APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200080001-6
The Weight of Inertia (c)
No country in Europe has changed more swiftly and more radically than Italy has since World War II. Twenty years ago a factory worker from Milan who went to southern Italy on his honeymoon could not understand either the dialect or the customs and felt more a stranger there than he would have in France or Switzerland. Since then Italy has become a mobile society, mixing people, habits, and dialects in a fast and tumultuous flow; and as important as the new mobility has been television, which has taught almost everyone the same language. Century-old differences are being rubbed away; but a profit-and-loss account of this vastly changed Italy—with 12 million cars on its roads and 11 million television sets in its houses, with disrupted cities and with some of the most polluted urban air and foulest rivers to be found anywhere on earth—would be hard to audit.
With the rapid change has come an awareness of inertial forces hindering efficient functioning of the society, and there is a growing tendency to blame the government bureaucracy for the troubles of Italy. But the real blame lies beyond the bureaucracy, which only reflects the Italian conception of government by personal favor. Many civil servants owe their first loyalty to an influential friend, and favors are reciprocal. This is the basis of the enormous sub-political underworld known as the sottogoverno. The system as a whole satisfies nobody, but each part of it is advantageous to some individual or group. Attempts at reform come into conflict with deeply entrenched interests determined to preserve their particular status quo.
Inertia, too, sometimes seems a major characteristic of Italy's ancient, crowded, poorly equipped and inadequately staffed universities. Geared since the 13th century to turn out an intellectual elite—in the fields of philosophy, law, literature, history, and religion—they cannot much longer satisfy the increasing demands of a technologically based economy. The government has proposed a number of reforms to do away with the weakness of the higher educational system, but their passage would not by itself insure rapid and dramatic improvement. Even if enough money were spent, the physical expansion of educational facilities will require decades, and the encrusted academic hierarchies—the professors—continue to fight any change that would diminish their privileged status.
Italy's constitution is one of the most advanced and liberal in the world—but it exists somewhat apart from everyday life. Many laws and regulations that would embody its principles have never been implemented, and instead the Italian citizen continues to live under restrictive laws and regulations, from Mussolini and before, that have never been rescinded. The Italian way is to get around the laws, and the law enforcers are usually willing to help or pretend not to have noticed so long as the person concerned does not claim any legal rights. Individual citizens are not entitled to appeal to the Constitutional Court which rules on the constitutionality of laws.
As a whole, and thanks to the intelligence and good nature of the people, the organization of Italian life works; but many parts, particularly the public administration and the educational institutes, do not work well. The pessimistic observer is likely to wonder if, as the problems of the society become more complex, there will ever be enough determination, wisdom, and public spirit—particularly in Rome—to make it work much better. How to transform the Italians' method of governing themselves into an effective vehicle for change is a critical question today.
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200080001-6
