In his New Year's president Giorgio Napolitano has proposed to make the crisis an opportunity "to commit to reduce the increasingly acute differences which occur in income and living conditions. " Suppose for a moment that the government or the opposition to take seriously his words. If anything they did, they should develop a policy to reduce disparities in a stable manner, ie the observable socio-economic inequalities in our country. The way forward for this purpose in different stages. Let's see what would be the key.
First of all, talking about Italy, is it true that we have the inequalities are greater than in other countries? If at all, why should worry about political power? An answer to the first question has provided the OECD with a report issued a couple of months ago. The thirty OECD countries, only 5 have higher rates of inequality in Italy, as many as 24 indices are lower. On the other hand, researchers of the Bank of Italy provide similar data for years. In Italy 20 per cent of the poorest population receives less than 7 percent of total income, the richest 20 percent receives more than 41 percent. If you look heritage, the inequalities are even greater: 10 percent consists of the richest families hold half of the financial and real wealth while the poorest half has made just 10 percent of the total wealth. Only the U.S., Brazil and a few other countries show the same pyramidal inequality.
policy, supports the right, should not deal with the socio-economic inequalities. Because in the end, it says, are right. Those who are above the whole should a commitment to study and work than those who are down. If the state intervenes in this process diminishes the recognition due to first and second offsets that do not deserve it. In asserting this right commits two errors. The first factual, because that is the explanation for individual cases, but a collective phenomenon such as socio-economic inequalities that there is no evidence available to confirm. The second error is political.
Who is at the bottom of the distribution of income and wealth has on average a shorter life span of a few years, carrying out their work more difficult, how can it feeds, tends to get sick more often, struggling to send their children to 'small asylum in high school or university as large, it wastes an average of two hours a day commuting, at the time, will a pension from hunger. Above all, those who find themselves in those conditions does not count in the decisions that are taken by the political right in terms of organization of work, wages, health, prices, cost and availability of kindergartens, schools, public transport, accommodation. Now, as long as it involves a small part of the population, a political problem does not arise for those who are on top of the pyramid: those who are at the bottom are simply invisible. When it happens that the base will become the majority, or addressing the issue of inequalities in political terms, or they corrupt the deep structures of society that has tolerated up to that point. What is the extent to which Italy seems you are approaching.
A sign of his approach is evident in the prolonged deterioration of the difference in wages between Italy and major European countries. The OECD reports and some very recent International Labour Organization, dated even in 2009, leave no doubt. Between 1995 and 2005, real wages adjusted for inflation have grown in Italy for a paltry 1.5 per cent, against 9.5 in Germany, France, 14.5 and 25.5 of the United Kingdom . But if wages are measured taking into account not only inflation, but of equal purchasing power, Italian wages are reduced by 16 percent between 1988 and 2006. The Oil states that this is the largest decline in wages observed in 11 euro area countries for which comparable data were available. The decline has a direct effect on the wage share of GDP are: between 1979 and 2007 this share has decreased in Italy by almost 13 percent. At this constitutes only 55 per cent of GDP, although employees regularly employed, and then picked up by the Istat survey, have risen in the meantime a few million. A reason for the Oil speaks of "a true emergency wage in Italy."
passed the stage of the investigation of the data, a policy aimed at reducing inequalities should examine their many causes. Simply choose those on which to focus. The productivity of Italian firms, which should be done primarily for research and development, product innovation, working to high professional content, as well as the means of production used to improve the quality of products and services and not just to save labor, stagnated from about a decade. The small firms pay much lower wages on average than large ones, and Italy has a disproportionate number of them. Active and passive policies of the work, designed to facilitate a rapid return to work of those who have lost a little more than Italy spends 0.5 percent of GDP, Germany, France and Spain, nearly five times as much. Finally, the financial activities of companies have diverted large amount of capital investment that could go towards unproductive uses, such as share buybacks and astronomical fees to managers in the form of stock options, bonuses, golden parachutes and pensions in addition to salary.
On the other hand has increased the number of billionaires in the top part of the tenth richest person in the world. Those Italians now make up 7 percent of the tenth, just one point less than Germany which has a population much larger, and between 1 and 3 points higher than in the United Kingdom, France and Spain.
In order to develop a policy aiming at reduction of inequalities of income, as requested by the Head of State, must be courage and social consensus. The first is known, if one does not have it if you can not give. As to consent, the current government is obviously thinking he had found some € distributing a single payment to poor and a small fraction of the precarious. The opposition would do well to think instead of increasing its taking seriously the invitation to Napolitano. Taking into account that in the absence of such a policy the emergence of pay mentioned by the Oil, with its financial components, could significantly worsen in 2009.
of Luciano Gallino from the Republic January 7, 2009
