What do De Benedetti’s words on war hide
There is an articulated network of entrepreneurs between Germany and Italy, branched between industry and finance, who want to defend a model that has been the goose that lays the golden eggs of the last 20 years. Low-cost commodities, low inflation, wage compression and abundant liquidity guaranteed by central banks. Giuseppe Liturri's comment
The answers that Aldo Cazzullo received from Carlo De Benedetti in an interview that probably marks a sort of "break ranks" in the compact front of the hard and pure supporters of the war that the US is waging against Putin, through intermediary, caused a great stir. Ukraine and the EU.
Few talk. De Benedetti has simply become a spokesman for the world of industry and business that fears that an economic model based on the low cost of energy sources (Russian oil and gas above all) and on the maximum openness of international trade will be shattered. In a word, the mercantilist model of which Berlin is the greatest expression in the world, and which Italy is trying to imitate at least since the 2011-2012 crisis, at the price of a painful compression of costs and wages, the only way to make profits of competitiveness.
The Engineer's crescendo is impressive. Almost liberating. To an incredulous Cazzullo who points out twice that "it was Putin who started the war" , he replies that essentially he does not care. What matters is that “ the interests of the USA and the United Kingdom on the one hand, and of Europe and in particular of Italy on the other, diverge absolutely. If Biden wants to wage war on Russia via Ukraine, that's his business. We cannot and must not follow him ”.
Let's imagine Cazzullo's bewilderment, when he heard that “ do we really think we can export democracy with arms? The Americans have already tried. Weapons of mass destruction were invented to justify the war in Iraq. Well: it doesn't work ”. Years of smoky rhetoric cut with a hatchet on a quiet Sunday in early May.
The compromise according to the Engineer is the one that passes from the loss by Ukraine of the Russophile and Russian-speaking territories, and is planted there with this war. And, on those who are afraid that Putin may have expansionist aims to reconstitute the Soviet empire, De Benedetti portrays the Russian army as a gangcaleone army unable to organize itself decently, let alone have further expansionist aims.
Up to the “ confessio regina probationis ”: faced with the umpteenth request to oppose Putin by Cazzullo, De Benedetti repeats the concept: “ If America wants to make war on Putin, face it; but it is not the interest of Europe. It is not my personal opinion; that's what they think in Germany ”. If he had wanted to find a clearer way to identify the interests he is defending, it would not have been possible.
It really is all there. There is a complex and articulated network of entrepreneurs, branched between industry and finance, who want to defend a model that has been the goose that lays the golden eggs of the last 20 years. Low-cost raw materials, low inflation, wage compression and abundant liquidity guaranteed by central banks when the system was about to go into crisis. Not surprisingly, it is Germany that expresses the greatest perplexities towards the choices of the Atlanticist front in the war against Putin.
"Follow the money", was the phrase with which in the film " All the President's men " he invited himself to follow the trail left by money to trace the evidence of corruption.
Likewise, it is always and only a matter of interest and today the German bloc sees its business heavily threatened, with De Benedetti taking on the thankless task of uncovering the harsh truth.
For values and rights, please review or just turn to the many tourists of geopolitics who daily impal themselves on television talk shows.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/carlo-de-benedetti-intervista-cazzullo/ on Mon, 09 May 2022 06:04:14 +0000.