What relationship is there, if any, between the evolution of Italian capitalism and our foreign policy choices? “Obviously the relationship is there, and always has been. Even if it is an aspect neglected most of the time”. He answers like this Giuseppe Berta, Bocconi professor of economic history, an attentive observer of the evolution of the Italian economy over the last century who has just published an essay with a very critical slant and title: “What happened to Italian capitalism?”. He went down, indeed, he returned to Serie B, replies Berta, but it's not a drama. Provided we know how to be aware of the new location. Even in the context of international balances.
“Our development from 45 onwards – says Berta – is the result of the rest of the alignment with the American strategy. It is under the umbrella of the Atlantic Pact that big Italian capital collects the means necessary for its development, as had never happened, not even in the Giolitti era. It is in this framework that the choice of large-scale industry prevails to the detriment of the vision of Luigi Einaudi for whom, as he writes, "the Italian nation is a nation of peasant owners or aspiring to land ownership, a nation of artisans with large but not dominant patches of proletariat in the cities”. A judgment that ran through the debate in the Chamber after the war: only Vittorio Valletta for Fiat and Oscar Sinigaglia lined up for a future of big industry.
“Sinigaglia is a fruit of the great season of the birth of IRI, conceived by Alberto Beneduce, a great enemy of Einaudi, on behalf of Mussolini. American capital will offer post-fascist Italy the opportunity for the great leap in industry. A happy season…”. Certain. But probably unrepeatable after the fall of the Berlin Wall which made Italy's strategic value, already an outpost of the Cold War, decay”. The consequence? ”Italy plays the European card, even though it is aware of the gap that separates us from the so-called core Europe. The key man of this transformation is Guido Carli which deals with the modalities of our entry which foresees substantial changes. The formula of the mixed economy is drawing to a close, our institutions are faced with more solid structures. The necessary emphasis is not placed on the public debt which begins to rise in those years".
We come to the present. “From the 2008s onwards, Italy tried to join the Serie A train. An objective which, until the outbreak of the 09/XNUMX crisis, seemed possible, then the undertaking became increasingly difficult. Today there is a feeling that we have reached a dead end: reconciling the recovery with the parameters required by Germany to stay in the European bandwagon is increasingly difficult. In the eyes of many too difficult”. Hence the discontent of public opinion and Matteo Renzi's turn towards Washington. “There is method in the government's latest moves. By now it has been acknowledged that a European solution for Monte Paschi does not exist or in any case is not supported by the EU. Italy, as usual hungry for capital, finds it in China, the Middle East or in US banks - less and less in Europe”. Back to the Atlantic choice? "With some innovations: the opposition to new sanctions against Russia, for example, is a manifestation of independence in the tradition of La Pira, the mayor of Florence dear to the premier".
How is this narrative reflected on Italian capitalism? “In the book I try to explain how the geography of the new Californian-style capitalism has changed, to our detriment. The various Googles or Apples control the software and manage the manufacturing on a global scalelooking for the best conditions. The pyramid structures of the old capitalism are in crisis. An atomized world of work is being drawn. Meanwhile, as one moves away from the centers of technological enterprises, one passes from high tech to low cost work. And one wonders what chances will the economic systems of countries have which, little by little, tend to slide from the center to the peripheries of the new world-economy?”. It looks like a desperate picture. “I don't want to be a pitiful doctor – replies the historian of Mirafiori and of the industry that was -. When, as is the case today, in a country like Italy 20 percent of companies produce 82% of the gross domestic product, it is necessary to reflect on the mission and function of the 80 percent which merely vegetates, like an army of zombie. Going forward like this, the future is really difficult”.
Yet Italy has undeniable strengths in medium-sized enterprises, those that Mediobanca records in its analysis of the fourth capitalism and in the realities of the districts, the subject of periodic surveys by Intesa San Paolo. “But light capitalism – objected Berta – is not the antidote to economic decline”. These are companies, he explains, that are at ease in a lower range than the big global games, those in Serie A. They are our strength but they are not and cannot be the Italian version of a capitalism that moves, with extreme rapidity huge capitals. It's a small cosmos that struggles less (but still struggles…) to keep pace in terms of productivity and profits. In the last decade, then, the number of medium-sized enterprises has fallen below 4.000 units (1.330 less than the peak of 2007, before the crisis), but the share of manufacturing companies controlled abroad has doubled, from 14,3 to 26,7 percent. It is not a negative phenomenon.
“Multinationals – comments Berta – are active agents of change: it is better to merge into larger realities than to disappear”. However one turns the question around, in short, the need emerges to recover a new model for Italy, acknowledging that that of big business, so dear to the big names in a short and by now exhausted season (from Guido Carli, to Avvocato Agnelli and beyond) has now given way to the other Italy, already appreciated by Luigi Einaudi, who loved that Italy so much "made of land, farmers and sweat" which today presents itself again in the guise of an intermediate economy and "which needs – concludes Berta – frameworks and infrastructures to be built from scratch, starting from digital platforms". The Italy of Adriano Olivetti and Giorgio Fuà capable of combining modernity and territory, distrustful of capital which focuses on the control of newspapers and banks, with the constant temptation to circumvent weak rules and regulators.
The minister's 4.0 plan could serve as needed "provided it is not limited to super depreciation". Even more, however, it is urgent that the economy rediscover structures capable of representing it. "The unions should abandon the current schemes to listen to a demand that rises, unheard, from the world of work". And the Confindustria? “Boccia was elected by internal power groups and by public groups. It is unlikely that he will be able to represent the liveliest voices of entrepreneurship”, those that could give strength to the Italy of Einaudi 2.0. Perhaps smaller, less ambitious (or less unrealistic) than the recent past but precisely for this reason capable of resuming an interrupted path even before the great crisis.
