The upsurge of the coronavirus has certainly not made us forget the Recovery Fund issue. When will these resources reach us - and we dare not think that Europe, frugal or bon vivant, is playing tricks on us - you will need to have a detailed plan on how to spend it. There will be strong temptations to continue with the practice of helicopter money, especially if we proceed with the painful but, clearly, necessary removal of the block on layoffs.
It will be necessary, I said, have a “strong” project, coordinated in its parts, a "systemic" plan that does not sin of short-termism, but which does not even refer to future decades, because, as is known, "in the long run we will all be dead".
Thoughts cannot fail to go back to the post-war years, when, to resurrect, we needed the Recovery Fund of those times, or of the well-known and, at times, inconsiderately mentioned, Marshall Plan.
I use the word "recklessly" because more than once I have noticed the idea that it was easy to get the resources of this gigantic and forward-looking donation from the United States. In reality, the procedures envisaged for free supplies of goods and for loans were very complicated.
The European Recovery Program (ERP) consisted of three decision-making levels: the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) was set up in Washington and issued the final opinion; the ECA operated in the various countries with "missions" which examined the requests assisted by a committee of local experts. In turn, national applications were filtered by the Economic Organization for European Cooperation (OEEC), based in Paris.
Those in Italy who were authorized to purchase goods in the United States received dollars from the Italian Exchange Office, which subsequently was reimbursed by the ECA with a consideration in lire, the so-called Fondo Lire, paid to the Bank of Italy.
It is clear that, in order to overcome these barriers, you had to be very convincing. Well, between 1948 and 1952, Italy obtained 1 billion and 470 million dollars, 11% of the total ERP. Not bad!
Those who had spoken out against it during the work of the Constituent Assembly benefited above all “the autarkic and artisanal Italy”, for the choice of the American model, for the full advent of mass production.
It certainly cannot be said that those who supported these positions were last-minute converts. The president of Fiat Valletta the path indicated by Giovanni Agnelli continued, who, over seventy years old, severely affected by tragic family events, did not hesitate to commit the profits obtained from the Ethiopian war in the construction of the large horizontal Mirafiori factory. In Fiat's production structure, this was to acquire a leadership position also with respect to Lingotto, the vertical factory which was the most modern in Europe when it was inaugurated in 1923.
After all, Giovanni Agnelli's motto was: “Do like Ford”. The other major beneficiary of the ERP Funds was Finsider. Its president, Oscar Sinigaglia, had assumed this role in 1945, at the age of 68, after a life spent in very harsh conflicts against robber barons, speculators, traditionalists satisfied with the good performance of their business, but heedless of the inadequacies of a crucial sector for the economy of the country.
His exit from a condition of minority in the international context could only be given by the vigorous development of the mechanical industry, to which steel supplied the indispensable raw material.
Since 1911, the year of the rescue of the entire iron and steel sector, for which the Bank of Italy had allocated resources of no small importance, Sinigaglia had spent himself with competence and personal disinterest, against the heads of the so-called trust, who wanted to strictly adhere to the most closed protectionism and cartel agreements, a source of risk-free earnings.
Sinigaglia will know other episodes of this type, but the qualities mentioned above, competence, disinterest, patriotism, will guarantee him a large following of managers and technicians who finally, in the Fifties, will endow the town with a thriving and up-to-date steel industry technologically.
Green economy, mass digital literacy, preparation of very high-speed connections, social infrastructures: behind these fields, in which our future is presumably at stake, there is someone who sees entrepreneurs of the caliber of Giovanni Agnelli, Vittorio Valletta, Oscar Sinigaglia, Adriano Olivetti, Enrico Mattei?
The fact is that, in such a decisive turning point, we don't even see bankers like Donato Menichella or Raffaele Mattiolinor "useful economists" such as Luigi Einaudi or, more recently, Paolo Sylos Labini, Giorgio Fuà, Nino Andreatta, Giacomo Becattini.
Truly, someone who is both a banker and an economist would be there, and is the man of whatever it takes, Mario Draghi, who could rebuild a dream team like the one he led as CEO of the Treasury; but Draghi's intentions and desire to fight are not known.
Meanwhile, the time for the Recovery Fund plan is running out. We count on the competence, with regards to European things, and on the common sense of Minister Gualtieri, on the quiet wisdom of Commissioner Gentiloni, on the technostructure that the Italian government can use, hoping finally to be able to exclaim: "Happy is the country that does not need heroes".
