There are those, as of late George La Malfa, argues that only the reduction of the deficit can save us from a debt crisis that would overwhelm not only Italy but also Europe and that supply policies (reforms, so to speak) are irrelevant from this point of view. And that the Renzi government it will leave us worse than when it began. I'm not an economist but I would like someone to explain to me why the big global financial operators who are looking at Italy and its public debt at the moment are not dealing with the deficit but with the constitutional referendum.
Il referendum it is seen as a turning point for understanding whether Italy will be able to move forward with determination on the path of reforms that are always awaited and never implemented except by the Renzi government, albeit with all the limitations that can certainly be highlighted. If this is the case, I conclude that supply policies matter, and how. And that only by pursuing the path of the last two years will we be legitimized to support on the European tables not a mere deficit negotiation, hat in hand as usual, but rather a common assessment of the need to relaunch the growth of the entire Continent, such as to allow Europe to continue to compete with the major economic powers and avoid spiraling into an irreversible decline.
However, I want to link my point of view to the considerations on the relationship between technocracy and democracy and the prevalence, in Italy, of the former over the latter, starting from the 90s. This substantial technocratic hegemony (exercised by the European elites, by the Bank of Italy, by the international bankers placed at the helm of the privatization and public debt management processes, etc.) begins immediately after Tangentopolis which, in turn, marks the beginning of the irreversible crisis of political representation in our country. On the part of the political system, in fact, there has not only been the delegation to governments or technical ministers of public finance decisions; the real point where politics failed was that relating to qualitative choices, supply policies and the regulatory framework which remained available to representative institutions even after the delegation to the technocrats in order to make macro-financial choices.
Politics "techno-democratic” limited itself to demonizing the right-wing policy of tax reduction but was unable to give quality and meaning to public spending that was rightly contained within the deficit limits necessary to remain within the European project. A perspective in the interest of future generations and capable of facing the economic challenges of globalization and its social impact has not been proposed. I recall, just to give a few examples, the zeroing of the pension "staircase" (?!) contained in the Maroni reform wanted by the Minister of Labor Damiano (cost 10 billion euros); o the transfer of as many as five points of GDP from research and education (with all due respect to the Lisbon Agenda) to healthcare (expenditure governed by regional political systems), the difficulty of introducing pro-competitive policies in favor of new comers or powerlessness to reform the labor market. Or the failure of public administration reforms based on meritocratic differentiations, evaluation, responsibilities opposed by the traditional constitutions of the centre-left and sterilized by bureaucracies transversally coalesced in resisting change.
I have had the opportunity to play important roles in the top state administrations and have sadly witnessed these processes. Just as as Minister of the Regions I witnessed, aware but powerless and in general indifference (or worse), at degeneration of federalism in a cumbersome mechanism of bureaucratic crush of citizens and economic activities and in the progressive swelling of public apparatuses and bodies at all levels of government. Or the inability to reform the judiciary according to European standards of functionality by bringing an overflowing judiciary within the due constitutional limits.
So, to which political dynamic do we want to return? Who today is able to represent not the survivors of this system but the productive classes, young students, professionals, the unemployed who ask to understand who is able to propose a horizon for their future and not the frayed flag of a sun of the future never risen? If we do not give a convincing answer to the key problem we are facing, i.e. the gap between representative institutions and representation, there will, in my opinion, be no deficit reduction that holds but a run-up to spending cuts that will lead to the progressive deterioration of the economic fabric and social, of the territory and of the cities.
