Pietro Modiano and Marco Onado are the authors of the new book "Lost Illusions - Banks, businesses, ruling class in Italy after privatizations". To answer the question implicit in the title of this book on because privatizations have not changed the face of Italy in the desired sense of bridging the development gap with the growth rates of the other main European nations, Peter Modiano, a varied top-down professional experience in the banking world and Marco Onado, long-time academic, as well as Consob Commissioner from 1995 to 1998, have chosen the path of Historical reconstruction of a period, which goes from the second half of the last century to the present day.x
Politics and managers have brought Italy into mediocrity
In fact, the structure of the book provides a first part di reflections, dedicated to illustrating the essential features of the two seasons, the economic miracle and the banking and industrial privatizations. The high quality of the reconstructive investigation then allows us to promptly grasp and identify the negative responsibilities of the class policy and of that managerial, both banking and industrial, whose choices actually have our country is condemned to a situation of mediocrity, certified, irrefutably, by the statistical evidence of the unsatisfactory trend in productivity.
It is also sad to note that this retreat apparently unstoppable of the country has happened, despite, on the one hand, there have been repeated, favorable unexploited historical opportunities and on the other, the recognized ability of our entrepreneurial class to adapt to changes in the scenario has been confirmed. An ability which - it is worth remembering - has translated into peaks of excellence, achieved in some sectors of our industrial world, appreciated nationally and internationally.
The examples of Seat, Alitalia, Telecom and Autostrade
To support this thesis, the descriptions of what happened at Seat, Alitalia, Telecom and Autostrade are illuminating; just as the limits and constraints that accompanied the formation of the two current champions of our banking system, Unicredit and Intesa San Paolo, are well illustrated.
So, an irreversible process of decay? No, because, in any case, the two authors light up and allow a glimpse of one little flame of hope for the future, thanks to an optimism of will, which aims decisively at a substantial change of direction. A hope, moreover, conditioned by the appropriate use of the analysis of the current problems of Italian society, which is also the result of the mistakes of previous decades and which paradoxically could be transformed into useful lessons, to be supported with an indispensable "collective moral leap".
Ultimately, this volume, in addition to offering an accurate evaluation freed from partisan waste of events that are so significant for our country, is worthy of mention for two other positive characteristics: the ability to systematize and lead back to a unitary interpretative framework of the events themselves; the narrative method used, with the use of an agile style, which certainly contributes to making economic-political events that are often not easy to interpret and decipher comprehensible to a much wider audience of readers than traditional "experts" .
Pietro Modiano – Marco Onado “Lost illusions – Banks, businesses, ruling class in Italy after privatizations”, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2023, pages. 372, Euro 35,00
