The first and foremost cultural and political dominance of finance, in the last twenty years – in its strengths as in its defects – continues to prevent us from understanding the longer-term implications of the Eurozone crisis.
Its very prevailing label: "Sovereign debt crisis", meant focusing attention on the financial aspects: excessive private and/or public debts; consequent spreads punitive; need for expansionary monetary interventions (ECB), as an alternative to counterproductive fiscal restrictions ("austerity"). Beyond the emergency, this is not the most useful analysis of the problems, and relative remedies, of the Eurozone crisis, which has remained unresolved for three years now, but on closer inspection it had already begun earlier.
Occasionally, even recently (see G. Vaciago, The future Euroland already exists (and is based on work)) someone realizes that the crisis of industry, and employment, characterizes only a part of the Eurozone. From this he derives a further condemnation of the wrong "austerity policy, which is being imposed on us by Germany" (see One euro to rebuild). Or the umpteenth criticism of the very idea of the single currency, which has led us to this tragedy: the public debt cannot be increased, right now when it would be more useful!
In reality, if we look at the facts, the correct analysis is different and there are other reasons for concern. If we examine the graph that represents the trend of industrial production in the ten largest countries of the Eurozone over the last fifteen years, we can clearly see that the situation is structural and more serious. Even before the "sovereign debt crisis", industry was growing faster in some countries than in others. As in the case of spreads, but in a very different and long-term way, Germany acts as a benchmark (or from hub): there are countries that are de-industrializing, and others where vice versa industrial specialization is growing.
Problem: is it only a question of the constraints placed on public deficits and debt? Or should we assume that some countries more than others have known how to "earn from the Euro"? But above all, how can these trends be corrected? Would leaving the Euro be a possible solution? The wisest answer to all these questions is probably only one: it would be appropriate to implement industrial policies – in the sense of giving explicit priorities to re-industrialization, starting with the tax authorities, …certainly not inventing five-year plans, in the Soviet style.
If they are not corrected, the trends in progress, which conform to the theory of “comparative advantages”, which the common currency reinforces – mean that a specialization of this type is accentuated within Europe: industry is German!
