We live in the age of crises. We don't have time to get out of the darkness of the tunnel of one that we immediately enter, like a train launched in full speed, into the pitch dark of the next. So much so that even the story of the tragic period from 2008 to 2021, in which the Great financial crisis, the sovereign debt crisis and the pandemic, ages precociously because it is quickly overtaken by the chronicle that tells of a further tragedy, as is the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.
FROM THE GREAT FINANCIAL CRISIS TO THE PANDEMIC, WAR AND ENERGY SHOCK
War that brings as a corollary the most serious energy crisis that Europe has known since the first oil shock, that is half a century ago. Both because the rationing of Russian gas supplies is a weapon of blackmail to weaken the European will to defend the freedom of the Ukrainians and because such rationing occurs when the Old Continent is engaged in the already difficult transition towards new energy sources and the zeroing of CO2 emissions.
Such rapid obsolescence is likely to strike too Between one crisis and another, Giorgio's latest work Brunetti, which narrates precisely the origins, developments and consequences for the Italian productive fabric of the three major crises indicated above. Brunetti is a person of great human and professional value. On a human level, grace, kindness, smile, affection, irony, availability, curiosity, honesty, fairness and joie de vivre speak loud and clear in honor of Giorgio. On a professional level, Professor Brunetti taught Strategy and Corporate Policy at the Bocconi University in Milan for fifteen years and is now Professor Emeritus. At the same time he has been on many boards of directors and consultant to many entrepreneurs, above all from the Veneto, as he is a Venetian from Cannaregio.
Brunetti has another gift: he writes in a crystalline, therefore pleasant way. Without stylistic flourishes. This helps the reader, even if not an expert, to follow the far from simple events that have taken place in these last dangerous fifteen years. The story narrated in this volume starts, in fact, in the summer of 2007, with the first signs of the financial crisis, not without recalling in a few lines what was relevant previously so as to cause the crisis itself. And Brunetti, despite being a storyteller, a man who likes to listen to and tell people's stories, doesn't like to go long. His publications are appreciable also because they are short (in this case 150 slim pages).
Returning to the era of crises, one might wonder if there has ever really been a time without them. Let's take the period from the end of the Second World War to today, perhaps the most peaceful and tranquil in the history of mankind. And we have to list: Korean War, Soviet invasion of Hungary, Cuba crisis, War in Vietnam, youth movement, Hot Autumn, Prague Spring suffocated in blood by the USSR, other-directed coups d'état in South America, inconvertibility of the dollar and international monetary disorder, oil shocks, stagflation in the 70s, dissolution of the USSR, crisis of the European Monetary System, explosion of the former Yugoslavia, Chinese competition, bubble dot com, Islamic terrorism, war in Iraq… At the time these events unfolded they themselves seemed like the end of the world. For example, in the accounts of the adults of the time, the Cuban crisis was experienced as the incipit of the third world war.
And yet, we cannot deny that the latest crises have been a Rossinian crescendo (Brunetti loves classical music and opera). So what is the use of a story that is actually just a chapter of a longer and unfinished story, and of which no one knows the end, neither how nor when?
In reality, the events retraced by Brunetti are very useful to us Italians: being a people with poor memories, this booklet could help to remind us of the events of the 2010-2011 crisis. In view of elections and considering the amazing promises of the parties (especially the centre-right), it would not be much wonder if we find ourselves in trouble again. It is said that history first presents itself as a tragedy and then repeats itself as a farce. And in fact everything that is happening in the current electoral campaign sounds very farcical. But I fear that in the end we will have very little to laugh about.
THE CRISIS, THE EFFECTS ON THE PRODUCTION SYSTEM AND THE CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE
A unique element of this volume is that Brunetti, in each chapter, inserts an interesting insight into the productive tissue Italian, his sufferings and his victories, his weaknesses and his strengths. And even in this there is much to learn in the business world and in the world of those who intend to govern the country.
Finally, Giorgio gives us his vision of the future and the challenges that await us in sixteen small pages. He does not anticipate anything, to leave the reader with the curiosity to discover its content.
Ps: not everything Brunetti writes is acceptable; indeed, sometimes some of his readings of events are open to criticism. But a little chaff does not waste a lot of grain.
°°°°Giorgio Brunetti, Between one crisis and another. History of the Italian economy in the last 15 years, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin 2022, p. 160, 14,00 euros.
