The professional value of the book "Good capitalism" by Stefano Cingolani can be traced back to the ancient thesis of its author, namely that capitalism is protean, always changing, capable of continuously modifying its parameters of behavior. And so it can happen that in Norilsk, an almost ghostly location thousands of kilometers from Moscow, capitalism makes this lost (and unhappy) wasteland an essential component of global development (and non-polluting as it is "electric") of the great river of globalization , in its technological processes as in its qualitative strategies. Since I have always shared the idea of an always protean development (and/or capitalism) I would have many young people and scholars read this book by Cingolani (I did it with my colleagues at CENSIS) because it is impressive in its richness of information and notations on the enormous and continuous charge of complex, but also extremely fast planetary innovation. The speed of global processes is basically the figure of today's history, in an "ineffable divinity of becoming".
When decades ago we were more intellectuals than professionals, Cingolani and I would have stopped for a long time to discuss the different interpretations of becoming (from the drives of historical materialism to the development of peoples in a papal encyclical, to the radical denials of Emanuele Severino). Today there is no time, the flow of history surpasses that type of reflection and above all surpasses the historical ability (of current historical subjects) to govern, and sometimes even to understand, the great river of new things that pervades the world whatever they are the places where the different dynamics come from (from the Norilsk nickel to the pandemic in many areas).
The world is in the making, but in such incomprehensible forms that a feeling of doubt and fear has been establishing itself, given that there seem to be no poles of reference and governance. Remember Cingolani in chapter 11 of the book about him that the latest creation of powers capable of managing the world dynamics was finalized after 1945, when at Bretton Woods the victorious countries of the war laid the foundations for a "new world order", with the dollar as the predominant currency and with a set of multilateral structures to manage the major global processes (the UN , the Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, etc.) as if prefiguring a global "governance" and even a seed of global government.
That big lucid decision though was overtaken by events: over time, the subjects of political and economic dynamics have become so numerous and powerful as to create an irrevocable molecularity of globalization processes, progressively stronger than institutional multilateralism.
We thus have one very powerful globalization but without stakes and institutions of government. And it can be understood that, in this situation, criticisms, resistances, oppositions to globalization arise. A process that has changed the world in a few decades has been placed in the dock by scholars and politicians who hypothesize ways of "correction" (slowed down globalization, regional globalization, green and responsible globalization, etc.) or even radically alternatives to the model that exist (and that perhaps, says Cingolani, it is advisable to "keep it").
Play clearly in that one mass psychology marked by uncertainty and often by fear (see, as a last example, the reaction to the pandemic). The request for protection is consequently triggered; the belief that only politics and nation states are able to provide for emergencies; the desire for authority (perhaps even for "overseeing" authoritarianism): recourse to the old policy of collective protection, to government populism; and ultimately the primacy of a "political capitalism" based on the "first life" and on the massive recourse to debt, now seen as a factor and not a brake on overall development.
Looking around we easily find examples of this alternative instance, to which Cingolani is decidedly opposed, as we see in chapter 12, where the weaknesses of the systems that form "political capitalism" are pointed out: China, Putin's Russia, England by Boris Johnson. The author saves and praises the unity of Angela Merkel's Germany (it often happens among us...) and almost suspends judgment on Europe, given that the explosion of spending policies "pushes the Union into a terra incognita, in fact beyond the Pillars of Hercules in Maastricht and Lisbon”. And it is in this framework that Cingolani strongly resists political capitalism, restoring confidence in the meritocratic and market dynamics, also because it has made it possible to safeguard democratic systems, against sliding towards populism or authoritarianism.
There is at stake in this period a fundamental value and not only political but cultural and economic, the value of being open to exchanges and relationships with others. Any system that closes in on itself is doomed to decline (this is true for the China of the Ming and the Manchus; as for the Ottoman Empire) while the opening up of exchanges (commercial and of ideas) has meant that "humanity it developed from the end of the Napoleonic wars more than it did from Octavian Augustus to the French Revolution”. Which, Cingolani always notes, for reasons that have to do with history and culture, not just with the economy, as demonstrated by the development of Japan, the United States and Western Europe.
It is here, in my opinion, the dynamic core of globalisation; it is the fruit of a culture, it calls for more culture, and courageous relations with other cultures, without having the temptation of fearful and securitizing closures. It is an evolutionary attitude that is affirming itself both on the working masses (who could accept flexible work with serenity, without fear of "home-made Taylorism"); but also and above all on the various entrepreneurial subjects, more directly participating in the global dynamic and aiming to deploy their energy in it.
Reaffirming the inalienability of the great river of globalization is basically the reason lucidly argued in this book. A powerful river full of energy, which has invaded the whole world and all our lives, from the icy and thankless Norilsk to the Australian beaches; and which requires continued adaptation, even if not fully convinced. One could call it a "force of nature," were it not for a great deal of technology and organizational complexity. But some provocative questions arise spontaneously: do we let that river go freely, always swollen? Can we and should we govern and guide it? Can we predict the more or less dangerous paths? Do we have to invent some reference post and some regulation structure?
I am entering here on topics that I am personally very attentive to: what and how much "subjectivity" (number and quality of subjects) can there be and must there be in looking at and interpreting the great river? Which subjects can give it further vitality and eventual corrections? The immediate and simple answer is to indicate the two subjects most evident in terms of power and size: on the one hand the "giants", the large global companies that control the market dynamics; and on the other side the political and state power with its responsibility to manage collective interests.
On this second answer, Cingolani's thought (and mine too) is clearly negative: it is true that such an invasive and complex flow as globalization imposes a certain distance from it and recommends working on its borders, with a drive of the globalization process which must come from outside the market, through public demand and/or the direct intervention of the state machine. But public action has proved unsuitable for navigating complex globalization, becoming rigid in the armor of statist and nationalistic presentism; and this inadequacy is destined to be even more dramatic in the Italian system, marked by the systemic impotence of politics and by the objective weakness of the administrative machinery at various levels.
Of course, especially in specific and perhaps dramatic cases, such as in the recent pandemic, the public powers they are violently called into play in contingencies of various kinds. But their intervention is required and works only if it assumes the characteristics of urgency, to face single and segmented crisis phenomena; exactly the opposite of a political power that aspires to be present in the governance (if not in the government) of global processes. These, by their nature and structure, leave to the political and state power only a role of "intendence", even if this is not liked by some large centers of political capitalism.
And who then remain the real subjects of spontaneous dynamics? So far they have been the "giants". It is enough to read the pages of Cingolani and one always and fatally comes across a giant (company or manager) who lives and directs the great processes of current globalization, from telematics to digital, to financial, to those of distribution , to those of entertainment; the remaining subjects, often numerous, do not escape "dependence", whether they are medium-sized enterprises or public administrations at various levels.
Is there space between the giants and the sphere of addiction? If the former realize that they cannot live long in solitary protagonism (perhaps tinged with green and social responsibility), perhaps a space for the ordinary management of the current irrevocable globalization exists, and it is almost natural and phenomenological. That is, it is the space of intermediate moments, which can be glimpsed in the articulated dynamics of the invincible Proteus, that is, the moments of "horizontal" management and control of spontaneous processes. It should also be said that my personal ancient propensity to see the long historical drifts in "horizontal" terms returns here; but I like to find in Cingolani: "My conviction is that this time the deep dynamics are substantially horizontal", as "a pluralistic model is emerging which tends to generalize: economic, technological, political pluralism, on an international scale".
In my professional culture I translate this statement into the belief that globalization in the future will be innervated (and implicitly governed) by two great structural dynamics, that of value creation chains; and that of international cooperation networks. We all know that Italy's presence on the international market is "managed" by the dynamics of certain supply chains (the food and wine sector, the traditional Made in Italy sector, the construction and maintenance of machinery); we all know that the recent pandemic crisis was faced by a precise supply chain (ranging from advanced research to treatment technologies, industry, collective protection institutions, the national health service, gradually down to the single nurse and the single volunteer by ambulance); We all know that in every important sector of social dynamics, from finance to training, it is necessary to refer to a supply chain logic (from advanced scientific and technological innovation to the US participation of private investors). In other words, we all know that it is in the supply chains (in their protagonists as in the platforms of convergence and collaboration) that modern globalization breathes daily. As we all know that supply chains work if they can refer to international cooperation networks that enhance exchanges between different systems (in healthcare as in finance).
Here, if we were to continue to delve into the themes of this book, we should focus attention and study precisely on these two horizontal dimensions (supply chains and international networks) which are becoming essential for understanding what is happening in the world. With a positive and realistic attitude that is well summed up in Cingolani's conclusions: "Amidst the rubble of the most serious crisis in modern history, we can see that work will change, cities will change, demand will change and, consequently, supply, long gaze will take the place of the myopia with which society has often been guided”.
