AGENDA per il PARTITO 5.0
This is my personal agenda, where I gather few ideas on issues that seem to me important for the development of the political thinking of the Party 5.0. These are simple working notes that I want to share with you so that you can know what I deliberate and, much more importantly, so that you can contribute with your ideas to identify the right path for the reconstruction of the left party in Italy.
AN INCLUSIVE SOCIETY
By Antonio Guizzetti | December 24, 2022
I would begin these thematic files by talking about inclusion. This term moves in a space of very important questions, which concern the very heart of the society that we would like to somehow imagine for the future of all of us.
An inclusive society is one in which every person, each with his or her rights and duties, has an active role to play. Naturally, an inclusive society is based on some fundamental constitutive values: equality, social justice, human dignity, rights and freedom. It is also a society that has the appropriate tools and mechanisms that allow citizens to participate in the decision-making processes that impact their lives and ultimately determine their common future.
The first political foundations of the inclusive society can perhaps be associated with the Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development in 1995. It was during that occasion that a broad consensus was reached that it was necessary to put people at the centre of development. Indeed, an inclusive society today is defined as a people-centred society, that is, one built around the person.
The political approach to an inclusive society must be multi-dimensional, both, in terms of processes (how) and in terms of contents (what). Its realization can only take place through successive incremental stages: adhesion and recognition; recruitment as a political goal; the enjoyment of the rights to act and to claim, to access social services (housing, education, health, transport, etc.); the allocation of adequate social and financial resources.
No serious party can propose inclusive society as the short-term goal of its action. It can engage in this sense, using it - why not? - as an evaluation algorithm of its programs, first, and of its actions, then.
There is not much data that allow us to evaluate how we are in terms of inclusive society. A good approximation is perhaps the rate of material and social deprivation, which measures the share of the population that cannot have access to a basket of goods and services considered necessary for an adequate standard of living. It is calculated at two relative levels of deprivation: one involving greater sacrifices, one less. To get an idea of ​​what we are talking about, let's take the severe figure, which implies greater privations for the person. The percentage of the population in this condition is 6.3% in the European average, 5.9% in France and Italy, 4.2% in Germany. To the Flat Tax enthusiasts who view with sympathy, if not admiration, I inform my friends in Eastern Europe that where the Flat Tax is still in force, the percentages of the deprived population rises to 23.1% in Romania, 19.1% in Bulgaria, 18.2% in Hungary. Certainly, the percentages of Germany, France, Italy and many other advanced European countries may seem irrelevant, but be careful, they mean, for example in our case, that about three and a half million Italians live (it would be better to say survive) in conditions of extreme hardship, as excluded from the rest of the society. There is no secret recipe to overcome all of this. Nor is there an inclusive society that does not require sacrifices from anyone. To create it, it is necessary to take into account the greatest common good and to ask more of someone to give more to someone else.
Politics, however you want to see it, is the representation of interests. It's about deciding which ones to represent. The new party that we imagine should above all represent the interests of the least. Not only because it is beautiful, but also because it is useful for greater growth of the country.
THE MORAL QUESTION
By Antonio Guizzetti | December 27, 2022
I think it is necessary to dedicate my second thematic note to spend some time on the so-called moral question, also in the wake of recent events which have, in one way or another, affected the PD. QATARGATE is a scandal that touches everyone's conscience equally, right and left.
I'll try to do this by avoiding the vulgarity of certain readings of the facts and the ethical amateurishness of too many, but also without too many intellectual flourishes. In principle, the theme of political ethics (often also indicated by other terms, such as political morality or public ethics) consists in expressing a moral judgment on political actions, which is something substantially different from expressing a moral judgment on personal actions. Furthermore, there are at least two different aspects of political ethics. The first aspect is that of political ethics in trials, which concerns the ethics, so to speak, of public servants, politicians in the exercise of their representative function and bureaucrats in the exercise of their administrative function. The second aspect is that of political ethics in actions, of parties and parliaments, for example.
Although process ethics and action ethics both derive from the basic concepts of moral philosophy and political philosophy, they are very different topics, which deserve different analyses, evaluations and judgements.
In fact, all of us, and the media in particular, commonly deal with the political ethics of trials, which substantially imply a moral judgment on people, mixing it with the political ethics of actions, which substantially imply a moral judgment on parties. I don't think it's an involuntary methodological error, but rather the desire to turn everything into a political brawl. The question we actually ask ourselves is this: do widespread and recurring episodes of personal bad ethics by party men and area bureaucrats call political parties into question? To what extent? I answer yes and to an important extent. They represent proven proof of mechanisms for selecting the ruling class that are at least inadequate, not to think of worse, and of consortium mechanisms within the parties on the basis of which one eye, and even two, is turned a blind eye to often very visible behavioural evidence, in exchange for proof of belonging, which is just another way of calling the exchange vote. On these topics, I seem to have seen too many fugitives in the positions taken by the PD, too much hairy guarantees, too many metaphorical acrobatics (the "Rotten Apples", the "Cast the First Stone", the "Personal Responsibility" and so on).
We should take a good look in the mirror and have the strength to see ourselves as we are, even if it's not easy, and then work seriously to be better tomorrow, without however deluding ourselves that we can put our hands in the fire for any of our comrades.
Can ethics be learned? Maybe, but if you have it on your own it's definitely better and even better adopting it as a non-negotiable principle of doing politics.
ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
By Antonio Guizzetti | January 18, 2023
Nel 1930, John Maynard Keynes, economista che spesso sciacqua la bocca ad una sinistra salottiera e ai neofiti dell’economia sociale, in un suo saggio intitolato “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, scriveva che nel 2030 (cent’anni dopo) intensi investimenti di capitali e importanti progressi tecnologici avrebbero aumentato di almeno otto volte gli standard di vita, creando una società così ricca da consentire che le persone lavorassero quindici ore la settimana e dedicassero il resto del loro tempo ad altri interessi e attività. Keynes arrivò addirittura a profetizzare che il grande amore dell’uomo per il denaro sarebbe stato finalmente riconosciuto per quello che è realmente: una morbosità un po’ disgustosa.
In quanto a previsioni di sviluppo della ricchezza prodotta, Keynes ha sbagliato certamente per difetto. Soltanto dal 1980 (ben cinquant’anni dopo la pubblicazione del suo saggio di Keynes) a oggi, stando al database della Banca Mondiale, il PIL mondiale a prezzi correnti, parità di potere d’acquisto, del 2022 è dodici volte quello del 1980: otto volte per le economie avanzate, 19 volte per le economie in sviluppo. Nello stesso periodo di tempo, il livello di reddito pro capite, espresso in questo caso a prezzi costanti e parità di potere d’acquisto (2017) è raddoppiato nelle economie avanzate ed è triplicato nelle economie in sviluppo.,
Ciò malgrado, si deve osservare che questa consistente crescita della ricchezza prodotta non ha creato una società come quella che si attendeva Keynes. Questo, ha provocato, specialmente a sinistra, un intenso dibattito sulla fattibilità e desiderabilità di un modello di crescita basato fondamentalmente, a dire di molti, sulla spinta a consumare sempre più cose, anno dopo anno. Questo dibattito, si è poi ulteriormente rinvigorito alla luce del pensiero ambientalista estremo, sino a arrivare a generare la teoria della decrescita, che sostanzialmente richiede che le economie avanzate abbraccino il principio della crescita zero, anzi preferibilmente della crescita negativa, del PIL.
In Italia, questa condizione, - absit iniuria verbis – l’abbiamo raggiunta da almeno un ventennio e non è che questo ci abbia reso particolarmente felici.
Dunque, a sinistra, piuttosto che trastullarci con un ambientalismo modaiolo e astratto, dovremmo cominciare a lavorare con i nostri migliori cervelli delle questioni sostanziali e di fondamentale importanza per il nostro futuro. Possiamo prosperare senza la crescita economica? La risposta evidente è no. E allora quale deve essere il modello di sviluppo della sinistra democratica, progressista e riformista?
THE PD AND ITS ALLIANCES
By Antonio Guizzetti | January 18, 2023
In the pre-convention PD, the desire for a future alliance with Giuseppe Conte's 5-Star Movement seems very strong to me. I have the impression that many prominent members of the party, and many of those who left the party in search of their decimals of consensus, without for that matter giving up the claim to still teach how to be leftist, believe that the party's more leftward relocation passes through an alliance with the 5-Star Movement, which they probably place today more to the left than themselves and therefore able to increase the rate of "leftism" of the new post-congressional party.
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I am convinced that one can judge the 5-Star Movement in many ways, but that the most wrong way is to see it as a rib of the Italian left. The Conte-led movement is not leftist and possesses none of the constitutive characteristics of a party of the modern European left. Rather, the 5-Star Movement represents the leftward turn of an essentially right-wing populism: a party that is qualunquist and anti-system in its bowels, far beyond the government’s dusting of one-season respectability. What surprises me most in all this, though, is the underlying sense of impotence of the current PD. Like recognizing at the outset that without external crutches, the outlook is indeed black. Maybe so, but I was taught that the first condition of success is to believe in it and that the first value of a political offering is the ability to stand out from others.
So, I wonder: but how smart is this putting the alliance bandwagon before the oxen of your values and program choices? Under what conditions will we eventually go to alliance negotiations having declared as of now that only one of them is possible?
And finally: but if we are so equal to the 5 Stars, why on the left would they vote for us?
THE ITALIAN PRESIDENTIALISM
By Antonio Guizzetti | January 18, 2023
So, our Prime Minister reiterated in a very strong and determined way her own and her party's intention to carry out a presidentialism constitutional reform. In other words: to radically change the institutional and political governing mechanism of this country.
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Giorgia Meloni certainly has clear ideas in this regard, and I have little doubt that she is not willing and able to carry them out decisively, despite some more hesitations from her allies. I don't know if she will be able to do so with such a consensus in Parliament that would allow her to avoid the next referendum step, but I think it quite likely, Just as I am quite certain that, in the event of a referendum, with the draughts, together, of anti-politics, on the one hand (especially on the left), and of authoritarianism, on the other (especially on the right), she will be right in the end. Unless, but I don't think so, the desire for regionalism prompts someone to think hard about the combination of presidentialism (command of one) and regionalism (command of many), it will depend on the spoils that each can feed to his or her target electorate. In Italy, in the end, bungling is always possible.
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When I think about presidentialism, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that, in the good substance of concrete politics, the only and true counterweight of our fragile bicameral democracy is the distribution of powers (and thus counterweights) between the Head of State and the Prime Minister. This is very clearly demonstrated by almost all the most dramatic and dangerous political crises that Italy has gone through in the last two decades. In them, the intervention of the Head of State, even when it appeared to some to be at the limits of his constitutional power, put the boat back on the waterline, perhaps for a not exactly smooth sailing, but certainly less dangerous than a shipwreck.
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Certainly, our Constitution seems perhaps in need of a brush-up. I am thinking especially of the baroque and burdensome perfect bicameralism, which in the world now exists almost only by us. Most European countries have single-chamber parliamentary systems. Only five countries have an elective second chamber. It is true that when this reform, in admittedly somewhat abortive fashion, came on the Italian scene it was rejected and that the PD put a lot of its own into it, but I think the time of the ballet of legislative measures traveling between the House and the Senate and vice versa is really long gone.
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Of course, single-chambers will not be enough to ensure a more modern legislative machine. Other reforms will be necessary (starting, perhaps, with a strengthening of the Prime Minister's powers of choice and appointment). Also included is the reform of regionalism, I would say with the return more to the centre of matters vital to people (health care and education, to name a few) and with broad delegation on all administrative matters that can bring the citizen closer to local institutions and make politics and bureaucracy in the territory more accountable.
FATHER STATE
By Antonio Guizzetti | January 27, 2023
Work is undoubtedly the most urgent of the many pressing problems of the Italian society. I believe that it is completely unnecessary to explain the reason for this: it is evident in the poverty levels of too many families, in the desperation of too many unemployed people losing their jobs, in the resigned and angry apathy at the same time of too many young people.
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Let us leave to the inconclusive debate in the old and new media the hasty analyses, miracle solutions, ideological disputes and whatnot of the Italian information circus.
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Businesses create jobs, little doubt about that, at least in our liberal-Western economic system. Businesses are created by entrepreneurs, based on their vision of the market, their financial capacity, and the availability of supportive external finance.
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We now ask a very simple question: can and should the state be an entrepreneur? I would answer yes, under certain conditions, two in particular: that the state-owned enterprises operate under the exact same market conditions in which competing private enterprises operate, and that the management of the public enterprises be shielded from political and party interference of any stripe, not only in the appointment of top management, but also in the governance of business strategies and operations. I fully realize that these are two ideal conditions of very difficult concretization, but they are the only ones that can support an opinion, such as mine, in principle in favour of selective direct state intervention in the productive economy of the country. Under the conditions that I have specified, I even go so far as to say something else: that profit is not necessarily the primary goal of the new Master State I envision.
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But what do I mean by selective intervention? I am helped, in this regard, by the example of perhaps the most liberal country in the world, or that we often consider such: the United States.
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In the United States, it would be worthwhile for many people to learn more about it, there is a very robust Industrial Policy. The current administration, for example, has planned major interventions with the Build Back Better and the Supply Chain Reliance Plan. It relies on a wide range of interventions on hard and soft infrastructure, on capabilities that must support the work and employment of people, and on the safety of critical products in the value chain. This industrial policy is designed for a context of extreme competition especially, but not exclusively, with China. It aims, on the one hand, to decrease strategic dependence especially for the most critical components of the value chain, such as certain minerals, semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, and so on, and, on the other hand, to expand the more advanced (in other words: higher value-added) domestic manufacturing base.
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I understand that talking about Industrial Policy in Italy now seems almost like blasphemy, inferior only to talking about public enterprise. But I've never liked to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and I firmly believe that Italy needs to make its industrial fabric more secure, including, if necessary, with a "modern" public entrepreneur, where the term indicates so many additional adjectives: honest, transparent, independent, capable, efficient, rational, and so on. Impossible? Let's take it as a challenge.
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Last note: No one knows exactly, I think, where the famous NRP stands. A two-faced creature, facing the tail end of the Draghi government and the headline of the Meloni government. Inevitable, perhaps, are the remonstrations of criticality and the obsession with diversity. I fear it will end up in a great Italian-style mess: it was (perhaps still is) an excellent opportunity to move in a reasoned and reasonable perspective of synergy with some good Industrial Policy ideas. We will lose it in a useless sea of arguments and in an assault on the diligence of resources that seem to belong to no one and instead will cost us dearly, like all those that we often waste on initiatives without head or tail, almost always left then in the middle between general indifference and a shrug of the shoulders of the institutions.