The world after the end of the world, more or less like the title of Luis Sepulveda's beautiful book from 1988. Raise your hand if you haven't thought at least once since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic that our way of life would change in the end of this terrible experience. How, though? What will disappear from our habits and what will appear again at the end of the tunnel? Last July, the Laterza publishing house launched a very ambitious program to analyze the transformations that have taken place and describe possible scenarios, challenging 50 scholars and opinion leaders to put forward and discuss their hypotheses. The goal of collecting ideas and suggestions in a book was quite obvious for a publishing house: it was not equally obvious that the construction site would remain open.
It thus happened that last weekend, rigorously in streaming, for three days, philosophers, economists, journalists, writers, bankers, administrators, artists and political analysts returned to dialogue with each other, conducted by the studio of the publishing house in Rome and from the headquarters of the Storchi theater and the Bper Banca Forum Monzan in Modena.
He also participated in the dialogue Salvatore Rossi, president of Tim, already number two at the Bank of Italy, who wanted to start from what has already changed in Italian families to design Italy's future. “The epidemic – he says – has already accustomed us to working and exchanging ideas remotely, with an audio-video connection, but all this gigantic scaffolding is based on fast, strong, efficient and widespread connections. The single fixed network for so-called ultra-fast connections responds exactly to this now essential need”.
In short, the large investments which, thanks above all to the funds arriving from Europe, will have the task of modernizing and strengthening the entire tired and aged body of Italy, will have to aim not only at equipping our country with material infrastructures (roads, bridges, ports and airports), but also intangible, i.e. the telecommunications networks. Concept that the president has already expressed in his latest book "Italian economic policy from 1968 to today".
And if one immediately thinks of the large financial resources needed, Rossi does not believe they are an obstacle, on the contrary, he underlines that “they would not be a problem: both European public institutions and private investors are ready to put a lot of money into it. On the other hand, rules, procedures and governance are fundamental”. Already, the question of questions in our country: “The rules and legal-administrative practices that influence, directly or indirectly, the functioning of the economy. This theme - says Rossi - is so general and pervasive that it includes all the others, including education and infrastructure. Italy stakes its destiny on it”.
But Tim's president is even stricter. “Current Italian law – he continues – is often hostile to the market economy. It doesn't limit itself to correcting it to protect superior public interests, it suffocates it with rules and obligations aimed at preventing its functioning. Anti-corruption laws are an example of this. Corruption in public functions has been an Italian scourge for centuries, but to bring it back to acceptable proportions it would be necessary to reform the organization and functioning of the public administration. Instead, the easiest way was chosen to raise its voice with general rules that take for granted the corruptibility of all officials, with the result of paralyzing their action. This choice has gradually worsened in recent decades due to the perverse de facto alliance between the political class and a class of public officials paralyzed by fear of investigations and appeals”.
In the same Forum, the mayor of Modena, Gian Carlo Muzzarelli, insisted on the great issue of bureaucracy which often stifles the action of any administration. Rossi, however, specifies: “The word bureaucracy used to stigmatize decision-making paralysis is completely misleading: the public official, certainly minding his personal safety, nevertheless applies the existing rules; the norms are produced by the legislative function; the latter is effectively exercised by other public officials nestled in the legislative offices of the ministries in the name and on behalf of the politicians in government, who let them do it due to lack of technical skills or to ride the fashions of the moment in vogue among their own electorate. This grip is apparently unbeatable, not for legal but political reasons."
Rossi recalls that “the recent public debate, animated by distinguished figures of jurists and former ministers, has indicated technically simple ways to overcome the main drawbacks of the current legal system. The reason for not proceeding is political, of course as it is ultimately a matter of Parliament's will. No exponent or political force feels like going against the climate of summary justice present in large parts of the electorate, on the one hand, and the will of the corporations to preserve their own prerogatives, on the other”.
And here we are back to the “world after the end of the world”. Because this "very serious" crisis like the one we are going through - concludes Rossi - could force "a normally short-sighted policy to act in a far-sighted way for electoral reasons". Above all, there is hope. Which, however, as we know, is the last to die.
