If the Mezzogiorno sinks into crisis more and worse than Greece the fault is not of financial capitalism, of wild liberalism (!?), of globalization or of the austerity policies imposed by Merkel. No! The fault is ours and ours alone. It belongs to the policies that the national and southern ruling classes have made, but also and above all to those that they should have and could have made and which, instead, they have not been able to make.
The gravest fault (and truly inexcusable for Gramsci's heirs) is to have trivialized the southern question. That is, of having declassified it as a local question or, at most, as a question of delayed development such as Wales, Northern Ireland or the GDR. But the southern Italian question has a completely different nature. It originates from the very way in which national unity was achieved and the unitary state was formed.
It is the direct consequence, that is, of the prevalence, in that process, of the Savoyard centralist model to the detriment of the federalist one advocated by Cattaneo. From that moment on, the economic and social dualism, which already existed in practice, worsened until it became a permanent structural feature of the Italian state.
That's exactly why the southern question defines itself as a national question, indeed as the national question par excellence. And it is always for this reason that it can find a solution only in the context of a great process of democratisation, renewal and modernization (that is, reform) of the State and of the entire Italian society in which the South as a whole must actively contribute.
Put less solemnly: the Mezzogiorno did not and does not need (only) assistance but needs reforms: of a great institutional, economic and social reform but, perhaps, also of a moral and intellectual reform (Gramsci).
Since 92, this connection between the reform policy and the development of the South has simply been ignored and the consequences are before our eyes. It began with a ridiculous exaltation and overestimation of localism and its potential.
Having to abandon the instruments of extraordinary intervention (Cassa del Mezzogiorno and PPSS) which had been abused to the point of distorting them, the ruling classes have focused on the non-existent local "animal spirits", on the most inconclusive decentralization (reform of Title V of the Constitution) , on the multiplication of Institutes, Organizations and local Companies to which to entrust the promotion of the development of the respective territories.
Programming "from below" was invented (an oxymoron as well as nonsense). It was imagined that the Territorial Pacts or the Area Contracts could replace the PPSS or the State in attracting investments o in the optimal use of incentives. A colossal mistake, a relinquishment of responsibility that has favored the emergence of a ravenous and incapable local political class and, finally, even pathetic as demonstrated by the Crocetta case or braggart as Emiliano risks becoming. This is the drift that needs to be stopped and the only way to do it is to launch an incisive reform process simultaneously in all fields. Renzi is absolutely right about this.
From labor market to school, from the PA to local institutions, from credit to justice: in all these sectors and in others it is essential to trigger a reform process that lasts over time and that aims to change the context, to make it more democratic but also more efficient and civil. The Mezzogiorno needs this today. It is not enough to awaken entrepreneurial animal spirits but the entire civil society must be awakened.
It is a southern problem but also a national one. It applies to Naples but also to Rome. The real help that the government and Parliament can give to the South is therefore to initiate reforms.
Is this enough to get out of the economic crisis? No, that's not enough. We also need infrastructure and investment, both public and private. But these investments will only come if the context really changes. In a different context it would then also make sense to rethink tools of an extraordinary nature.
The Cassa del Mezzogiorno is no longer feasible. But a large, super-qualified and transparent contracting station for public works of national interest could instead make sense. ANAS is thinking about it on the streets. Why don't we think of something similar for other works as well? Even the PPSS cannot be proposed again due to the havoc that politics has done to them by bending them (Fanfani) to purposes that are not and can never be those of a company, be it private, cooperative or public.
But an intelligent and targeted use of co-investments between Italian or foreign private entrepreneurs and public financial institutions is certainly possible and desirable. Everything becomes reasonable and possible if the stagnation that weighs on the south is broken, a stagnation that is not only economic but also and above all political and cultural and in the highest (Gramscian) sense of the term, moral.
