Franco Ferrarotti, the father of sociology in Italy, turned 97 on April 7 and anyone would like to reach his age with his lucidity and his physical vitality. But also with his inexhaustible capacity for indignation when Italy throws away its chance to reform and renew itself. The pages of his recent pamphlet "Inert power and acephalous democracy" published by the publisher Solfanelli are full of this critical fury and this great civil passion, but they also find expression in this new interview, granted to FIRSTonline on the eve of his birthday . “The most oppressive power – he explains – can be inert power, the power that does not decide, that postpones indefinitely, that just wants to last and that tries to get by as in the times of Giulio Andreotti, but which never faces and never resolves citizens' problems. And unfortunately "the failure of the ruling class in power in Italy is completed, and one could say perfected, by the non-existence of an effective opposition". Here is Franco Ferrarotti's interview.
Professor Ferrarotti, we are at Easter and the war in Ukraine has been raging at the gates of Europe for over a year after the February 2022 aggression by Russia, but we do not see any glimmer of truce and least of all peace, while, around the world, the imperial projects of the autocracies not only of Russia but of China, Iran and Turkey are advancing and the West appears on the defensive. Are we really sure that in the end the strength of democracy will prevail over autocracy and that it will not be imperial logic that will shape the new international order?
“Will democracy win or not? For now there is no certain answer, but certainly democracy understood by many political scientists as a pure procedure and as a simple account of heads, in a conception accentuated in Italy by the studies of Norberto Bobbio and Giovanni Sartori, is paying a very high price if we forget the ideal and political contents of justice, equality and freedom which were at the origin of modern democracy. If we understand democracy only as a procedure, we arrive at the paradox of a governing class that is impeccable from a formal point of view but substantially detached from the population and we arrive at a representation that is no longer representative and that expires in pure representation, chatter, pure personalism, and ultimately to very little politics. Conversely, autocracies appear more endowed with content that appeals to the people. The case of Putin who says he wants to fight for the denazification of Ukraine and against the US-Japan axis is emblematic and proves what Ignazio Silone argued many years ago in his wonderful book "The school of dictators" according to which the new fascism and the imperial regimes that deny freedom paradoxically risk winning in the name of democracy”.
In the Corriere della Sera the political scientist Angelo Panebianco invited a few days ago to acknowledge that the illusion cherished by the West according to which economic interdependence would have prompted dictatorships to replace autocracy with democracy has unfortunately proved to be fallacious: because it is not enough economic interdependence to make democracy?
"It is not enough because technological innovation, which is the basis of economic interdependence, is experienced as the guiding principle of democracy without understanding that it is indeed a value but does not get us anywhere because it has no purpose and does not tell us where to where do we come from and where do we go. The technique works but it is man who thinks. The Internet is a marvel of our times but it is stupid because it does not doubt”.
The heart of Europe, represented by Germany, France and Italy, has never been so weak and in at least two of those three countries the square that is putting governments and democratic institutions to the test has suddenly awakened: Germany has not yet found a balance for the post-Merkel period and on 27 March it experienced the most impressive strike for wages in the last thirty years and France has already experienced 11 strikes against the pension reform while Italy is neither meat or fish and counting less and less internationally. Is there a common thread that unites the weaknesses of the three major European democracies?
“The red thread is made up of ruling classes who unfortunately are not up to par and are unable to solve humanity's problems. The real power of those who govern thus becomes a personal prerogative but does not respond to the needs of the people. In turn, the square is very important, but it cannot be a political subject. In reality, in the street demonstrations that we are seeing these days there is the long wave of '68 which thought that authenticity was given by pure spontaneity and that governing only meant making propaganda and launching slogans”.
The crisis in France is perhaps the most striking case in Europe and the sentimental divorce between Macron and the population arouses astonishment in the face of a pension reform that appears reasonable to secure the social security system and which Italy has already done with the support of the trade unions: what do you think about it and what, in your opinion, is the true origin of the French crisis?
“From Turgot to Colbert onwards in France there has always been a tradition of technicising power. But pure technique is not enough if there is no harmony with the people. France is the country of Descartes, of the Revolution of 1789 and of Diderot's Encyclopaedia and knows that to act you need to know. From this point of view, President Macron has the merit of exposing the limits of Le Pen's knowledge but he does not seem to have the antennae of the average feeling of the population. Without the ability to listen, rationality is not enough, as President Mitterand understood very well. It is no coincidence that Merkel was able to govern a lot in Germany because she knew how to capture the mood of the German people. On the contrary, in France, if Macron and the unions do not find the path to dialogue again, the risk is that of paving the way for the victory of Le Pen's reactionary right”.
And how do you see today's Germany? Where does her malaise come from?
“It arose from the lack of real leaders of the level of Willy Brandt or Helmut Schmidt who were able to deal with Nazism and communism and who had the strength to promote the Bad Godesberg turn from which modern social democracy was born. Quite the opposite of Italy, which has not been able to come to terms with its past as clearly emerges from the missteps in which the Meloni government often falls. We are faced with an inert power and a power that does not seem interested in tackling and solving the problems of the population but only in getting by and lasting. Except for rare parentheses, for Italy the Andreotism of power as an end in itself seems to never end. But in this way we count less and less in Europe and on an international level, we run the risk of agreeing with Metternich when he argued that Italy is only a geographical expression, a country that refuses to play the role it deserves for the creativity of its work and the dynamism of our small and medium-sized enterprises".
So far, however, the darkest omens for Italy have not come true: the economy is holding up, Meloni is a prisoner of her ghosts of the past and of a mostly mediocre government company but it cannot be said that there is a hint of fascism , support for Ukraine is clear and the government is trying to follow in Draghi's footsteps on the economy, even if we count less and less in major European decisions. Professor Ferrarotti, what is your opinion on the Meloni government and on the state of Italian democracy today?
“It is a government that floats and has not yet fully understood that governing is not simple propaganda and loudmouth movement but action to solve the country's problems. So far it has proven to be an inert power and an end in itself that gives up deciding in order to last. It bears witness to the futility of the current ruling classes”.
Don't you think that the Italian regression is cultural before being political? Doesn't food sovereignty and the refusal of synthetic meat as a barrier against the new artificial intelligence platforms reveal a terribly provincial country and a lot of nostalgia for Italy?
“Unfortunately, as I said before, our country has never fully come to terms with its past and lives on nostalgic illusions, thinking that by projecting the past into the future, one arrives in Paradise. But it's just an escape from reality."
And on the Italian left do we spread a pitiful veil?
“From 1921 onwards the left has been dominated by the mysterious vocation for self-destruction which often joins the virus of maximalism and wishful thinking. If it does not free itself from these evils it will be difficult to oppose the right and to win a political project that is once again based on justice and freedom. But hope dies last"
