It is not just a political programme, but a book with explicitly pedagogical intentions. It is an attempt to initiate a cultural change, to awaken Italians from the sleep of reason which, as we know, generates monsters. The new book of Carlo Calenda – “The Monsters – and how to defeat them”, published by Feltrinelli and in bookstores since July – starts from the observation that citizens' dissatisfaction with politics and growing detachment from the state they are not only children of the economic crisis, but derive from deeper cultural and identity crises.
Calenda investigates in convincing detail the causes that are at the origin of this crisis of liberal democracies throughout the West and that push frightened people to seek protection under the wing of sovereigns and populists, who aim more or less less explicit towards illiberal regimes, suppressing the institutions and practices of representative democracies.
The mistakes made by the traditional ruling classes in the last thirty years – since new and disruptive phenomena such as globalization, tumultuous technological innovation and migrations have appeared, with the consequent multiculturalism – they were huge and catastrophic. They have not been able to offer management models capable of reassuring citizens, helping them to carry out those necessary transformations, but also bearers of better prospects, both individual and collective. At that point people, feeling abandoned, started demonstrating distrust of politics, frantically looking for other banks to cling to. Then that sovereignists and populists, rather than offering practicable solutions, have limited themselves to fanning the flames of resentment, pointing out presumed enemies to be defeated outside the countries or in the international arena, is an observation that is only now, perhaps, beginning to make headway in the conviction of those who had turned to them.
Looking in particular at Italy, where this phenomenon is certainly more accentuated than in other countries, Calenda identifies some phenomena at the origin of this involution of our democracy. In the first place traditional political parties, instead of embarking on a competition/collaboration aimed at strengthening democratic institutions, then differentiating themselves in the individual recipes and priorities of government action, they launched into a furious campaign of mutual delegitimization, exchanging accusations of fascism, communism and turboliberalism that had no bearing on the concrete problems to be faced and which led, in fact, management paralysis and the progressive degeneration of public structures, from school to healthcare and in general to the Public Administration. Citizens, not having efficient services, have tried to protect themselves by increasing requests for subsidies, or with tax evasion or both. In short, that "amoral familism" which has always been in the DNA of a large part of Italians has been strengthened.
But it is not only the political class that has made tragic mistakes. The progressive degeneration of the public sector it has infected entrepreneurs and trade unions, who have taken refuge in the maintain your position without showing ability, except in some rare cases (the agreement made by Ciampi), to face the change necessary to keep up with the times. Entrepreneurs have defended their fortress based on union pacts and semi-monopolistic positions as far as possible, or they have thrown in the towel by selling to international groups or moving abroad. The trade unions barricaded themselves in defense of a system of industrial relations more than half a century old and incapable of enhancing productivity.
The bottom line is that today Italian society appears firm and resigned. The task of real politics is not just to smooth the hair on the belly of the voters to collect votes. Today we need to rediscover the art of Government, which consists in knowing how to popularize the right measures to adopt. Maybe today many people are starting to get fed up with politics shouted and done by incompetents and are returning to appreciate competence and seriousness. But it must find a political subject with a concrete and convincing project. Calenda proposes a program based on three pillars: education and training, health, immigration and security. You can no longer spend money in bonuses or pension advances, but you have to concentrate resources on a good education system and on improving the national health service, thus realizing a new pact between the generations. In other words, it is necessary to avoid that the elders seize all the country's resources, forcing the young to remain unemployed or to emigrate. A realistic position must be taken on immigration, beyond the opposing and fallacious ideologies: the phenomenon must be strictly regulated and the reception must be effective and capable of safeguarding our traditional values without bowing to the "dictatorship of minorities".
But on which legs could this ambitious project walk? Calenda reaffirms his belief that today the real opposition is no longer between right and left, but between liberal and republican forces and forces based on an ethnic and populist national identity. In concrete terms, it is necessary to create a pivot around which the political formations of the members can be welded popular Catholics, social democrats and Liberal Democrats. These are the forces that govern in Brussels and in several European countries where sovereignty has been contained. In Italy it is not possible to do it because of the bad politics made in the past. It is a project that must find strength from below, from all the sections of society that exist and that are eager to resume the path of development in an equitable and sustainable way. But be careful, within the same republican alignment there are many groups who tenaciously cling to the old ideologies and who do not want to wage a reformist battle against Salvini and Grillo. The first move to make is therefore to make prevail, within these forces, those who understand that we need to change pace, close the era of demonization and seek common ground to heal and relaunch the country. To do this you need to have the ability to look for fellow travellers, form alliances with people who may not have 100% coincident ideas, understand what the primary objective is and tone down the controversy against potential allies.
