“What we are witnessing in Europe is not populism, but a sort of anti-capitalist neo-nineteenth-century attitude that opposes a Europe that exiles Parliaments”. This is how Giulio Sapelli, an economic historian at the Milan State University and a thoroughbred intellectual, comments on Prime Minister Mario Monti's proposal to organize a summit in Rome with the European heads of state to ward off the new Eurosceptic populisms. “Populism is a well-defined phenomenon that began in the 30s in Brazil with Getulio Vargas, continues in Argentina with Peron and still today has some aftermath in the South American continent. But he has very specific characteristics: a strong leader, a simple program, a financial oligarchy that demagogically opposes it, and strong support from the unionized masses. Without the wage base, without the rootedness of a leader in a union, there is no populism.”
In short, if the precarious workers find a leader, organize themselves programmatically and start pronouncing anti-crisis slogans, only then can we speak of populism. “This is certainly not the case with the Five Star Movement. Grillo's speeches remind me of those of Gabriele D'Annunzio at the occupation of Fiume”, not those of Peron in front of the Argentine crowds.
“We are facing two different phenomena”, explains Sapelli, “a neo-nineteenth-century, strongly anti-capitalist right wing that opposes parliamentary incapacity and European Bonapartism”. The Grillo phenomenon would be among the first, while Prime Minister Mario Monti can be seen as the "small Louis Bonaparte, a Roman dictator who took power without electoral legitimacy. It reminds me of some Latin American governments that relied on emergency decrees, such as that of Fujimori in Peru”.
The public debt problem is a false problem for Sapelli. “We need to increase the debt and implement measures for growth. Simultaneously, at the European level, it would be enough to try to change the statute of the ECB, in order to have a central bank which, like the Federal Reserve, prints money and mutualises debts. If it were up to me to decide, I would separate the investment banks from the commercial ones and I would not try to tax income or financial transactions, because in a global world like today's, the only effect would be capital flight. I would rather aim for a new intelligent presence of the state in the economy, an entrepreneurial state in the noblest sense of the word”.
The goal of European leaders must be the creation of a United States of Europe, but through the spirit of a new class of European intellectuals and a proactive left. “Today we need a socialist and pro-European policy. The phenomena of Alexis Tsipras in Greece and Emile Roemer in Holland are good examples. Proposing an economic policy of growth and not austerity, which leads nowhere”. But to arrive at a United States of Europe, one must first “rebuild a European culture, which has been supplanted by the advent of the business schools, and find left-wing forces to support it. In this sense, the crisis should encourage the birth of new thoughts”. “Great ideas to go beyond the national framework” have arisen here and there, for example “la proposed by Alberto Quadro Curzio and Romano Prodi of Euro union bonds”. But they remain isolated cases. "I fear that for some time yet we will have to live with manifestations of extremism, such as the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party."
