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| PANTALONE |
BY FABRIZIO ULIVIERI
Reading the comments in the International press after the Italian elections has been very instructive even for an Italian like me.
From my point of view two themes have been justly (re-)marked.
The Italian clownish character, that is in effect the one which is well exemplified by the Commedia dell'Arte.
Italy is a folk of clownish people (as Peer Steinbrück stated in a frank style: "In gewisser Weise entsetzt, dass zwei Clowns gewonnen haben"). Which, honestly, can be true, given that the Commedia in Italy has a long tradition from Dante Alighieri to Carlo Goldoni.
As in the Commedia Dell'Arte, our today's politicians, perfectly embody the traditional masks at their best: Bersani could be a good Pantalone, Grillo a perfect dottor Balanzone, Monti a noticeable capitan Spaventa, Fini a great Stenterello, Casini a probable Meo Patacca, Renzi a Pulcinella and, noblesse oblige, Berlusconi the Arlecchino par excellence!
The other theme comes out from the imperfect knowledge that commentators have of Italian reality.
In fact no one of them knows which is the real entrepreneurial situation in this land. No one of them knows the real fiscal pressure (which is often around 70% and sometimes more).
No one of them knows how creative and inventive an entrepreneur has to be for running a small/medium sized company in Italy because of an enormous fiscal and bureaucratic pressure that is definitively chocking the economy. No one of them knows how unjust and merciless is the Fisco in Italy (in comparison, "the Monti's reforms" caused more deaths than the Pinochet's dictatorship) .
In spite of this, though, many commentators support "the Monti's reforms".
Does the Monti's reforms deserve the name "reform"? (This is my question)
The idea that a democracy can correct itself is not applicable to a land where the industry has to survive day by day in a-one-day-one-vision-economy.
Small and medium seized enterprises (the backbone of Italian Industry) are dying because of "Monti's reforms". It is therefore irritating for Italians when the International Press claims Monti's governance as a good governance: Monti governance has been for entrepreneurs what Attila was for the Eastern Roman Empire.
