the last decades with the consent of the voters; it is the result of votes cast based on personalisms, media propaganda and chimerical promises; it is the result of a cultural regression (school, social) which has led to the annihilation of the so-called intermediate bodies with the consequence that the majority of voters vote for a leader (not even for a party) with the same spirit and for reasons no more reasoned than those who support a football team.
Wages and energy costs
An example and we'll close. One cause of this decline - one among many - is the exorbitant energy costs that penalize our productions and cuts family incomes. Looking at most other European countries, it is easy to see that the “mistake” was to vote for the “no” to nuclear energy based on hasty and partisan analyses that left room for chimerical environmentalist promises. Here: a not small part of the inadequacy of wages compared to the expectations, hopes, and ambitions of those who work is also given by the cost of that choice for the "no" to nuclear power. Is the person who marked the "no" box on the ballot aware of the connection? If so, we would already be well on our way, but hope has very little hold.
As with nuclear power, so it is with other obstacles that have built up over time curb the growth potential of the production system and with it the purchasing power of families. The logic of the market system in which our economic system is inserted leaves no room for alternatives. Let's face it: until we begin to loosen that brake, the decline will continue inexorably and wages will be increasingly inadequate compared to workers' expectations, but adequate to the reality of the economic, political and social conditions of our Italy.
