“Luigi Einaudi who was initially very critical of Giolitti, recalls in his memoirs the meeting with the Prime Minister on a visit to La Stampa. What rules, he asked him, must a good politician follow. And, in Piedmontese, Giolitti replied curtly: Sell guverné bin. We need to govern well which, for the statesman, was equivalent to good administrative management. A withered rule in recent years”.
Thus begins, with a Savoyard memory, the reflection of Giuseppe Berta, professor of economic history at Bocconi, on the possibilities of recovery of the Italian economy after the emergency of the coronavirus, the Caporetto of the tricolor industry. ”But precisely in the First World War – underlines Berta in line with the intervention of her colleague and friend Franco Amatori on FIRSTonline – Italy proved its efficiency thanks to the mechanism of Industrial Mobilization which was structured with an efficiency and interventionist approach by the State. That precedent, however, must stimulate a rethinking of what has worked on the path of development but also on the limits of our development".
In short, at a time when certainties are lacking, it is also worth questioning the roots of national virtues and defects, even going back a century.
“Yes, it can. Generally speaking, two distinct, in a certain sense opposite, theses can be identified. It is indisputable that the State, on the occasion of the conflict, gave its best by transforming the productive apparatus and putting it at the service of war needs in a limited time. We entered the war in May 15, that is a year after the others, with a gap in time compared to the mobilization of the others, but Italy, in its first real test after just over half a century of unification, managed to fill the delay in a short time. Fiat, which had 4.500 employees when it entered the war, reached 16 at the end of the first year of the war, while at the end of the conflict it would have over 40 while Ansaldo would have over 100 employees. In this way it will be possible to satisfy the war demand and to create a large enterprise base that will last over time”.
In short, the Italian industry of the last century emerged from the war. And so?
“Yes, for better or for worse. It was Einaudi himself who expressed a different point of view expressed in the essay "The First World War and its consequences" of 33. The great war, it is his thesis, had a distorting effect on the development of the Italian economy. From the end of the century, the country was on the road to balanced growth. The war had the effect of shifting everything into the mix between private business, large banks and the state which over time led to the deviations we know about. For many years I agreed with the first point of view, that is, the war prepared Italy for the subsequent development. Today I don't underestimate Einaudi's opinion: if we hadn't had that detour we would have been spared many other troubles, also from a political point of view, including fascism”.
There is a sort of crossroads that marks, yesterday as today, the fate of the development of the beautiful country.
“It is time to reflect on it, at a time that requires us to rethink Italy in the midst of an emergency. Einaudi was thinking of a lighter development, based on soft technologies and capitals. That is what Giorgio Fuà defined as development without fractures, where the war represented a fracture with respect to the Giolitti phase between 1896/1913. the first real phase of Italian growth and development, with an original and balanced imprint of Italian development, a character recovered from Fuà and Giacomo Becattini who traced the path of development of Third Italy and industrial districts, more attentive to balance territories and activities.
It is no coincidence that Giolitti's season was marked by successes in public finance. Italy, an almost unique case in its history, manages to eliminate its public debt.
"It is the fruit of a brief liberal season of government, interrupted by the intervention in Libya, wanted by Giolitti but above all by the intervention in the Great War against the will of Giolitti himself: when, even today, the inability to intervene of the State one has in mind a stronger role than the State, a different function that Einaudi tended to criticize in his classic liberal vision”.
Today, thanks to the pandemic, which has only exacerbated the decline of the Italian economy which has lasted for at least 15 years, a strong role for public intervention is once again being claimed.
“But it would be appropriate not to forget the will rule bin that we have lost over the decades by weakening the weight of the administration first by subordinating it to politicians and reducing its necessary autonomy then by summarily embracing the liberal theses. The result has been to weaken the skills and prestige of the administrator, giving life to a weak caste without responsibility in Europe where we have sent the politicians played at the end of the race while the others have used Brussels as a gym to train the excellences of which today we would be in great need."
But what can be done, pray tell, to restart a growth cycle after the emergency?
“We acknowledge that we are once again in a cage. All instances are directed to the state. All asking for state intervention in the belief that it is the only way to restart. There is a very great danger, that of a redundant Trump-like statism which, however, can count on a much more efficient administration than ours. On the contrary, we have an inefficient statism, not very competent and, moreover, deprived of responsibility. We see the contrasts between the Regions and the central State which would like to return to command but would not even know how to do it. It would take, I am convinced, a selective intervention by the state, but I fear that there are not the necessary skills. I don't know if it's a good thing to load this State with roles it is not capable of carrying out.
I had long been convinced that the pendulum would swing towards public intervention. But the change, thanks to the health crisis, took place quickly and unexpectedly, imposing a brutal passage that plunges us into a picture of uncertainties. Going back to the past is not possible. On closer inspection, Italy had not restored its economic normality, since it has not returned to the levels it was before. He didn't do it because that crisis led to the consumption of an economic structure that had been worn out for quite a few years. Now, therefore, it makes no sense to calculate the theoretical time necessary for the recovery of a condition of normality that did not already exist before the last crisis”.
In this situation, however, the idea of returning to the IRI model has its charm. The crisis had the merit, so to speak, of interrupting the Alitalia drama. We return to the public, without ever having developed a private model.
“It is not possible to follow past models, but a mixed economy scheme can be reconstituted in harmony with the country's long-term economic evolution, even though today it also postulates an instance of innovation. It will be necessary to invent new solutions, without taking them out of the closet where the artifacts of the past have been closed, without giving in to the temptation to resurrect the IRI or who knows what else. And reformulate, with the real productive forces that Italy fortunately still has, a development model up to the times in which the public components return to acting as a driving force for long-term investments and private individuals relaunch activities on the territory".
But will we be able to recover in this way? And who will give us the necessary capital?
“The shock to the economy was very strong, similar to what happened to the many elderly people who fell ill with a body already weakened by previous ailments. One can invoke a fund that restores a minimum of oxygen, but it is necessary to think about the aftermath, without illusions but aiming at the construction of a building endowed with resistance and quality at the same time, capable of lasting over time. Let's think, for example, of tourism, an aggregate that is worth 13 percent of GDP. To start again after the storm, new ideas and another organization will be needed, for example that platform for Italian tourism which has so far been missing. It will not be necessary to keep what exists standing if the money that will be disbursed will not be used to work on the restructuring of an asystematic sector, left so far in the hands of an occasional that it is time to overcome. It is no longer the time of the pensions or hotels that live on the black without adequate digital management".
