

Italy's ineffective opposition

In search of a leader

How Silvio Berlusconi is helped by having a fragmented and weak opposition

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Readers' comments




Incredibly for once the Economist managed to picture Italian political scenario correctly. Sure an exceedingly ugly scenario.

I cannot find it, but I would like to know the name of who wrote this article: you did a good job. You did not write the usual nonsense, in the usual snobbish tone the Economist commonly seems to reserve only for Italy.

Seems like you actually read some newspapers and maybe had a chat with an objective Italian lad. Congratulations, because this, for once, is journalism.


Has anyone noticed that even crimes have increased during last few years? I think that it is intertwined with the unhappy situation Italians lie on. A lot of people, day by day, get unemployed, finding a job in Italy has never been easy, if somebody in the own forties or fifties (still too young to retire) is made redundant, nothing they can do...that is real despair. The society has already got more confused (in Italy, considering the culture of most of us, that is remarkable in itself), chaos everywhere. Is it B's fault? somebody would sarcastically ask me. I would not dare say it, if this great mess was only an ugly horror movie. In the meantime he goes on appearing on the TV saying he's persecuted (the right word is prosecuted), in any other country everything is worse, he does the best, we need only him...making highlights and cameras turn only on himself, saying a lot of fairy tales... Come on, it's time to quit with baloney!



Once again I find myself mostly in agreement with you. I just feel that the two approaches — my own “cultural battle” and your Fabian tactics of piecemeal privatizations — are not mutually exclusive and perhaps need each other.

You might remember that my “shouting from the roof” about Article 41 started as a reaction to a post where the very idea of such a liberal reform was presented as a psycho-crime denoting a “criminal nature”. As you know very well, that was not just the individual outburst of one demented troll. It is the standard stuff of the Gramscian hegemony that permeates today’s Italy, starting from what kids are being taught at elementary schools by their semi-illiterate teachers. I feel that — unless that is directly challenged — your Fabian approach has rather dim hopes. For example, you probably have not read the literature being currently circulated by the promoters of the referendum against water-utility privatizations. Among other things, it proposes to abolish the application of standard cost-benefit analysis to water-utility projects, on the grounds that a rate of return requirement means profits, and profit-making is a dirty thing, particularly with such a thing as water. How many Italians are today in a position to understand that this is just self-damaging nonsense? As things stand now, you must only hope that the referendum will fail for lack of a quorum.

Then there is another point. The economy is not the only field where the dominant Marxian-Gothic prejudices are damaging Italy. Another and even more serious one is justice. A part from the Italian judges’ lack of independence from prosecutors (and the attendant endemic political justice, which long pre-dates Mr Berlusconi’s problems), take the recent introduction of arbitrary “proactive” wiretapping by prosecutors, with no proper judicial supervision. That would be totally unacceptable — nay, openly unconstitutional — in all other Western democracies. Indeed, the original English liberties were born precisely from the fight against such abuses, which then took the form of searches of people’s private papers and letters. And yet, I cannot really see how your Fabian approach could possibly work here.

Summing up, I shall willingly apply for enrollment in your Fabian army. But at the same time I still hope and expect to find you on my side in my own pitched battle.


The age of the population is also a factor. Italy is a country of the elderly who will never march in the street. The country is increasingly an enormous old age home.

There is little opportunity for youth who are not politically aware and organized. If the workers and the youth could organize locally and nationally, if they begin demonstrating (without sabotage from violence), striking, and boycotting, then progress could be made week by week, month by month.


Don't worry about answering my posts, try instead to answer one simple question: why is it that Italian Magistrates can use methods that are forbidden in any other democracy? It is a perfectly reasonable question.

But of course if the answer were easy, you may be sure that this Supposedly Authoritative Magazine (SAM) would already have written about it. Instead, just like the Italian mainstream media from which it takes inspiration, SAM prudently avoids the matter simply because there can be no justification to the ways of Italian Magistrates. It is a fact.

Never forget that about one year ago our President wrote that Craxi was treated as a scapegoat shortly before Berlusconi entered politics, which is like saying that since about twenty years in Italy we have a short circuit between judiciary and the media which implies the horrendous idea that private telephone calls should be published by newspapers.

To this day, the only answer to my easy question is that who raises the matter is an idiot who is brain washed by Berlusconi's TV. 

To make matters worse, such an offensive and ridiculous answer is even supposed to be the proof of the left's high cultural level. 


yesterday i've watched at an interview released by bill emmott(Tv2). he said (i have refer to the italian translation) that the italians are cynical (i'd suggest "mostly skeptical") and that nothing will never change in italy (i'd say "the mental attitude is complex and relatively stable").
anyhow as an italian citizen my impression is that mr emmott is (starting ?) understanding italy.
thanks for hospitality


@Stefano de Santis: “Do you remember the Tambroni government?”

Yes, I remember it very well, since I was then in Bologna University, very close to Reggio Emilia, and — as a leader of the students there — had to take snap decisions on next day’s developments. You are right in claiming that the Communists had been responsible of “intolerable disorders”. In fact they used very serious violence trying to prevent a Congress of MSI (a legitimate neo-Fascist party represented in Parliament) in the town of Genoa. Nevertheless, your tale of “the use against police of machine guns from the roofs of Reggio Emilia” is utter rubbish. The only people to use firearms were the police, albeit in (probably excessive) self defense, and accordingly the only deaths were among demonstrators. It’s no use to spoil a good case by fancy attempts to re-write history.

Rather, you should remember how the hapless Tambroni Government was born at the hands of President Gronchi, himself elected by a coalition of left-wing Catholics and Communists. It was a “President’s Government” without a pre-arranged majority, but intended by Gronchi to bring about an “opening to the left”. However the Communists did not trust it, and so Tambroni unwittingly found himself depending in Parliament on an external support by MSI. His excessive reaction to the following Communist riots was inspired by Gronchi himself, and tarnished for good both men’s reputation, suggesting an authoritarian (Gothic-Catholic) approach by them.



I’m really flattered by your comments, thank you. Nevertheless, if you feel there is some non sequitur at the end of what I write, you should explain why. Thus far, you have offered no rational argument. To help you, I’ll now try to summarize my own.

1. Unlike what happens e.g. in the UK, the main body of the Italian left (both Catholic and Marxist) has a very long record of not understanding the basics of liberty and of rejecting them out of hand.
2. In the immediate post-war period, that led to a Constitution with some very seriously illiberal provisions, such as: Article 7, with lack of separation between Church and State; lack of inclusion of private property among fundamental rights; collective agreements by trade-union bureaucrats binding for non members (Article 39); arbitrary limitations by Government on private enterprise (Article 41); lack of separation of powers between some executive officers (prosecutors) and judges, with no parliamentary control on the former and resulting loss of independence by the latter (Articles 101-113).
3. Soon afterwards, Italy risked to be the only country in the entire world to turn into a Soviet satellite (with attendant Gulag, etc.) by popular vote. (And the same danger kept hanging over the country — with few qualifications — until 1989.)
4. In the years following 1948, the authoritarianism of the Marxist left had among its main expression the attempt to gain a cultural hegemony, chiefly through control of the main publishing houses (such as Laterza and Einaudi) and censorship of modern European liberal thought (such as the non-epistemological works by Karl Popper, Hayek, etc.).
5. At the end of the sixties such cultural intolerance took an openly violent form within the Universities, where nobody had the guts to challenge it. The de facto control gained there was then quickly extended to the journalistic and teaching professions and to the judiciary.
6. The ideological hegemony over the judiciary was first (and still is) instrumental in preventing the rule of law against criminal activities by left-wing activists (such as occupations of buildings and disruption of educational services). But it quickly helped to organize a much more ambitious coordination of political justice (which in itself already existed, thanks to the flawed role of prosecutors), aimed at the systematic persecution of all those whom the Marxists (and Gothic Catholics) perceived as enemies (see the bogus scandals of P2 , Ustica and Gladio and the very seriously flawed proceedings of Clean Hands).
7. The resulting disruption of all quasi-liberal-minded political organizations overwhelmed the parallel demise of Marxist ideology (which in Italy was a result of Sraffa’s work, much more than of the fall of Berlin’s Wall). Thus a culturally bankrupt illiberal left found itself on the verge of power. Yet there still was a majority of Italians who deeply feared the effects of that on their liberty.
8. Enters Berlusconi. The man was already a proven liar and a businessman who had made a fortune thanks to political favors. Nevertheless, he had good personal reasons to oppose the despotic tide set in motion by the Italian left. A majority of Italians was — and still apparently is — thankful for that.
9. The picture has not changed very much since then. The Italian left does today include some liberally-minded intellectuals, but they are an ineffectual and timid minority, drowned by the illiberal gut-instincts of their rank and file and the cynical interests of their dull and bureaucratic leaders. As a result, the main thrust of its opposition is not on policies, but power as such. The means they continue to use are hence the liberticidal ones of political justice, increasingly based on sheer ethical arrogance and the parallel manufacturing of evidence, outside the world-accepted rules of a fair trial. If unstopped, such a tide is leading Italy towards mob rule through kangaroo lynch courts, more or less successfully piloted by a bunch of party functionaries. Which is one of history’s standard ways towards despotism.
10. Mr Berlusconi does not present a similar threat. He does not control the paper media, and even his control of TV is far from complete. Besides, the “journalists” who serve under him are not very efficient, relative to the plethora of opposition preachers. Finally, and perhaps more relevantly, he is not basing his power on a claim to ethical superiority, in order to buttress a practice of infringements of individual rights.
11. None of this makes of Mr Berlusconi a liberal. But he is not, nor likely to become, a despot. He will no last long, and in the meantime he sometimes makes, albeit insincerely, the right noises. Granted that Italy has still much to learn to become a full-fledged liberal democracy, it has much bigger chances to progress to that under Mr Berlusconi’s ward, than under Mr Di Pietro’s or even Mr Bersani’s.

Where is the non sequitur in that?


@stefano de santis:

With all due respect, I think you do not really know what you are talking about. First: as I have already written, to the best of my knowledge (and I was almost there) the only people to use firearms at Reggio Emilia in July 1960 were the police. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please quote it. Second: Pietro Secchia was very far from being a “loose dog” (or “cane sciolto”). In 1960 he was an influential member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party, with editorial responsibilities for its publishing activities. Again, if you have any evidence to the contrary, please quote it.

As I hope you will agree, factual truth is sacred, and should not be the victim of one’s opinion, however earnestly entertained.


Although you carefully avoid mentioning my name, you appear obsessed by what I write which leads you to draw conclusions which are never once to be found in my many posts.

I never mentioned a plot. I simply think that the articles this Supposedly Authoritative Magazine (SAM) writes about Italy are bad & biased. I never went any further than that.

As I wrote in my first post to this article, I think that talking about the problems of the opposition without mentioning the judiciary is ridiculous and misleading - bad & biased reporting in other words - because it is a well known fact that the more moderates of the opposition, those led by Casini, do not want to have anything to do with Di Pietro, the leader of the pro-magistrates party. It is mostly for this reason that the 60% potential of the opposition doesn't add up to a parliamentary majority. It is a simple matter of math which should not be ignored when talking about the problems of the opposition.

SAM carefully avoids mentioning this aspect because, it being biased, that would mean mentioning the problems of the Judiciary, which would lead to discussing my big question: why are Italian magistrates allowed to use methods that are forbidden in any other democracy?

There being no sound way of defending our Judiciary, SAM prefers to ignore the problem and will therefore never come close to understanding why so many Italians choose Berlusconi: most people do not like the idea of reading their private conversations on newspapers. Our judiciary is a shame.


By reading some posts like @Xanno it seems that the Berlusconi's government is like the regime of Mubarack! Get real.
In my opinion it makes sense that teh national TV and the main TG supports and informs the citizens about what the government is doing with the aim of maintaining some stability and reassurance. I suppose that in the whole world it doesn't exist a person that gives so much freedom as Berlusconi does to everybody. He is the pioneer of freedom and democracy in Italy. I am in UK and the only channels that I can watch live are RaiNews24, completely (and officially!) supporting the opposition and SkyNews24 again completely supporting the opposition. Not to mention political shows that go live at 9pm like Annozero, Ballaro', Che tempo che fa' etc. Believe me you and your friends are so good in making mountains out of molehills. Extremely good at it.


The article is misleading in two (quite important) ways, but it is fondamentally correct in its essence.

1)First misleading point is that, it is quite absurd saying that the opposition amounts to 60%. That flatly counters the definition of "opposition". If the opposition to the PM was 60% in the parliament (and thus the government had only the 40% of votes), there would have been a different government.
The actual parliament has a 50.5% majority in the lower chamber and a 60% majority in thew senior chamber. Not very much of a majority, but it is far from being 40%.
If the article refers to vote intention for the next election, things are even more misleading, since, while major parties are forecasted to have more or less the same support, the newborn party which left the government joined the opposition (FLI) is expected to have in the next elections between 30% and 50% of its actual paliamnet seats (depending on polls), thus reducing the opposition of a further something ranging between 3 and 5%

2)Second (grossly) misleasing argument is that the government did anything worth up to now. Actually, there had been quite important actions.
But (and it is a very important "but") everyone of them came with a rather dark shadow.
Illegal immigration was drastically cut down (positive side) thanks to an agreement with Qatafi (negative side).
A privileged partnership was established with Russia, granting several contracts of italian firms on Russian oil/gas and on the South Stream project (good), and in doing that the PM and his cronies had their share of the money (bad).
The first-aid to the heartquake refugees last year was much faster and effective than anybody in Italy expected (good), but a substantial sum was spent on corruption to speed up the said works (bad).
The Naples garbage problems has been mitigated twice with exceptional works to remove trash which cleaned part of the city (good), but a long term solution has not been found, and after each intervent trash did re-start piling up (bad).
As you can see most of there 'results' are more patches than actual improvements, and one could argue wethere the benefits were worth the price paid, but, again, this is far from doing notthing.

3) That said, the bottom line of the article is right: lack of a credible alternative supports the actual government simply because many voters see it as the second worst evil.
Many italians even now recoil in horror remembering the 2-years experience of Prodi-led coalition government, which really sat stonily immoble for its length, its paralysis sealed by the vetoes and counter-vetoes crossfire between its different components.

Unfortunately, the situation is not likely to evolve before 2013, when the next election of a Presidente della Repubblica will come.
The most authoritative mamber of the opposition (which in theory could play the role of a counter-Berlusconi) is Massimo D'alema, but he has deliberately kept a low profile in the last 3 years, since he is aiming to that seat.
(Some say that B imself dreams of that, too, but he has really no chance of achieving it).
The Presidente della Repubblica position in Italy calls for a moderate, somewhat super-partes figure, and a bland, not-too-involved politician has more chances than a shouting one.
At the same time, since nobody likes uppity newcomers trying to steal power from his own pocket, D'alema is carefully suppressing any other emerging figure among the "youngs" in his own party.
While this consolidate his power, at the same time also paralyze the opposition.
Bersani is simply D'alema runner boy, and while decently competent as a minister, he is utterly inadeguate as a political leader: his main function is to be the scapegoat for opposition failure, so that no other one has his image burned down.
Veltroni, is worse than that: utterly uncompetent both as an opposition leader and a as playing a lesser role, and his image already burned down twice, both in the Parliament and in the contest as Rome major.

Thus, barring Berlusconi having a heart attack (which I hope not, out of human charity), I cannot see the situation evolving before that.


@BrightTony - correction

The correct title of Ben Wilson's book is "What Price Liberty?" (not What Price Freedom). Sorry for the slip.

latin and hellas

I stopped reading The Economists about six months ago, in part because of so many inane articles attacking Berlusconi because of so-called conflicts of interest and lax morals.

I repeatedly commented that one of the keys to his popularity is the ineptness of the opposition, plain and simple, and that you are wasting your time trying to unseat him with lame arguments.

Returning some six months later, I am glad to see you finally admit that I have been right.


Ferretti, with 3 + 3 TV stations, Pippo Franco could be President of the Council in Italy. In fact, Pippo Franco's spiritual brother is President of the Council.


Love your posts. I am sorry we do not know each in real life. You remind me however of Benedetto Croce in the first years of the Ventennio.
You write a brilliant critique of the Italian economy/political life and then finish with what is in reality (though you refuse to see it) a non-sequitur: "Berlusconi is by far the lesser evil".

I am sorry, but there is nothing even faintly "liberal" regarding his many conflict of interests. Nor is there anything faintly "liberal" about his mediatic domination of Italy. Nor is there anything faintly "liberal" about the political support he has always enjoyed from the Vatican (until very recently).

And, for your information, Mr. Berlusconi has done nothing to encourage the modernisation of the Right or Left. Without the support of his TV stations, Rifondazione would have disappeared from parliament ten years earlier. Without Silvio, Gianfranco Fini would have success in modernising all the Italian Right, and not just a small part of it.

I am sorry if you have experienced "oppression" at the hands of Leftist administrators in the past. I share your sentiments, but not your conclusions.

Besides, does not the current New York-based Financial Depression demonstrate yet again how liberal economics cannot survive without a solid regulatory framework? How has Silvio ever contributed to this?

What did you find so illiberal in the Left's government of Italy from 1996-2001?

You are very erudite, but quite wrong in thinking some 30% of the population supports Silvio because he is the lesser of two evils. Most support him because they believe his propaganda. How would you feel if D'Alema owned three TV stations and was President of the Council?


Good afternoon, Tahnk you for mentioning Adam Smith you made me recall that he was very influenced by Mandeville's "The fable of the Bees". One of the points of Mandeville discussion was that vice and corruption are not necessarily evil for the society because from private vice can come out public good. It should be a book that must be read by many of the wannabeethicalatallcosts journalists and opinion leaders. Therefore the real question about Italy, is not about Berlusconi but it is about italian institutional architecture: is Italy organized in a way that it will hinder in the future a new conflict of interest as the one of our present Prime Minister? Are the constitution, the parliament, the magistrates and the institutional main roles properly balanced in order to distribute in a fair way accountancy and liability delivering a lean and efficient government and in the same time a good audit system and counter power that prevents abuses? This are the questions that any honest person should ask. Not Berlusconi's accidents. He is 75. Nature will take him soon but the governance problem will stay.

Richard Bates

A small question to you, Luigi Bianchi:
I've no love for the CGIL, but what you list are a series of opinions of that union. Where is the "illegality" in this?



Hi everybody.
All the noise that’s being made about the reform of artiche 41 of the Constitution and the liberalizations is just fuzz, so don’t bother.

B. has been at the Governemnt form 2001 to 2006, and from 2008 to today.
What liberalization has he made in this time? Not even one.
Actually, he didn’t even try, he never even presented a proposal about the argument.
Even worst, the Government actually presented proposals to cancel those tiny few liberalizations made by Bersani.

So, 8 years at the Governemnt with a huge majority and nothing.
Now, very tiny majority, judiciary trouble and….guess what? Now he wants to do the liberal revolution he has been promising since 1994 but never ever tried.

It’s not that hard to see that this is just another announcement, looking forward to the electoral campaign.

The definitive confirmation of this is the fact that he wants to do his liberal revolution changing the article 41.
Some bloggers has been debating wether this is right or wrong.

Actually: it’s just long, difficult, and totally useless.

Modifying the constitution requires a long a complex procedure, in the best case scenario it’s gonna take two years and, after that, it will require a referendum.
The funny thing is: it’s useless. The overregulation that affects our Country has nothing to do with the constitution, it’s not the article 41 to prevent competition, but a number of small laws and regulations that need to me analyzed and changed, one by one, industry by industry.

So, why is B. proposing something that will take (at least) two years and is useless?

Easy: he doesn’t want to do it at all. As demonstrated by 8 years of B. Government, he doesn’t give a crap to liberalizations.

He just need to do some propaganda


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