Italy is a zero-growth country, as confirmed by recent data from the EU Commission. And just to get out of the "dark hour" that the country is going through it would need a strategy for development which brings together choices of economic policy, industrial policy and fiscal measures all aimed at stimulating investments, promoting innovation and creating new jobs.
Instead, the measures taken so far since yellow-green government they combine welfare (basic income), questionable pension choices (quota 100 for pensions), tax amnesties and statist measures (the "salvage of Alitalia" at the hands of the Treasury and the Railways) which go in the opposite direction to growth.
It is an alarming panorama, well told by a recent one book by Ernesto Auci, "The 24 months that brought Italy to its knees", published by Goware: a stimulating collection of reasoned chronicles, documents and judgments which has the advantage of keeping economic analysis together with political proposals, trying to give indications on "how we can get back up".
Auci has a long career as an authoritative economic journalist (he was, among other things, director of "Il Sole24Ore"), as a businessman (Fiat, Confindustria), as a publisher (the publishing company of "La Stampa" and, now, the digital group Firstonline) and, recently, also as a politician (he was a deputy of Civic Choice). And so he has sophisticated skills, transversal, of those who know the economy with competence and foresight.
In his book, clear, full of data, marked by a pleasant brilliance of writing, Auci reconstructs the facts starting from the "avalanche" that began with the constitutional referendum of December 2016 (tributing a tribute to Matteo Renzi's reformist attempt and not sparing criticism of those who, in order to get rid of Renzi, even in the Democratic Party, played the leading role in processes that blocked the political evolution of the center-left and ended up delivering Italy to the ramshackle alliance between the Lega and the Five Stars).
We continue with the brilliant season of the Gentiloni government, attentive to European balances and sensitive to economic development (also thanks to a minister like Carlo Calenda, a concrete supporter of innovation and digital evolution). The role of the Bank of Italy is enhanced. And then we arrive at the season of the populist and sovereign government, which Auci spares no criticism of, always entering into the merits of choices, provisions, laws and political positions.
There is, in the pages, great attention to the balance of public finances, not out of obedience to ideological rigour of the German ordoliberals, but due to a well-rooted awareness of the fact that precisely the excess of public debt, typical of Italy, does not allow for long-term investments or economic policy choices favorable to innovation and the competitive modernization of our economy.
Also important are the pages in which the continuous and alarming growth is subjected to criticism, precisely in government environments (among the Five Stars, above all), of a sub-culture hostile to businesses, science, technology, the values of open economy and society, well recalling the liberal and democratic lesson of Karl Popper. And the awareness clearly emerges that, without entrepreneurial dynamism, in a transparent, efficient and well-regulated market environment, there are no possibilities for European development for our country.
The basic indication, to put it briefly, is that of "a political project of social market reformism", linking the traditional liberal lesson (Einaudi) to the Keynes' forward-looking economic policy strategy, in the responsible balance between the state and the market, public investment and private enterprise.
The severity of the critical judgment on the shortcomings of political choices capable of strengthening Italian competitiveness, without "ever giving in to pessimism", is accompanied in the conclusions by the indications for recovery. The framework is the strengthening of liberal democracy, reforming the aspects that arouse criticism from the most alert and responsible public opinion (and also working to greatly improve the information system).
E the horizon is that of Europe, "bearing witness with the courage of the truth" to the advantages and constraints of the EU system and finding "a positioning that truly corresponds to our interests", without pursuing "the false truths that are poisoning the environment in which we live".
Auci knows how much democracy and freedom are not goods and values acquired once and for all. And how much balanced and sustainable development is the result of a long-term commitment to be pursued, with fundamental agreement, by the institutions and political, economic and social subjects.
The book thus ends up being a testimony of responsibility and a planning indication of the work to be done, to consolidate liberal democracy and the culture of the market and to reform those aspects of political and economic life in order to ensure greater and above all better well-being for Italians. Breaking down grudges. Feeding trust and hopes.
