Since the economic-financial crisis erupted in recent years, we have repeatedly read and heard the consoling refrain: Italy will fare better than many other European countries, thanks to its robust manufacturing economy, the solidity of family budgets and, in part, of businesses and banks. There is no doubt that the adaptive capacities of the Italians have made the country capable of withstanding an international crisis which, however, recorded a violent upsurge with the long summer financial flare-up which highlighted above all the limits of the Western Old World overlooking the global scenario. Italy has withstood the impact. However, internal problems remain that risk frustrating the stability of our socio-economic fabric to date.
First, it resurfaces, symptomatically, the economic decline: the country has not been able to grow at acceptable socio-economic rates for a decade now (during which growth was overall 1/3 of the EU average); in the two-year period 2008-9, productivity further collapsed by 2,7%; we are bringing up the rear in Europe for economic recovery (in 2010 around 1% against over 3% in Germany). The risk of a worsening of the national socio-economic scenario is concrete if those structural reforms are not implemented, of the system, on which the political class continues to turn a deaf ear. Therefore those who have long denounced the evils of immobilism, indecision, low turnover, lack of vision of our political elites are right, fearful that the implementation of reforms could block well-oiled consensus mechanisms, calibrated on a short-term electoral cycle (Ornaghi, Carboni).
The second internal problem is precisely the political crisis. In a 2002 book I underlined that, unbeknownst to public opinion, the political crisis was by far the one most perceived by Italians at the turn of the millennium. It was at the beginning of the XNUMXs with Tangentopoli, it is still today, when in the eyes of Italians politics, rather than a means to solve problems, is itself a problem. The political crisis has been an assiduous companion of the Second Republic, so much so that it is hypothesized that we have never got out of it since the end of the XNUMXs. The "narrow door" that Italy must cross therefore always remains the same: that of an institutional action lacking in transparency and lacking in reformist decisions. In short, the political class continues to be entrenched in its own privileges.
If merit and impartiality are lacking in the selection of political leadership, if there is no competition and everything, in politics, is resolved in the co-option of low-level faithful, if a transparent relationship with citizens and businesses is replaced by a collusive and lobbying between politics and the economy, then clientelism, corruption and the political market risk engulfing healthy parts of our PA and our economy. We cannot be surprised if cynicism and amoral conduct then spread in society, screwing it into atomized and particularistic interests. During the second Republic, we passed from amoral familism to amoral individualism. This is the third internal problem, the moral-cultural crisis of society, as a mirror of that of the political class.
These three issues thematize il democratic malaise Italian, due to the lack of real hegemonies and self-referential elites who do not play a leading role in the country, as would be required of a true ruling class. Each group brings grist to its mill.
In this chapter, after clarifying what we mean by democratic malaise (2008), we will delve into the field of tension that produces it, the one existing between the elite and society, noting the harsh contrasts, but also the reciprocal affinities, the former being a mirror of other.
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