Can a company do without the state? What does the traditional and enduring weakness of the Italian state derive from and what are the consequences?
In the reading held at the Mill on Saturday 5 November and entitled "Italy: a society without the State", Sabino Cassese tackled the issue with his usual depth, retracing with a few essential lines the century and a half of life of the Italian State and the inadequacy of institutions that still weighs heavily on Italy today.
Cassese returned several times in his studies to the original weakness of the process of formation of the Italian state. In the pages dedicated, at the end of the nineties, to “Lo Stato unovabile. Modernity and backwardness of Italian institutions”, the analysis moved from the suggestion of F. Braudel on the “significant faiblesse” of Italy, linked to the extraordinary development of cities between the mid-1400s and the mid-1600s. That development gave us the Renaissance, but it was an obstacle to the construction of a strong and authoritative center, of a public power that had not only the form but the substance of the state.
Cassese clearly identified, in his reading, where and when this substance was missing.
First of all, the promise of unity has not been kept, because well after the unification, and still today, the country is divided, the development of the different areas is divergent, the living conditions and the distribution of public goods are unequal, and this inequality does not depend on a choice, but on the inability to bridge a territorial and economic gap that society alone cannot overcome.
The constitutional promise was not kept, both because the Italian Constitution remained unimplemented for a long time, and because the part dedicated to the organization of public powers was designed thinking more of the limited liberal State, now outdated, than of the administrative State, large distributor, major employer, major regulator of the economy, which developed after the Second World War.
The promise of development has not been kept, because the growth of wealth has not been accompanied by the certain and reliable production of essential public goods, such as, to give just a few examples, legality, security, justice, investment in education and on research.
Among the many causes of betrayed promises, the lack of a competent and efficient administration stands out, capable of selecting the best energies, of resisting the pressures of politics as well as the capture of interests, of applying the rules impartially. Among the consequences of broken promises, the main and most serious is perhaps the widespread lack of trust and the tendency to make up for the shortcomings of institutions with surrogates: the family, relationships, interest groups, corporations, rules specials, exemptions, privileges.
Thus, Cassese teaches us, it happens at the same time that the State overflows, because it takes care of everything, but is not able to perform essential functions, because it remains dominated by particular groups and interests, which imposes innumerable rules, but is not able to able to enforce them, that his presence in daily life is pervasive, but citizens continue to perceive him as a separate and distant entity.
Ambivalence then becomes the dominant sign. Even attempts to strengthen the state - for example by building more efficient parallel administrations, or linking up to the European "external constraint", or entrusting public functions to private individuals - end up confirming the weakness of the public machine. The substance of the state is sought outside the state.
However, the lucidity of this merciless analysis does not prevent Cassese from concluding by wondering if, instead of settling down on the easy rhetoric of "too much State", it might not be better to think about the disadvantages, in Italy, of "too little State" and, in as far as it is possible for everyone, try to remedy it. And here reading counts as a lesson.
The full text of Sabino Cassese's speech will be published in the 1/2012 issue of the magazine Il Mulino
Attachments: Profile of Luisa Torchia.pdf
