Mattarella’s Keynesianism
Between the lines of the year-end speech by the outgoing President of the Republic, Mattarella, a message for the worshipers of the free market: institutions should not be demonized.
Dear manager,
while listening to the end-of-year speech by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, I decided to write you a message of good wishes combined with a reflection on some of the words spoken by our head of state.
I was struck by one passage in particular, which had as its object the issue of the role of the state in the economy, which we know to be a very delicate subject, which divides the governing parties and which generates so much confusion in public opinion.
LOOKING FOR REALITY
Mattarella began with an extremely important premise in these times of crisis: “Naturally, we need the courage to look at reality without filters of convenience”. Unfortunately, however, reality is always more bitter than what our eyes would like us to see and it is not always easy to understand its complexity. Once a wise editor of a newspaper told me: "Reality is more complex than our ideas." And I absolutely agree with this statement. So reality must not only be observed carefully but it must also be kept in mind that our brain may not be able to fully understand it. For this reason, the principle that the more you doubt, the wiser you are, is always valid.
THE HORRIDES INEQUALITIES
If we observe our economic system carefully, Mattarella said, we note that "the pandemic season has added new ones to the ancient inequalities". The President of the Republic thus shows us the precise point where we can put our finger in the most painful wound of our socio-economic system: the unbalanced distribution of wealth.
How is it possible – the head of state seems to be asking – that so much wealth is polarized in the pockets of a few people and that there are still masses of poor people who are dying of hunger? – in Italy there are about 5 million people in poverty.
STATE AND MARKET
Mattarella enters the most complex debate in economic history with not too much delicacy. A polarized debate, between State and Market, in which there seems to be no space for a middle ground between the most predatory neoliberalism and Soviet statism.
Yet it was John Maynard Keynes after the 1929 crisis who theorized a more humane form of capitalism, an economic system in which the state intervenes in the economy precisely in order to protect the social body, traditionally fragile and exposed to the ruthless dynamics of the free market. State intervention in the economy with a specific social objective: employment.
Mattarella embraces the spirit of Keynesian theories and admits that the market alone is unable to take care of the whole of society, but leaves behind the weakest, the most unfortunate, the most needy, the youngest.
"The spontaneous dynamics of the markets – argues the head of state evoking the" invisible hand "of Adam Smith – sometimes produce imbalances or even injustices that must also be corrected in order to achieve greater and better economic development".
Who has the task of correcting these imbalances or these injustices? The answer is the state, the only actor capable of taking society as a whole to heart, including those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid: the poor.
This is also the difference between "economic growth" and "economic development", where the former is merely linked to numbers and profit, while the latter to the well-being of society. In fact, I can get economic growth if my GDP grows in a quarter, even if it does so because I forced the population of the entire country into forced labor (let's imagine it absurdly). Instead, I get economic development only if the benefits of this growth produce welfare effects in society in terms of quality of life.
In this process, the State, embodied in the institutions, would by definition have the moral, not only political, task of leaving no one behind, as it should happen in school classes, in university classrooms, in the workplace.
This does not mean accepting a corrupt, inefficient state, a bureaucratic machine unable to adapt to changing times, but rather re-establishing legality in public affairs for the benefit of private ones.
YOUNG, PRECARIOUS AND COURAGEOUS
The engine of this transformation are and will be the new generations. “A still too widespread precariousness is discouraging young people from building a family and future”, explained Mattarella, entrusting them with the task of changing Italy […] “Young people are bearers of their originality, of their freedom. They are different from those who preceded them. And they ask that the witness not be denied to their hands ”.
The praise of the younger generations by the head of state is not the usual cliché, but a way to make even the youngest become aware of how important their role in society is.
In the last ten years I have worked in some Italian universities and I have often found that the "young people" Mattarella talks about are much better than you think. They are often underestimated and humiliated, rather than valued, too many times by those very bad teachers who belong to another generation.
I was impressed by the case of a professor in a prestigious classical high school in Rome, who after less than two months from the beginning of the school, in addressing boys and girls who for the first time began to study Greek and Latin, said: "I am afraid that some of you may not be able to study subjects of this type and I suggest that your parents change your address immediately, to find something easier, suitable for your level".
I found this phrase contrary to the principle that every good educator should keep in mind: leave no one behind. Everyone starts from a different level, but everyone must be able to test themselves. Because even from failures you can learn many things.
For this reason I found Mattarella's final message addressed to the new generations more than pertinent. “To the new generations I feel I have to say: don't stop, don't be discouraged, take your future because only in this way will you give it to society”.
Therefore, my best wishes to all schools and universities for their difficult task of educating the Italians of today and tomorrow.
( Here the complete speech of Mattarella )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/il-keynesismo-di-mattarella/ on Sat, 01 Jan 2022 13:16:40 +0000.