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The liberal left rubble

Mark Ferrante

"Since 90 percent of the Italian left is made up of reformists to power, now its leaders and its intellectuals are in the paradoxical situation of biting their hands because they wanted to write the book of Tremonti." Tony Blair's victory in 1997 opened the beginning of a short season in which the left found the mercatro. Season that now seems intellectually concluded.

The discussion on the relationship between law and economics, and market rules, which led to the establishment of an advisory committee to the Ministry of Economy, which discusses the legal standard, has not yet generated a real debate on the left. For at least two reasons.

The first is the displacement, the continuous process of metamorphosis before the end of the story and then his sudden recovery required the Italian left. Says Nicola Rossi, a senator of the Democratic Party: "I believe that the reference to the idea of \u200b\u200bmore rules to be congenial to the belly of the Italian center, but it seems to me that you arrive too late, after Giulio Tremonti. On the other hand, the defense market has never really been absorbed on the left. So, I would say that since 90 percent of the Italian left is made up of reformists to power, which had reluctantly practicing things that were different, different, from their formation, now its leaders and its intellectuals are in the paradoxical situation of eating hands because they wanted to write them, Fear and Hope, Tremonti's book. "

There is a second reason, perhaps 'quota', as Rossi, but it has its own weight especially for the reformists. Let's see.

The second reason is this: culture and political practice from which the major financial crises have been developed just to the left, in the form of new lib-lab born in the 90 years between the America of Bill Clinton and the United Britain's Tony Blair, under the banner of the Third Way by Anthony Giddens, substantial parts of which were part of international economic leadership, from Robert Rubin to John Corzine, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, now governor of New Jersey.

Innovation of terzaviisti was to steal the luggage of economic conservatism to the right, starting from fiscal policy. As explained by an independent observer of the facts Italians, Alberto Giovannini, a former professor of economics and finance at Columbia University, "then - perhaps due to a kind of distraction - which happened as the mainstream political thought that the financial economy was still able to circumvent the limitations imposed by regulators, the regulators might as well not snoop on market. " The effect was therefore that the United States and Great Britain developed an idea implicitly built on economic policy boost Financial. Want a home? Finanziatevela 100 percent. Want a car for $ 50,000? Idem. This approach is also a formulation in the conservatism of George W. Bush with his ownership society, the ownership society.
The combination of political and economic interests allowed good growth rates, but sparked a financial bubble.

The controversy stems from the analysis of marketism tremontiana on that stage. Giulio Tremonti, the Mercat is the zealous application of a mechanism-called liberal on which engages a post-Communist method. In this key, the third way was just an expression for the Mercat.
In Italy, after the first phase of the 90 (privatization, Treu, liberalization of energy and the first phase of trade liberalization), the development of terzaviismo has followed another path: the first cross-sectional area of \u200b\u200bthe constitution reform, one of the willing, next to the determination of so-called symbolic agenda that Giavazzi identified in the action of a cultural columnist for Corriere della Sera tip of the instruments of democratic liberalism, and finally the liberal left, the title of a pamphlet of the same luck with Alberto Alesina Francesco Giavazzi, which argued that the effects of liberal policies have left. Affect every single citizen, as a consumer. They push the economic growth effects of which are beneficial to all. The financial crisis gives strength to challenge this approach. Some believe that the pursuit of growth at any cost is wrong. And what is wrong even militant defense of finance as a tool for economic democracy.

As Paul Krugman wrote two weeks ago in The New York Times: "It's an entire failed bank model, the elements that a financial system has done more harm than good." The current critical krugman spread here and there and check more frequently. He has just released a pamphlet of the mill quickly signed by the economist Ronald Dore, with an argument that Krugman, in fact, did argue with the thesis Alesina and Giavazzi on keeping the value of an asset - for example a house in Genoa - guaranteed by the financial coverage for risk diversification, "Enjoy your home and be able to enjoy the serenity you think your home is not influenced by the fact that your housing wealth is exposed to the fortunes of the economy of Genoa. "

The other criticism of the liberal left mainly concerns the symbols used in the battle of ideas. Should not be to liberalize the taxi (a right that liberalization, however, concerns a limited number of beneficiaries), but if anything, airlines, electricity and so on, that is, areas of broader impact on the lives of families. As the sociologist Bruno Manghi said in a recent interview, the left was occupied by taxi, forgetting what was happening in finance. Nicola Rossi says, "I objected that I am not convinced: financial problems had been fully realized for example as an economist Luigi Spaventa, and in our documents of the past years there are references to the risks of financial activities. As for the symbols do not agree. In the first season of the government, that in the 90's, the Italian left has dealt with monopolies and open markets, it was the season of the Authority. In a second step, since it was discovered that it was difficult to overcome the resistance of entire economic sectors which tended to conservation, has chosen the emblematic street, taxis, pharmacies, ie the sheets but the symbols should not be underestimated. "

For some, the defense of financial democracy should not be embarrassed by the fact that the third way has been knocked out by the outbreak of financial crisis. A week ago Giavazzi wrote that America is working on leverage, while Europe, the most backward, focuses on the question of setting the rules. From this point of view, Giulio Napolitano on Reform of the other day, he noticed that the differences in this between Europe and America are less clear than it appears. Giovannini says, "The defense of democracy financial arises from the concern that the liberal culture in Italy is so fragile that it takes little to overthrow it. " Rossi explains, "There is certainly the contingent liability of the third way, but we should continue to discuss and ask for more freedom because we live in a country dominated by hyper-regulation and a culture in the country that regularly deals of what they should not deal with. "

And this is the main reason why the liberals (the left, but not only in truth) are not readily available to the question posed by the Minister of Economy on the need first to bring the economy into a system of rules; and then decide later if we like best the market or the state. So has the same Tremonti explained in a response to an editorial in Corriere della Sera Angelo Panebianco. Gregorio Gitti, professor of private law at the University of Milan, said: "We should aim to restore the balance between law and economics. Even just thinking that in age-old deposit of civil law, there is legal support of trade. "

But for now this balance has no place in the debate. To give an idea of \u200b\u200bhow the dialectic of these issues has been wrapped, it is curious discussion on ordoliberals, a group of German liberals who gave contribution to the formulation of a social market economy, which will stand the German economic system throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The antitremontiani do not like the reference to ordoliberals. Yet in an intervention at the Gramsci Institute in 1998 on the renewal of liberal thought, Valerio Zanone, liberal historian of the left, a founder of the Italian lib-lab at the turn of the late seventies and the beginning of 80, he noted that in 'ordoliberals there is a link between the market and open society. Sure, you can discuss, we can say that Eucken is a positivist, while Hayek believes in the rule such as transposition of the order which springs from the market, but the substance - For what it should cover the crisis in front of which we are - does not change: there is no market without law, and since we have (very) market need, at this time we definitely need to read. In short, we would not need to take it with both ordoliberals, unless the objective is not in the offensive hegemonic Tremonti, who is suspected of using Eucken to recover in terms of power for increased action on the economy, in the form political primacy of the rules of the market. But that's another story, to adjust the balance of power in the field today.

In general, the crisis is producing a discussion of identity in the center. "It opportunity, but the comparison is not the party, many try to keep a vision of defense for preserving a legacy of declining consent, "said Gittings. Rossi added: "The problem is that the left is not only to offer the country without an identity, but is unable to generate, his only concern is to remove." But the strangest thing is that the topic under discussion - the law must prevail or the economy? - Does not become an issue of battle even by liberal who is not and never has been - anti-capitalists, communists, anti-globalization - and that the prevalence of the Law on the market can claim to build a successful ex post, a cultural victory, the recognition of a moral supremacy.

Yesterday was presented a document signed by three economists at the center, Emiliano Brancaccio, Leon Paul and Stefano Fassina, and in their policy area were culturally in the minority at the time of the third way. It 's a commissioned contribution from the metal workers and civil servants of the CGIL - ie the axis between Gianni and Carlo Podda Rinaldini - which opens up the debate in the congress next year. The paper proposes an evening of solutions of economic policy. Fassina says, the national leadership of the Democratic Party and responsible public finance and international economics of the party: "This paper addresses the theme of social and environmental rules at which the market will face, because at this point the law must prevail over the economy. Sure, it's odd that just when the collapse of market fundamentalism, the European left finds itself at an historic low. The problem is that some of us took refuge in the icons, the watchwords of deficit spending, public ownership and Fordist labor, while another part of us is subordinate to a culture that was not ours' .