"I remain of the opinion that there is a very large potential demand for reasonableness in the Italian electorate, perhaps in the majority, which is waiting for an adequate offer (from a political force)". This is, it seems to me, the key phrase written by Salvatore Rossi, former general manager of the Bank of Italy and current president of Telecom Italia, in the beautiful book that collects the exchange of letters he had in recent months with the former director of Corriere della Sera Ferruccio de Bortoli.
From the confrontation between two people who during their working life have been able to observe the evolution of the Italian crisis from different positions, but both from the front row, clearly emerge the mistakes committed by the ruling classes, the reasons for the birth of populist extremisms and sovereignists, but also signs of resistance and the emergence of forces that could lead our country back onto a path of growth and effective equity.
This conversation gave rise to a pleasant and easy-to-read book which, right from the title, aims to represent a ray of hope in the darkness of a widespread resignation towards an unstoppable economic but also civil and social decline of our country. It has been in the bookstore for a few days, for the editions of Il Mulino, "Reason and Common Sense – Patriotic Conversation on Italy” which collects the emails that the two authors have exchanged on various aspects of Italian society in order to focus on the most ancient roots from which the decadence of our country originates, the recent answers that have been given by politics, and some ideas on how a course change can be initiated.
“Very little would be enough” says de Bortoli perhaps with an excess of optimism, hoping for the rediscovery by most of that civic sense that should push millions of citizens to take a bath of humility, which should lead everyone to commit themselves to do their best one's work, and perhaps to dedicate a few minutes a day to caring for the common good (from keeping a street clean, to treating our neighbors with kindness and understanding).
Both authors agree on the need for rediscover the educational value of memory. Remembering our history, even relatively recent, could make us better understand where we come from, and above all appreciate the effort made up of hard work and sacrifices that our fathers and grandfathers put into conquering a better future, one of democracy, peace and of economic tranquility.
Today's seventy-year-olds, when they were children, heard directly from their parents or grandparents what life was like at the beginning of the last century, when they had to emigrate to escape the hunger that still affected many areas of Italy . In this communication and the school should do much more and much better. But then we need to go deeper. Understand where this general crisis of confidence in the future comes from, this general protest from the ruling classes, this devaluation of the very idea of representative democracy which, with all its defects, remains the best form of government among all those that the mankind has so far experienced.
The two authors examine many aspects of the problem of Italian stagnation: starting from the fact that Italians don't like competition, perhaps because the monopolistic lobbies have prevented the advantages from being well explained, and therefore even merit is viewed with distrust; to a Europe that is too economistic and has not been able to give citizens a political vision; up to the accumulation of public debt and the intergenerational conflict which in fact forced the most prepared and enterprising young people to seek the realization of their aspirations outside the country.
Particular attention was paid by the two authors to the causes of the dwarfism of Italian companies where de Bortoli seems to lean more towards the cultural and political shortcomings of our entrepreneurs, especially the big ones, who at the first opportunity sold their companies or fled to abroad, while Rossi places greater emphasis on the reasons of the Italian legal and political context which have always been contrary to the market and to companies, especially the large ones.
De Bortoli's arguments regarding FCA's choices are singular, accused of not having been able to manage since the 80s of the last century, its position of strength in Europe and therefore of having gradually impoverished an industrial heritage of our country. Obviously there have been serious managerial mistakes at Fiat, but one cannot help but remember that when a manager like Marchionne had undertaken to invest in Italy on the condition that the productivity of the factories and the sub-supplier chain be improved, Corriere della Sera lined up solidly against what was considered an attack by the bad boss on workers' rights, thus helping to create a climate of suspicion against an indispensable modernization that was hindered not only by a large part of the political world (even the right in Italy is against the private enterprise) but also by Confindustria itself.
The position taken by Salvatore Rossi, former general manager of the Bank of Italy, is significantthe inadequacy of supervision of banks which was probably the contributing cause of some bankruptcies of the credit companies that occurred in recent years. Supervision - says Rossi - has paid particular attention to the stability of the credit institutions and much less to the protection of the correctness of relations with depositors and customers. With the result that this lack of protective supervision also led to greater instability in the banks, especially the small ones and the popular ones.
Finally, the observations dedicated to the role of information which on the one hand with social media escapes any filter of recognizable responsibility, and on the other is increasingly transformed into entertainment by participating on talk shows to a babel of false comparisons which do not feed the heads but stun them. In order to function effectively, democracy needs informed citizens with an adequate culture for reasoning and a civic sense that does not drive out common sense which, as Manzoni said, must not be forced to hide in the face of the affirmation of a blatant common sense based on fake news.
The role of journalists remains or should remain, that of a professional and credible filter capable of narrating and explaining what is happening. But did journalists actually fulfill this role when newspapers were the main source of information and dictated the agenda of politics and society? Even then there were many deviations that are accentuated today given that journalists have turned into stand-ins for politicians on various talk shows thus questioning the credibility of the profession of intermediaries between power and the public.
Italians appear reluctant to face change. They have lost the benefits of the latest industrial revolution, that of information technology, because they didn't want to take the field. The idea has spread that well-being has been conquered by our fathers forever. And instead we need to convince our fellow citizens that standing still means going backwards and that "the future contains not only threats, but also promises” the important thing is to know how to grasp them. Other countries, not far from us, have succeeded, more or less well. It is not clear why we cannot follow a path based precisely on what is suggested by the book by de Bortoli and Rossi "Reason and common sense".
