Matteo Renzi the scrapper, and Roger Abravanel the demystifier. Both, together with the economist Tito Boeri and the president of Impregilo Claudio Costamagna, took part in the highly armored conference "Unblocking Italy's growth: a revolutionary project" at the Four Seasons Hotel in Milan, in the heart of the fashion that chic Milan which then saw the mayor of Florence meet also the creme of the industrialists of the North in a discussed dinner behind closed doors.
However, the objectives of the two speakers were different: the candidate in the Pd primaries (who in his program has taken up many themes illustrated in Abravanel's essays) he heated up the usual soup against the ruling class, against '68 and the culture of the political 18, against bureaucracy and political-institutional immobilism. The crosshairs were therefore aimed at several subjects, often indeterminate, starting with the old guard of his own party. Instead, Abravanel's intervention was much more targeted: the manager and writer of Libyan origin has demystified much of the work of the Monti government, overturning many of the theses that are now circulating as established in public opinion.
"Monti is certainly in the right direction – Abravanel begins -, however, we cannot delude ourselves that some government measures can solve all problems by magic. Italy hasn't grown for twenty years. The real priority is growth: without development it will be impossible to regain the trust of international markets, reduce public debt and tax burden, create new jobs”.
There are six anti-Monti di Abravanel myths: the first is the one about labor reform, which the Executive interpreted as a tool to make redundancies easier, favoring relief for businesses. "Actually in Italy it is already very easy to fire, more than in France", the real solution is to improve competitiveness and meritocracy (key concept according to the economist engineer), eliminating the apartheid condition of 9 million Italians (“while the other 12 million workers have no interest in things changing”) through the single contract for all employees: "All fireable, but all with a real unemployment benefit".
Then there is the major issue of tax evasion, which was addressed by establishing a semi-police state. “It is precisely the formula that is wrong: in Italy we have the Guardia di Finanza and the Revenue Agency, two separate bodies, which cost us and find it difficult to coordinate, while for example in the USA there is only one body that brings together the two figures, which costs less and recovers four times the undeclared money compared to us”.
Another wrong myth according to Abravanel is the one according to which liberalizations are made by creating new competitors, or according to which the spending review is synonymous with cutting waste, or again that the slowness of the judicial system can be resolved, as Minister Severino did, closing 30 Law courts. “There is nothing more wrong: liberalizations are built with real reforms of the various sectors, I am thinking, for example, of the English model for motor liability insurance; in addition to cuts, the spending review requires true leadership and transparency on costs and decisions; for Justice, change must be cultural”.
Finally there is the long-standing myth why the school needs more funds: "It's a false legend: we are perfectly in line with the budgets of other countries". Simply, according to Abravanel, in this as in other cases the culture of meritocracy (the subject of the last essay written with Luca D'Agnese, “Italia, cresci o esci!”) should be nurtured, for example through the establishment of funds linked to results.
Even before being in the ranks of the Government, for the writer of a Jewish family there have always been myths circulating among public opinion, the press, even among some insiders. One of them is right what links meritocracy to the fact that young graduates do not find work immediately. “The reality is that there is a lack of excellent graduates: in Italy only 5,8% obtain the degree with full marks, while in Finland, for example, over 60%”. Then there is the false belief that development would be held back by too many rules, while the problem according to Abravanel is that the rules "are wrong and not respected rules". How many times, then, have we heard that the Italian crisis is the fault of the international one, or that it is due to the enormous public debt? Let's demystify it: Italy hasn't grown for 20 years, well before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is much better in other countries which, however, continue to grow, such as Japan but also the USA.
"Indeed our recession is no worse than anyone else's – explains Abravanel again in front of the Four Seasons audience of economists and entrepreneurs -, our problem is that 38% of the population aged between 15 and 65 is absolutely inactive, therefore we produce little and above all that we produce low-end products. To give an example, we are a country that produces Fiat Puntos, not Mercedes”.
Yeah, why the really great myth to be eradicated is the one according to which "small is beautiful", so a return to the past, to the territory, to the valorisation of Made in Italy and small companies is needed. “No, let's get it into our heads: small is ugly. First of all, the made in Italy no longer exists: at most there is the 'conceived in Italy', as happens in the fashion sector for example. And then there is a lot of talk about copying the German model, which in fact is teeming with small companies, but we forget that Germany has 10 times our number of large companies, and 6 times that of medium-sized ones”.
