In paramilitary language, which the left often resorts to, the decisive question when choosing allies is the exact identification of the "main enemy" to be defeated. The question of the program is obviously very important but it comes, so to speak, later. In the past (after the horrendous parenthesis of social fascism) the role of the main enemy fell first to fascism and then to terrorism. Today, clearly, it should be up to populism which, in its Italian variant (the 5 Stars) not only risks compromising our bond with Europe but, and this is the most serious aspect of the problem, puts the our own representative democracy.
The essence of populism, in fact, as the English weekly has made clear The Economist,, it's not demagoguery (the 5 stars promise everything and its opposite, but they are not the first to do so and they won't be the last either) “the essence of populism is the Manichaean vision they have of society. For them, society is divided into two classes: the People and the Powerful. The People are a unique entity, animated by the same will (hatred for politicians) while the Powerful are, by their nature, corrupt and treacherous, dedicated to their personal interests and skilled in using the Institutions Intermediate to oppress the People ”.
Populists don't just criticize Politics, they reject it. The confrontation between different social and political forces and the search for a reasonable compromise, which is the very essence of the art of government, in their eyes and in their propaganda becomes commercialization, cheating or, to use the horrible Roman term introduced in Italian political jargon by D'Alema, a mess. This is the reason why they refuse even the mere idea of making political alliances and it is the same reason why they are unable to accept a civil parliamentary confrontation.
In their propaganda, Parliament has not yet become that deaf and gray hall of which Mussolini spoke, but it is the place where, according to Di Battista, bad thugs roam. And it is in any case the place where a handful of deputies from the 5-star squad were able to attack the President's Office with impunity without the President of the Assembly sanctioning them as they deserved. If this is not the antechamber of a populist adventure à la Maduro or Peron, we are close. Yet Bersani and D'Alema don't think so and it is on this divergence of assessments that the break between Pd and Mdp took place.
For the Democratic Party, the 5 Stars are the main enemy, for Mpd the enemies are Renzi and Berlusconi. Mpd considers the 5 stars of the interlocutors and competitors with whom one can also form an alliance to govern. Bersani went so far as to say that the 5 Star movement is the "new center" (the heir to De Gasperi's DC!) and that, far from posing a threat, it would actually be the dam that can act as a dam to the overflowing of anger and frustration of the middle and popular classes impoverished by the crisis.
For the Pd, however, exactly the opposite is true: the populism of the 5 stars represents the most serious threat to Italian democracy because it is the product of the dissolution of the republican political system born after the war, as well as the fascist movement of the origins (before , that is, that a state was made) was, as Gramsci first and then De Felice amply demonstrated, the product of the dissolution of the political system of liberal Italy.
For this reason, the 5 stars cannot be considered as the bitter but necessary medicine to be taken to cure the serious disease that has struck Italian democracy because they are the most serious manifestation of that disease. The difference on this point cannot be remedied.
D'Alema and Bersani try to hide this fact with the most banal of excuses: the impossibility of reaching a reasonable agreement with the Democratic Party on development policies. This excuse can be used by Ferrero, Turigliato, Fratoianni and Civati, that is, the exponents of the radical and antagonistic left. Out of decency, those who, like D'Alema, acted as Prime Minister and in that capacity did not hesitate to authorize the use of Italian bases to bomb Belgrade, did not raise objections and even favored the Debt takeover bid on Telecom Italia which has wrecked the telephone group and has attempted, without success, to reform the labor market in a direction not so different from the Job Act.
The truth is that the political will has been lacking. Had there been a programmatic platform between authentically reformist forces of social democratic inspiration (as D'Alema claims to be) and liberal democratic and Catholic forces (Renzi, Prodi) it would have been entirely possible. However great the differences may be, none of these forces wants to leave Europe or the Euro and, even on questions of development policies, if one reasoned with realism and intellectual honesty, an agreement would be possible.
No one has the recipe in their pocket, but some ideas on how to pave the way for a new economic era exist and are the common heritage of reformist forces throughout Europe. He summarized them in an exemplary wayEconomist: “To pave the way for a new era of development – wrote the English weekly – we must try to get capitalism back in motion by using the State to correct market failures and to bend corporate interests. At the same time entrepreneurial initiative must be encouraged because it is the only one capable of drawing abundance from scarcity and creating dynamism where there is stagnation”.
Thinking about it, this is also the great lesson of Keynes, but also of Shumpeter and, to stay in Italy, it is the lesson of Beneduce, Menichella and Federico Caffè. When it is possible, with adequate policies, to create a virtuous circuit between government action, entrepreneurial initiative and the market, as has often happened in the past, then the economy returns to growth and employment also grows. The 5 stars will never be the party of growth because they are in favor of "happy degrowth", they are pauperists and welfarists.
The burden of promoting growth lies with the reformist forces and the more they will be able to do it the more they are united. D'Alema and Bersani have called themselves out and in doing so they have done damage to themselves and to the country. Feel sorry for them. The reformist forces must quickly come to terms with it and resume their initiative with impetus.
