Italy and Its Discontents

Chapter 1: The Italian Economy: Constraints and Achievements

1 For the early history of the G7, see R. D. Putnam and N. Payne, Hanging Together. The Seven-Power Summits, London, 1984, pp. 16ff.

2 See, for instance, the emblematic title of a recent collection of essays on this subject: M. Baldassari (ed.), The Italian Economy: Heaven or Hell?, London, 1994. For a similar view from Paris, J. Menet-Genty, ‘Forces et faiblesses de l'Italie à l'échéance de 1993’, in J. Menet-Genty (ed.), L'Economie italienne, Paris, 1992, pp. 261–8. For the concept of the semi-periphery applied to southern Europe, G. Arrighi (ed.), Semiperipheral Development, London, 1985.

3 V. Zamagni, The Economic History of Italy, 1860–1990, Oxford, 1993, p. 365, table 12.4. For 1994, see World Trade Organisation. Focus, no. 2 (1995), p. 8, table 5.

4 World Trade Organisation, Annual Report 1998, Geneva, 1998, vol. II, p. 92, table IV.30.

5 P. Guerrieri and C. Milana, L‘Italia e il commercio mondiale, Bologna, 1990, pp. 241ff. The Middle East accounted for 5.1 per cent of Italian trade and North Africa 7 per cent. For the change of direction in Italy's trade in the post-war period, away from southern and eastern Europe towards the Common Market and the USA, see M. De Cecco and G. G. Migone, ‘La collocazione internazionale dell'economia italiana’, in R. J. B. Bosworth and S. Romano (eds.), La politica estera italiana, 1860–1985, Bologna, 1991, pp. 184–5.

6 Guerrieri and Milana, L'talia e il commercio mondiale, pp. 258–9.

7 M. Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, London, 1990, p. 691. The countries considered by Porter were Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

8 Guerrieri and Milana, l'Italia e il commercio mondiale, pp. 34ff. This taxonomy is based on that proposed by K. Pavitt, ‘Sectoral patterns of technical change: towards a taxonomy and a theory’, Research Policy, vol. XII (1984), no. 6, and is used in preference to a more traditional but simplistic division into high, medium and low technology sectors. Pavitt's categories have in turn been criticized for their enduring hierarchical quality and technological determinism, and their implication that ‘traditional’ industries are in some way residual rather than themselves being capable of technological renewal and dynamism. For a critique along these lines, see A. Ginzburg and A. Simonazzi, ‘Patterns of production and distribution in Europe: the case of the textile and clothing sector’, in R. Schiattarella (ed.), New Challenges for European and International Business, Roma, 1995, p. 272.

9 Guerrieri and Milana, L'talia e il commercio mondiale, pp. 342–3. For the position up until the second quarter of 1993, see P. Guerrieri, ‘La collocazione internazionale dell'economia italiana’, in P. Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, Milano, 1994, p. 394.

10 World Trade Organisation, Annual Report 1998, vol. I, p. 124, table IV.72. Italy's imports in textiles in the period 1980–97 diminished from 4.7 per cent to 4.1 per cent. The pre-eminent position of Hong Kong is almost entirely due to her re-exports. Much the same story can be told for clothing markets, with Italy maintaining her third place in world exports (8.4 per cent) in this sector in 1997; ibid., p. 131, table IV.80.

11 ibid., p. 101, table IV.43. Italian imports of chemical products constituted 5.6 per cent of the world total in 1980, 6.6 per cent in 1990, and 5.3 per cent in 1997.

12 The changing picture in each of the four compartments and the evolution of Italy's international specialization from 1970 to 1993 are analysed in Guerrieri, ‘La collocazione internazionale’, pp. 383ff.

13 C. Secchi, ‘Introduzione’, in C. Secchi (ed.), L'internazionalizzazione dei servizi e l'economia italiana, Milano, 1990, p. 11, n. 1. Not all the experts in the field are in agreement in including factor incomes in a general definition of international commerce in services. If they are excluded, the volume of world trade in services would drop from 28.5 per cent to 18.6 per cent (1986 figures). M. Kidron and R. Segal, The State of the World Atlas, London, 1995, p. 147, note that the value of world trade in services had doubled between 1982 and 1992, but also that many international financial transactions, transmitted electronically, often go unrecorded, especially when they are transactions between parent companies and their foreign affiliates.

14 World Trade Organisation, Annual Report 1996, Geneva, 1996, vol. II, pp. 164–5, which follows the guidelines laid down by the 5th edition (1993) of the IMF Balance of Payments Manual.

15 For overall statistics of Italy's world trade in services, see World Trade Organisation. Focus, no. 18 (1997), p. 9, table 6. For details of her position in the three categories of world trade in services, see World Trade Organisation, Annual Report 1996, vol. II, pp. 114–16, tables IV.61–3.

16 P. Genco and F. Maraschini, ‘La collocazione internazionale delle società di ingegneria italiane’, in F. Onida (ed.), Il commercio internazionale dei servizi e la posizione dell'Italia, Roma, 1989, pp. 267ff.

17 ‘Invisibles’ include, alongside the three types of services listed above (transport, travel, and other commercial services), compensation of employees and investment income, and unilateral transfers, both public and private (such as transfers from non-resident workers).

18 This hierarchy of explanatory factors in the ‘invisibles’ sector follows that of R. S. Masera and S. Rossi, La bilancia dei pagamenti, Padova, 1993, pp. 291ff. For the growth in foreign debt see also A. Graziani, ‘L‘economia italiana e il suo inserimento internazionale’, in Storia dell'Italia repubblicana, vol. III, pt 1, Torino, 1996, p. 375. For details of the deficit in energy, raw materials and agricultural products, see Masera and Rossi, La bilancia, p. 308, table 11.1. For a graph of Italy's balance-of-payments performance in this period, see Statistical Appendix, no. 28.

19 F. Padoa-Schioppa Kostoris, Italy the Sheltered Economy, Oxford, 1993, p. 225, n. 1.

20 Some British commentators claimed that the revision upwards in 1986 of Italian economic statistics, to take account of the hidden economy, was a typically Italian trick employed to allow talk of the ‘sorpasso’. However, as C. Tyler pointed out in the Financial Times at the time (‘The statisticians remain coy’, Financial Times, ‘Survey on the Italian economy’, 17 November 1987), the revision was based on the recommendations of a committee headed by Sir Claus Moser, former head of the UK's own Central Statistical Office. See also D. Verdura-Rechenmann, ‘Le nouveau capitalisme: la fin des idées reçues’, in Menet-Genty, L'Economie italienne, p. 220, who points out that the hidden economy accounted for only 4.6 per cent in a general revision upwards of 17.6 per cent in 1986. For the relative performance of Britain, Italy, Germany and France in terms of pro-capita income from 1982 to 1994, see Statistical Appendix, no. 36.

21 For EuroDisney, see ‘I giostrai italiani conquistano Parigi’, Il Sole – 24 Ore, 18 April 1992. The firm in question was that of Antonio Zamperla, which had also just won big commissions in Singapore and Hong Kong. For the story of De Benedetti and the SGB, G. Turani, L'Ingegnere, Milano, 1988, pp. 276–301.

22 Statistical Appendix, nos. 26 and 27.

23 Cf. W. Ochel and M. Wegner, Service Economies in Europe, London, 1987, p. 5.

24 T. P. Hill, ‘On goods and services’, The Review of Income and Wealth, vol. XXIII (1977), no. 3, pp. 315–38.

25 ibid., p, 317.

26 For typologies of this sort, and further discussion, Ochel and Wenger, Service Economies in Europe, p. 19, table 2.3; P. W. Daniels, Service Industries in the World Economy, Oxford, 1993, pp. 3ff.; J. N. Marshall, Services and Uneven Development, Oxford, 1988, pp. 12–19; C. Kassab, Income and Equality, New York, 1992, p. 5. In the national accounts a broad distinction is made between services destined for sale, and those that are not; see, for example, the ISTAT statistics reproduced in the Statistical Appendix, no. 29.

27 D. Siniscalco, Beyond Manufacturing, Torino, 1988, pp. 27–8.

28 There are, naturally, many other distinctions that can be added to the basic framework presented above. Hill, for instance, distinguishes between permanent and temporary services, between those that are reversible and irreversible, between physical and mental changes.

29 M. T. Daly, ‘Transitional economic bases: from the mass production society to the world of finance’, in P. W. Daniels, Services and Metropolitan Development, London, 1991, pp. 26 and 40; Daniels, Service Industries in the World Economy, pp. 14–15. See also S. Strange, Casino Capitalism, Oxford, 1986, and S. Strange, Mad Money, Manchester, 1998.

30 R. Mansell, The New Telecommunications, London, 1993; N. Abercrombie, Television and Society, London, 1996, pp. 74–104.

31 G. Esping-Andersen, ‘Strutture di classe post-industriali: un confronto tra Ger-mania, Svezia e Stati Uniti’, in Stato e Mercato, no. 32 (1991), pp. 226–7 and 232–3.

32 Siniscalco, Beyond Manufacturing, argues that it is producer services that have grown most rapidly in Italy. His figures (table 2, p. 28) show producer service employment increasing from 28.8 to 41.4 per cent of all service employment between 1959 and 1982, while final trade declined slightly from 30.6 to 29.0 per cent and services for final demand dropped radically from 40.6 to 29.5 per cent. Furthermore he is convinced (p. 35) that the ‘goods producing subsystems’ (agricultural and energy products, manufacturing, building and construction together with final trade employment) still accounted for more than 65 per cent of total employment in 1982. G. Rey also emphasizes the striking increase in producer services in the 1980s; see his ‘I mutamenti della struttura economica: fattori produttivi, distribuzione del reddito, domanda’, in Confindustria Centri Studi, l'Italia verso il 2000, Roma, 1992, vol. 2, pp. 40–43. G. Sapelli, l'Italia inafferabile, Venezia, 1989, pp. 76–8, follows Siniscalco's lead. On the other hand, M. Paci repeatedly emphasizes the weakness of producer service employment in relation to that of other European countries, and as a percentage of total employment in the service sector in Italy; see M. Paci, ‘Innovazione tecnologica, occupazione e politica sociale’, in A. Ruberti (ed.), Europa a confronto, Bari, 1990, table 6, p. 314, which contains comparative data for the period 1978–87; M. Paci, Il mutamento della struttura sociale in Italia, Bologna, 1992, pp. 278–9. V. Castronovo, Storia economica d'Italia, Torino, 1995, p. 517, agrees with him.

33 See his interview with A. Recanatesi of February 1988, published in G. Amato, Due anni al tesoro, Bologna, 1990, p. 94.

34 P. L. Cotta, ‘Le tecnologie e le banche’, unpublished paper presented to the Convenzione Interbancaria per i problemi dell'automazione (CIPA), Roma, 29 April 1997, p. 6. Documenti CNEL, Il terziario italiano nella competizione europea, Roma, 1992, pp. 49ff. and 107–39. In 1989 the number of credit institutions of significant proportions was over 400, and their level of capitalization was no more than adequate; at the same date, bank employees numbered 318,000 and labour costs as a percentage of total operating costs were ten points higher in Italian banks than in those of France and Germany. For a good analysis of the structure and hierarchy of Italy's major banks in the 1990s see G. Bruno and L. Segreto, ‘Finanza e industria in Italia (1963–1995)’, in Storia dell'Italia repubblicana, vol. III, pt 1, pp. 648–56.

35 For insurance, Documenti CNEL, Il terziario italiano, pp. 62–3 and 77–86. For an entertaining account of the Milan stock exchange in its heady years, A. Friedman, Ce la farà il capitalismo italiano?, Milano, 1989, pp. 149–72.

36 See Statistical Appendix, nos. 11 and 12.

37 For details of the creation of Berlusconi's empire, see ‘Dieci anni di televisione sotto il segno di Berlusconi’, Problemi dell'informazione, vol. XV (1990), no. 4, pp. 487–622. For comparative figures on European publicity markets, W. Veltroni, Io, Berlusconi e la RAI, Roma, 1990, p. 121.

38 Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Dipartimento per la Funzione pubblica, Rapporto suelle condizioni delle pubbliche amministrazioni, Roma, 1993, p. 13.

39 Masera and Rossi, La bilancia dei pagamenti, p. 332, table 12.1. Taking 1970 as the base line of 100, industrial productivity in 1988 was 206.05, that of the public administration 100.91 (figure for 1987). Nominal wages had risen by 1988 to 1,459.7, compared to 1,358.6 in the public administration.

40 In September 1996 the management of the state railways was rocked by a major financial scandal with the arrest of Lorenzo Necci, the managing director. For a useful summary, see S. Carli, ‘Fs, il “Progetto” finito negli scambi’, la Repubblica, Affari e Finanza, 23 September 1996.

41 Cf. Cultura del testo, vol. II (1996), no. 6, which contains part of the proceedings of the Conference of January 1996 dedicated to the National Library in Florence. The Florentine library, for all its faults, was considerably more user-friendly than its Roman counterpart. For an effective critique, T. Gregory, ‘Le biblioteche alla deriva’, Il Sole – 24 Ore, 28 September 1997.

42 Ministero per i Beni culturali e ambientali. Notiziario, nos. 51–2 (1996), p. 19; R. De Gennaro, ‘Imprenditori adottate Pompeii’, la Repubblica, 21 September 1997. For a useful introduction, R. King, ‘Italy: multi-faceted tourism’, in A. M. Williams and G. Shaw (eds.), Tourism and Economic Development, London, 1991 [1st edn 1989], pp. 61–85.

43 For some indications on high-performing producer services in the 1980s, see G. Pellegrini, ‘Integrazione e crescita dei servizi negli anni '80: l'altra faccia della ristrutturazione’, Rivista di Politica Economica, vol. LXXI (1991), no. 4, pp. 3–21. For performance in the 1990s, World Trade Organisation, Annual Report 1998, vol. II, p. 139, table IV.91, and p. 47, table III.41.

44 OECD, Economic Surveys: Italy, 1990–91, Paris, 1991, diagram 19, ‘Relative price levels in 1985 between Italy and the EC average’. Public services were by and large significantly cheaper than the EC average, though notoriously less efficient.

45 C. Secchi, ‘Il turismo in Italia’, in C. Secchi (ed.), L'internazionalizzazione dei servizi, p. 68.

46 F. Barca and I. Visco, ‘L'economia italiana nella prospettiva europea: terziario protettivo e dinamica dei redditi nominali’, in S. Miscossi and I. Visco (eds.), Inflazione, concorrenza e sviluppo, Bologna, 1993, pp. 78–9.

47 ISTAT, Statistiche del commercio interno, Roma, 1997, p. 13, table 1.2, and p. 14, table 1.5. The four categories of retailers were foodshops; clothing and fabrics; furniture, interior design and domestic appliances; other products and articles. Only this last category was in expansion in the period 1980–95.

48 For P. Sylos Labini's calculations, see his three books: Saggio sulle classi sociali, Bari, 1974, Appendix, table 2.2; Le classi sociali negli anni'80, Bari, 1986, Appendix, table 1.1; and La crisi italiana, Bari, 1995, p. 23, table 2. See also Statistical Appendix, nos. 22 and 30. For further discussion of shopkeepers, see below, Chapter 2, pp. 49ff.

49 Ginsborg, A History, p. 183.

50 ISTAT, Statistiche del commercio interno, p. 13, table 1.4; M. D'Antonio, ‘Competition, development, inflation: the case of services’, Review of Economic Conditions in Italy, no. 3 (1992), p. 334.

51 Ginzburg and Simonazzi, ‘Patterns of production’, pp. 262–8.

52 See below, p. 377, note 82.

53 R. E. Rowthorn and J. R. Wells, Deindustrialisation and Foreign Trade, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 5–6.

54 F. Barca, Imprese in cerca di padrone, Roma, 1994, pp. 171–2. For a good overview in English, see F. Amatori, ‘Italy: the tormented rise of organizational capabilities between government and families’, in A. D. Chandler, F. Amatori and J. Hikino, Big Business and the Wealth of Nations, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 246–76.

55 Revelli, ‘Economia e modello sociale’, pp. 178ff.; C. Romiti, Questi anni alla FIAT (ed. G. Pansa), Milano, 1988, p. 230.

56 For the events of the autumn of 1980, see Ginsborg, A History, pp. 403–5.

57 For some details of the firm's global activities up until 1994, see FIAT Archivio storico, FIAT: le fasi della crescita, Torino, 1996. For the company's relative standing in the European markets, A. Silbertson and C. P. Raymond, The Changing Map of Industrial Europe, London, 1996, p. 70, table 4.4. See also the important studies published to mark FIAT's centenary: C. Annibaldi and G. Berta (eds.), Grande impresa e sviluppo italiano. Studi per i cento anni della FIAT, 2 vols., Bologna, 1999; V. Castronovo, FIAT. Storia di un impresa, 1899–1999, Milano, 1999.

58 For details of passenger transport in private cars, see Legambiente, Ambiente Italia '93 (ed. G. Conte and G. Melandri), Roma, 1993, p. 155, table 1. See also Statistical Appendix, no. 14.

59 B. Anastasia, ‘Il gruppo Zanussi: quadro storico e situazione attuale’, in A. Dina (ed.), Elettrodomestici flessibili, Torino, 1990, pp. 34–7.

60 Bruno and Segreto, Finanza e industria, pp. 622–3 and 636–8.

61 Turani, L'Ingegnere, passim.

62 F. Barca et al., Assetti proprietari e mercato delle imprese, Bologna, 1994, vol. I, p. 86, table 3.8.; ibid., vol. II, pp. 94–101. The large sample of mainly private companies with over fifty employees revealed the existence of four principal types of control: ‘absolute’, accounting for 13.8 per cent of firms; ‘familial’ (the components of a single family), 32.1 per cent; ‘coalitional’ (of non-kin partners, or of two or more closely connected families), 11.6 per cent; ‘group’ (a pyramid structure formed of more than one firm), 11.6 per cent. However, this last form was often little more than an escamotage for control concentrated in a single family firm at the top of the pyramid.

63 ibid., vol. I, pp. 205ff. See also the biting comments of M. De Cecco, ‘Italia, “potenza” a gestione familiare’, la Repubblica, Affari e Finanza, 27 February 1995.

64 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1992–93. Italy, Paris, 1993, p. 119, graph Al; Revelli, ‘Economia e modello sociale’, pp. 205–6.

65 Ginsborg, A History, pp. 283–5.

66 Friedman, Ce la farà, pp. 87–8, interview of 7 July 1989.

67 For the controversial history of this sale, A. Santagostino, Fiat e Alfa Romeo: una privatizzazione riuscita?, Milano, 1993. See also R. Bianchi, ‘The privatisation of industry: the case of Alfa Romeo’, in P. G. Corbetta, R. Leonardi and R. Y. Nanetti (eds.), Italian Politics: a Review, vol. I, London, 1988, pp. 109–25. For a journalistic account, very much from Prodi's point of view, R. F. Levi, Il Professore, Milano, 1996, pp. 94–114.

68 Some of the remaining problems emerged very clearly in the interesting testimony of G. Gallo, who was vice-president of the group from April 1991 to August 1992; see his IRI Spa, Milano, 1992, pp. 20ff.

69 R. Sitari, L'Eni e le sfide del presente, in F. Venanzi and M. Faggiari (eds.), ENI, un'autobiografia, Milano, 1994, pp. 302–3.

70 G. Roverato, Nuovo Pignone. Le sfide della maturità, Bologna, 1991.

71 OECD, Economic Surveys, 1992–1993. Italy, p. 119, graph Al. For Genoa, L. Caselli and A. Gozzi, ‘Un'economia in declino’, in A. Gibelli and P. Rugafiori (eds.), Storia d'Italia. Le regioni. La Liguria, Torino, 1994, pp. 901–5.

72 A. Bonomi, Il capitalismo molecolare, Torino, 1997, p. 61.

73 Among the principal works: M. J. Piore and C. F. Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide, New York, 1984; M. H. Best, The New Competition, Cambridge, 1990; A. Bagnasco and C. F. Sabel (eds.), Small and Medium-Size Enterprises, London, 1995.

74 S. Brusco and S. Paba, ‘Per una storia dei distretti industriali italiani dal secondo dopoguerra agli anni novanta’, in F. Barca (ed.), Storia del capitalismo italiano, Roma, 1997, pp. 277–8. A pioneering article was that by G. Becattini, ‘Dal “settore” industriale al “distretto” industriale. Alcune considerazioni sull'unità di indagine dell’ economia industriale, Rivista di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. V (1979), no. 1, pp. 7–21.

75 Porter, The Competitive Advantage, pp. 210–25.

76 Brusco and Paba, ‘Per una storia’, p. 280.

77 E. and S. Bugatti, ‘L‘area sistema di Lumezzane’, in F. Onida, G. F. Viesti and A. M. Falzoni (eds.), I distretti industriali: crisi o evoluzione?, Milano, 1992, pp. 345–54. Cf. M. Bongiovanni, ‘Tra pentole e rubinetti l'autarchica Lumezzane’, Il Sole – 24 Ore, 10 August 1991.

78 These are constant themes in the work of S. Brusco; see, for example, his Piccole imprese e distretti industriali, Torino, 1989.

79 Bongiovanni, ‘Tra pentole e rubinetti’; Bonomi, Il capitalismo molecolare, p. 79.

80 Brusco e Paba, Per una storia, pp. 304–5; G. Becattini, Distretti industriali e ‘made in Italy’, Torino, 1998, p. 138.

81 For the background to recent Italian design supremacy, see P. Sparke, Italian Design. 1870 to the Present, London, 1988; G. Albera and N. Monti, Italian Modern. A Design Heritage, New York, 1989.

82 A useful introduction is V. Balloni, ‘L'industria della moda’ in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, pp. 398–9. The evolution of the textile and clothing industry at an international level is traced in Ginzburg and Simonazzi, ‘Patterns of production’, passim. For an instructive comparison between small businesses in France, Britain and Italy, concentrating on textile firms in Lyons, Leicester and Como, see A. Bull, M. Pitt and J. Szarka, Entrepreneurial Textile Communities, London, 1993. The Como firm emerged as the most successful, with Leicester a poor third. The advantages accruing to British small business by Thatcherite attempts to revive it in the 1980s were largely wiped out by the severe economic recession from 1989 onwards.

83 Brusco and Paba, Per una storia, p. 286.

84 A. Pescarolo, ‘Famiglia e impresa. Problemi di ricerca all'incrocio fra discipline’, Passato e Presente, vol. XII (1994), no. 31, pp. 136–8. The author also notes a slight tendency towards ‘de-familization’, with the number of non-family firms exceeding for the first time those formed by horizontal kinship networks.

85 Bonomi, Il capitalismo molecolare, p. 37. For a welcome antidote to idealization, see F. Murray, ‘Flexible specialisation in the “Third Italy”’, Capital and Class, no. 33 (1987), pp. 84–95.

86 F. Farinelli, ‘Lo spazio rurale nell'Italia di oggi’, in P. Bevilacqua (ed.), Storia dell'agricoltura italiana in età contemporanea, vol. I, Spazi e paesaggi, Venezia, 1989, p. 231.

87 Istituto G. Tagliacarne, Divari territoriali dello sviluppo agricolo nel decennio 1980–1990, Milano, 1994, p. 18.

88 Farinelli, ‘Lo spazio rurale’, p. 233. For the massive use in the Po valley of pesticides and fertilizers, which had ‘overturned the delicate environmental equilibrium of the most fertile land in our country’, see C. Donnhauser, ‘Agricoltura’, in Lega per l'Ambiente, Ambiente Italia. Rapporto 1989 (ed. G. Melandri), Torino, 1989, pp. 170–80. The provinces of Novara, Vercelli and Pavia were known as a sort of ecological Bermuda Triangle, with the largest consumption of weedkillers in Italy.

89 P. De Castro and R. Deserti, ‘Imprese multinazionali, strategie di mercato e nuovi scenari del sistema agro-alimentare italiano’, Rivista di Politica Agraria, vol. XIII (1995), no. 3, pp. 4–8, and especially tables 1, p. 4, and 3, p. 7. Certain markets in dynamic expansion such as sugar, biscuits, pasta, beer, coffee, frozen foods and prepared sauces had assumed ‘a decidedly oligopolistic character’.

90 G. Giacomini and P. Bertolini, ‘Vecchi e nuovi problemi dell'agricoltura italiana’, Rivista di Politica Agraria, vol. XII (1994), no. 6, p. 9, table 6.

91 R. Fanfani, ‘II rapporto agricoltura-industria tra passato e presente’, in P. P. D'Attorre and V. Zamagni (eds.), Distretti, imprese, classe operaia, Milano, 1992, p. 71.

92 World Trade Organisation, Annual Report 1996, vol. II, p. 73, table IV.2. Cf. R. Fanfani, ‘Agricoltura italiana e CEE’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, p. 651.

93 A recent and interesting analysis of the question is that of G. Di Sandro, ‘Quante sono le aziende agrarie: tre milioni o tre-quattrocentomila?’, Rivista di Politica Agraria, vol. XII (1994), no. 6, pp. 29–36. For a rather different view, in which restricted size is seen as the crippling problem of Italian agriculture, G. Colombo and E. Bassanelli, Quale futuro per l'agricoltura italiana?, Bologna, 1995.

94 For the ten-year-long Italian failure to respect the milk quotas established by the EEC, the frauds involved and the subsequent scandal, see the reconstruction in ibid., pp. 28–53.

95 NOMISMA, Rapporto 1993 sull'agricoltura italiana, Bologna, 1993, p. 298.

96 CENSIS, ‘L‘imprenditore agricolo nella trasformazione dell'agricoltura’, in Rapporto sulle prospettive economiche del settore agro-alimentare nel 1993, Roma, 1993.

97 Colombo and Bassanelli, Quale futuro, pp. 169 and 192–4. For the earlier history of the Federconsorzi, see Ginsborg, A History, pp. 171–2, and above all M. Rossi-Doria, Rapporto sulla Federconsorzi, Bari, 1961.

98 The new Ministry was named that of Agricultural and Food Resources, but then changed again in 1997 to that of Agricultural Policies.

99 NOMISMA, Rapporto 1993, pp. 410ff.; G. Colombo, ‘Quale politica per lo spazio rurale?’, Rivista di Politica Agraria, vol. XII (1994), no. 2, pp. 3–12. See also the observations of P. Bevilacqua concerning the rich potential for biological agriculture in many parts of the south, as well as the possibility of the revival and marketing of certain traditional products; P. Bevilacqua, ‘Riformare il Sud’, Meridiana, no. 31 (1998), pp. 42–3.

100 SVIMEZ, Rapporto 1991 sull'economia del Mezzogiorno, Bologna, 1991, table 6, p. 33. These official figures must be handled with care, because they cannot take into account the considerable amount of ‘black’ and casual work undertaken by southern youth. None the less, the gravity of youth unemployment in the South is not in question.

101 N. Boccella, ‘Mezzogiorno più lontano dal Nord’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, p. 430.

102 C. Trigilia, Sviluppo senza autonomia, Bologna 1994 [1st edn 1992], p. 61. At the end of the 1980s state spending in the South was 34.7 per cent of the national total, slightly less than the South's percentage of total population.

103 ibid., pp. 62–3.

104 The history of the ‘southern question’, as has been asserted recently, is a history of aggregations and distinctions, not of homologies. See the interesting collection of essays edited by R. Lumley and J. Morris, The New History of the Italian South, Exeter, 1997.

105 G. F. Viesti, ‘Che succede nell'economia del Mezzogiorno? Le trasformazioni 1990–1995’, Meridiana, nos. 26–7 (1996), pp. 123–6; Trigilia, Sviluppo senza autonomia, pp. 47–54 and 99–114. Trigilia distinguishes between provinces of rapid industrial growth (L‘Aquila, Campobasso, Chieti, Teramo, Isernia, Bari, Lecce and in part Avellino and Pescara), and those largely dependent on the building trade for their economic progress (Catania, Ragusa, Sassari and in part Avellino and Bari).

106 Viesti, ‘Che succede’, pp. 115–16.

107 This is not to say that all of the state's ‘extraordinary intervention’ in the South in previous decades was an unqualified failure. For a recent and detailed collection of essays which breaks much new ground, see L. D'Antone (ed.), Radici storiche ed esperienza dell'intervento straordianrio nel Mezzogiorno, Roma, 1996.

108 N. Ajello, ‘Mezzogiorno di fuoco’, L'Espresso, vol. XXX (1984), no. 45, 11 November. By 1995 certain regions of the Italian South – Campania, Basilicata and Calabria – had reached levels of unemployment which were inferior in the European Union only to certain peripheral regions in Spain. At the same time levels of GDP per capita in these same Italian regions were superior to those in many parts of Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland; Eurostat, Statistiche generali, 1996, pp. 67–77 and 157–67 (the statistics for GDP per capita are for 1993).

109 Boccella, ‘Mezzogiorno più lontano dal Nord’, p. 430.

110 A. Graziani, ‘Mezzogiorno oggi’, Meridiana, no. 1 (1987), p. 214. For a detailed picture of southern state subsidies at the beginning of the 1980s, N. Boccella, Il Mezzogiorno sussidiato, Milano, 1982.

111 Trigilia, Sviluppo senza autonomia, pp. 90–91.

112 The areas of the South most infested by criminal organizations were also those with high levels of unemployment and sparse economic development. It was difficult, though, as A. Becchi has remarked, to decide which was the cause of the other; A. Becchi, ‘Le politiche per il Mezzogiorno’, Meridiana, no. 31 (1998), p. 56.

113 Trigilia, Sviluppo senza autonomia, pp. viiiff. and 75ff.

114 Viesti, ‘Che succede’, p. 127. For developments in the 1980s, see S. Cafiero, ‘Dopo la “Cassa”’, in S. Cafiero, Transizione e attualità del meridionalismo, Bologna, 1989, pp. 159–64.

115 SVIMEZ, L'industrializzazione del Mezzogiorno: la FIAT a Melfi, Bologna, 1993, pp. 16ff. for the ‘programmatic contract’ between FIAT and the Ministry, 18 April 1991. With such high levels of subsidies, it was feared that the EEC would intervene to block the agreement, and Sir Leon Brittan, the commissioner then responsible for this sector, did open a case against FIAT in October 1991; by November 1992, however, the Commission had given its approval. With the opening of the Melfi factory, and continued production at Pomigliano d'Arco, more FIAT cars were being produced in the South than in the North.

116 ibid., pp. 42–3.

117 E. Barone and R. S. Masera, ‘Index-linked bonds from an academic, market and policy-making standpoint’, in M. De Cecco, L. Pecchi and G. Piga (eds.), Managing Public Debt, Cheltenham, 1997, pp. 122–3, table 6.1: ‘Italy's public accounts: the question of their sustainability’.

118 L. Spaventa, ‘Introduction’, in F. Giavazzi and L. Spaventa, High Public Debt: the Italian Experience, Cambridge, 1988, pp. 4–5.

119 See below, Chapter 2, pp. 50–51.

120 L. Pennacchi (ed.), Le ragioni dell'equitá, Bari, 1994, p. 14. For a historical overview, M. G. Rossi, ‘Il problema storico della riforma fiscale in Italia’, Italia Contemporanea, no. 170 (1988), pp. 5–19.

121 See below, Chapter 7, pp. 227ff.

122 Amato, Due anni al Tesoro, p. 15.

123 Graziani, ‘L‘economia italiana e il suo inserimento internazionale, p. 374, and ‘Introduzione’, in A. Graziani (ed.), La spirale del debito pubblico, Bologna, 1988, pp. 9–10.

124 E. Scalfari, ‘Lo stato fallisce, i partiti ingrassano’, la Repubblica, 17 September 1991.

125 For a detailed analysis of these decisions, see below, Chapter 7, pp. 244ff.

126 Sir W. Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands, Oxford, 1972 [1673], p. 123, quoted by I. Hont, ‘Free trade and the economic limits to national politics: neo-Machiavellian political economy reconsidered’, in J. Dunn (ed.), The Economic Limits to Modern Politics, Cambridge, 1990, p. 55.

127 Barca and Visco, ‘L‘economia italiana nella prospettiva europea’, p. 25.

128 Cf. UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), Human Development Report 1991, Oxford, 1991. The UNDP attempted to define human development not only in terms of income but also in relation to other criteria such as health, education, degree of liberty and the quality of the physical environment.

129 Quoted in L. R. Brown and H. Kane, Full House. Reassessing the Earth's Population Carrying Capacity, London, 1995, p. 30. For the accumulated environmental tensions deriving from population explosion and over-consumption, see A. Rahman, N. Robins and A. Roncerel (eds.), Exploding the Population Myth: Consumption versus Population, Bruxelles, 1993.

130 Italy may have occupied fifth or sixth place in the world's economic rankings, but in the Human Development Index drawn up by UNDP, based on four principal criteria – life expectancy, adult literacy, average number of years at school and income per capita – Italy slipped down into twenty-second place; UNDP, Human Development Report 1994, Oxford, 1994, p. 129, table 1.

131 UNDP, Human Development Report 1991, p. 22.

132 For a sensitive discussion of these issues, A. Schmidt, ‘The new world order, incorporated: the rise of business and the decline of the nation-state’, Daedalus, Spring 1995, pp. 75–106.

133 For a discussion of the Italian role in international cooperation for development, see below, Chapter 7, pp. 237ff.

Chapter 2: The Social Hierarchies of a Prosperous Nation

1 H. Mendras, La Seconde révolution française (1965–1984), Paris, 1988, p. 44.

2 G. Sapelli, L'talia inafferabile, Venezia, 1989, p. 118.

3 P. Marcenaro and V. Foa, Riprendere tempo, Torino, 1982, pp. 33–4 and 73.

4 The most forceful treatment of this theme is that of U. Beck, Risk Society, London, 1992 [original edn Risikogesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main, 1986]. For further discussion of the themes raised by Beck's work, see U. Beck, A. Giddens and S. Lash, Reflexive Modernisation, Cambridge, 1994.

5 W. Scobie, ‘La dolce Italia’, Observer, 15 November 1987.

6 A. Cobalti and W. Schizzerotto, La mobilità sociale in Italia, Bologna, 1994, p. 77, table 3.3. Other studies on social mobility in Italy include A. Barbagli, V. Capecchi and A. Cobalti, La mobilità sociale in Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, 1988; H. M. A. Schadee and A. Schizzerotto, Social Mobility of Men and Women in Contemporary Italy, Trento, 1990; A. De Lillo, ‘La mobilità sociale assoluta’, Polis, vol. III (1988), no. 1, pp. 19–51.

7 T. W. Smith, ‘Inequality and welfare’, in R. Jowell et al., British Social Attitudes. Special International Report, London, 1989, p. 67. Other European countries included in this comparison were West Germany, Britain, Hungary and the Netherlands. Italy's actual, as opposed to perceived, social mobility, appeared in this survey as much more limited.

8 A. Cobalti, ‘La mobilità sociale in Italia e negli altri paesi europei’, in M. Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni della disuguaglianza, Bologna, 1993, pp. 63–8.

9 ibid., p. 66.

10 J. Rifkin, The End of Work, New York, 1995. For a less extreme view, though hardly a less pessimistic one, see L. Gallino, Se tre milioni vi sembran pochi, Torino, 1998; in particular his reasoned scepticism with regard to any easy application of recent American employment patterns to the European case.

11 M. Mafai, ‘Ora la paura della povertà contagia i “colletti bianchi”, la Repubblica, 1 April 1996.

12 S. Scamuzzi, ‘La percezione della disuguaglianza sociale’, in Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni, pp. 68ff., with reference to Eurisko surveys of 1987 and 1992.

13 S. J. Rose, Social Stratification in the United States, New York, 1992. The data was derived from the March 1990 annual Bureau of the Census Current Population Survey of 60,000 households.

14 As Peter Donaldson has commented: ‘Extreme disparities in income are dwarfed by those in the ownership of personal wealth… however great the differential between the average worker and the average managing director, it is nothing compared with the income gap between “earned” and “unearned” income resulting from ownership of wealth’; P. Donaldson, The Economics of the Real World, London, 1984 (3rd edn), pp. 185 and 188.

15 ‘To achieve that we call in Procrustes, a cruel host whose custom it was to adapt the height of his guests to the size of the bed in the guest room’; J. Pen, Income Distribution, London, 1971, p. 48.

16 The emphasis is Pen‘s; ibid., p. 51.

17 ibid., p. 52: ‘The rear of the parade is brought up by a few participants who are measured in miles. Indeed, they are figures whose height we cannot even estimate: their heads disappear into the clouds and probably they themselves do not even know how tall they are’ (p. 53).

18 M. Geri and L. Pennacchi, ‘La distribuzione del reddito’, in Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni, pp. 169–96, especially table 4.1, p. 176. Their methodology derives from that suggested by D. R. Cameron, ‘Politics, public policy and distributional inequality: a comparative analysis’, in I. Shapiro and G. Reeher (eds.), Power, Inequality and Democratic Politics, Boulder, Colorado, 1988. For another recent and detailed analysis, which comes to similar conclusions, A. B. Atkinson, L. Rainwater and T. Smeeding, Income Distribution in European Countries, Working Paper no. 9535, University of Cambridge, Department of Applied Economics, 1995.

19 Geri and Pennacchi, ‘La distribuzione’, pp. 190–91. As in other western countries, the Italian disequalities of wealth were even greater than those of income. Bank of Italy figures for 1987 show that the top 10 per cent of Italian families, which held 26.4 per cent of overall individual income, had 35 per cent of overall financial wealth (ibid., p. 189).

20 J. Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, New York, 1988, p. 42.

21 Sylvia Walby, in her Theorizing Patriarchy, London, 1995 [1st edn 1990], p. 20, has suggested that the analysis of patriarchy must address the following broad range of structures: waged work, housework, sexuality, culture, violence and the state. She also argues for a distinct shift in patriarchal oppression of women from the private to the public sphere in the course of the twentieth century (ibid., pp. 173–201).

22 For the debate on Italy's radical decline in reproduction, see below, Chapter 3, pp. 69–73. In the cohort of students born between 1952 and 1967, for the first time the number of graduate women exceeded that of men (5.4 per cent against 5.2 per cent), as did the number of girls with upper secondary school diplomas (34.3 per cent against 30.2 per cent); A. Schizzerotto, ‘La scuola è uguale per tutti’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, p. 560. For the importance of the 1991 equal opportunities legislation, C. Valentini, Le donne fanno paura, Milano, 1997, p. 111.

23 A. Perulli, ‘Com'è cambiatal' occupazione’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell' Italia, p.443.

24 Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Dipartimento per la Funzione pubblica, Rapporto sulle condizioni delle pubbliche amministrazioni, Roma, 1993, p. 235, table 3.4.1.

25 M. Piazza, ‘Il rischio di una nuova marginalità, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, p.271.

26 Eurostat Yearbook '95, Bruxelles–Luxembourg, 1995, p. 105.

27 G. Malerba, ‘La donna nella famiglia e nel lavoro: i risultati di una analisi cross-country’, in G. Rossi and G. Malerba (eds.), La donna nella famiglia e nel lavoro, Milano, 1993, pp. 57–8. For recent comparative studies, see also M. D. Garcia-Ramon and J. Monk (eds.), Women of the European Union, London/New York, 1996.

28 See P. David and G. Vicarelli (eds.), Donne nelle professioni degli uomini, Milano, 1993.

29 I. Bertaux Wiame, C. Borderias and A. Pesce, ‘La forza dell'ambiguità, traiettorie sociali di donne in Italia, Francia e Spagna’, Inchiesta, vol. XVIII (1988), no. 82, p. 21; and above all L. Balbo, ‘La doppia presenza’, Inchiesta, vol. VIII (1978), no. 32, pp. 3–6.

30 R. Crompton, ‘Women's employment and the “middle class”’, in T. Butler and M. Savage (eds.), Social Change and the Middle Classes, London, 1995, p. 67.

31 G. Contini, ‘Gestirsi il proprio tempo’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, pp. 249–53.

32 For an analysis of this gendered occupational segregation for the city of Bologna, based on the national census of 1991, see M. Barbagli and M. Pisati, Rapporto sulla situazione sociale a Bologna, Bologna, 1995, pp. 65–72. One survey of 1993 from the Milanese hinterland, covering women between the ages of twenty and fifty-five who lived alone, found over 50 per cent of them were middle-ranking white-collar workers. Out of a sample of 104 women, only one was a manager and two were professionals. Most were very critical of their work conditions and career prospects; see B. Beccalli, ‘Introduzione’, in G. Achilli et al., Vivere sole, Milano, 1994, pp. 13–22, as well as M. Cacioppo et al., La donna sola: aspetti e scelte di vita, Milano, 1994.

33 A. M. Chiesi, ‘Disuguaglianze sociali nell'uso del tempo’, in Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni, p. 220.

34 For the Swedish model, see below, Chapter 3, p. 73.

35 P. Feltrin and S. La Mendola, ‘I lavori manuali non operai: il caso delle donne delle pulizie’, Prospettiva sindacale, vol. XIX (1988), no. 69, pp. 63–102.

36 L. Balbo, ‘Crazy quilts’, in G. Statera (ed.), Consenso e conflitto nella società contemporanea, Milano, 1982, p. 231.

37 For an analysis of these tendencies, Valentini, Le donne, pp. 129–51.

38 See, among others, M. Molyneux, ‘Beyond the domestic labour debate’, New Left Review, no. 116 (1979), pp. 3–27; H. I. Hartmann, ‘The unhappy marriage of Marxism and Feminism: towards a more progressive union’, in L. Sargent (ed.), Women and Revolution, Boston, 1981, pp. 1–42. For a good summary of ‘dual-systems theory’, the attempted synthesis of Marxist and radical feminist theory, see Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy, pp. 5–7.

39 One of the most innovative attempts to redraw the lines dividing society (in this case French society), principally on the basis not just of economic divisions but also of cultural capital and consumption patterns, is to be found in P. Bourdieu, Distinction, London, 1994 [original edn, La Distinction, critique sociale du jugement, Paris, 1979]. See also his ‘What makes a social class? On the theoretical and practical existence of groups’, Berkeley Journal of Sociology, vol. XXXII (1987), pp. 1–17.

40 See M. Paci, ‘I mutamenti della stratificazione sociale’, in Storia dell'Italia repubblicana, vol. III, pt 1, Torino, 1996, pp. 707–8.

41 K. Marx, Misère de la philosophie, Paris, 1847.

42 Cf. A. O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Cambridge, Mass., 1970.

43 F. Tamburini, Misteri d'Italia, Milano, 1996, p. 183. Aldo Ravelli (1911–95) had survived the concentration camp of Mauthausen (ibid., pp. 51ff.), and many other vicissitudes. His extended conversation with Tamburini, which he allowed to be published only after his death, constitutes a rare glimpse of the attitudes and actions of at least one part of the grande borghesia.

44 S. Cingolani, Le grandi famiglie del capitalismo italiano, Bari, 1990, pp. 6ff., 22ff., and 69–70. In this period also, nearly all the Italian pharmaceutical industry was taken over by foreign multinationals.

45 This widely accepted thesis has recently been presented in attractive form by A. Friedman; see both his Angelli and the Network of Italian Power, London, 1988, and his Ce la farà il capitalismo italiano?, Milano, 1989.

46 Cingolani, Le grandi famiglie, p. 90.

47 F. Tamburini, Un siciliano a Milano, Milano, 1992, p. 73. Cuccia died on 23 June 2000, aged ninety-two.

48 Ginsborg, A History, pp. 145–67.

49 G. Andreotti, A ogni morte di Papa, Milano, 1980.

50 This aphorism first appeared in Andreotti's journal Concretezza, vol. V (1959), no. 12, 16 June, p. 4.

51 Quoted, without a specific reference, in M. Franco, Andreotti visto da vicino, Milano, 1993 [1st edn 1989], p. 46.

52 Even Berlusconi, who was certainly not considered part of the ‘buon salotto’, did not hesitate to pay tribute to the man he considered its prince. In August 1989 Berlusconi's closest friend and adviser, Fedele Confalonieri, used an appropriately feudal imagery to describe the relationship between the two men: ‘The emperor calls, the duke responds, and takes with him the list of lands that he has conquered, as well as a hunting trophy or two. And from the heights of his throne the emperor smiles and is amused at so unpredictable and intelligent a knight.’ S. Pende, ‘L'amico Fedele’, in L'Europeo, vol. XLV (1989), nos. 33–4, 25 August, p. 48.

53 C. Thomas, ‘Family and kinship in Eaton Square’, in F. Field (ed.), The Wealth Report, London, 1979, pp. 129–59.

54 A precious documentation of these habits has come into the public domain through the revelations and holiday photographs of Stefania Ariosto, the sometime fiancée of Vittorio Dotti, a lawyer who was one of Berlusconi's closest advisers. For a more analytical approach, see A. Corso, ‘Quelli della vela’, la Repubblica, Affari e Finanza, 8 May 1992, who divides the Italian owners of large sailing yachts into three groups: those interested in regattas, those in cruises, and those in antique ships.

55 A. Chiesi, ‘Il sistema delle associazioni industriali e la specificità del caso italiano’, in A. Martinelli (ed.), L'azione collettiva degli imprenditori italiani, Milano, 1994, pp. 199–201, 208 and 374, n. 5.

56 A. Martinelli and L. Lanzalaco, ‘L'organizzazione degli interessi imprenditoriali e il sistema politico. La logica dell'influenza’, in ibid., p. 343.

57 C. Donolo, ‘L'erosione delle basi morali nella società italiana’, Quaderni di Sociologia, vol. XXXVIII–XXXIX (1994–5), no. 8, p. 61.

58 See, for instance, the stimulating chapter entitled ‘Reflexive subjects’ in S. Lash and J. Urry, Economies of Signs and Space, London, 1994, pp. 31–59.

59 Mendras, La Seconde révolution, p. 55.

60 For crucial elements in the formation of this tradition, see J. Harris, Private Lives, Public Spirit, Oxford, 1993. For the formation of ‘expressive professionals’, B. Martin, A Sociology of Contemporary Cultural Change, Oxford, 1981, pp. 185–233. Growth and change in public sector employment is analysed in R. Parry, ‘Britain: stable aggregates, changing composition’, in R. Rose (ed.), Public Employment in Western Nations, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 195–233.

61 Rose (ed.), Public Employment, pp. 63, 105, 134, 172. In the Italian case, if private health personnel are added, the 1961 total is 276,000.

62 For a further discussion of these themes, see below, Chapter 7.

63 See the articles published in Polis, vol. VII (1993), no. 1: A. Schizzerotto, ‘Le classi superiori in Italia: politici, imprenditori, liberi professionisti e dirigenti’, pp. 5–13; A. Schizzerotto, ‘La porta stretta: classi superiori e processi di mobilità’, pp. 15–43; H. M. A. Schadee and L. Saviori, ‘Il matrimonio e le frequentazioni sociali delle classi superiori’, pp. 45–68; G. C. Rovati, ‘Imprenditori e dirigenti tra cultura d'impresa e cultura politico-sociale’, pp. 69–91.

64 In particular, the existence of the ‘service class’ is hotly debated, and the very term is likely to lead to confusion between, on the one hand, all those who work in services and on the other the much narrower category, which Schizzerotto has in mind, of upper and middle management. It is worth noting also that both Karl Renner, who coined the term, and John Goldthorpe, who is its most renowned advocate, used it to include both professionals and managers. For a discussion of these issues of labelling, see T. Butler, ‘The debate over the middle classes’, in Butler and Savage (eds.), Social Change, pp. 27ff.

65 Schizzerotto, ‘Le classi superiori in Italia’, p. 8.

66 A. Bernacchi, M. Mascini and M. Moussanet, Crisi? No grazie, Milano, 1994, p. 148.

67 There was distinct evidence of a distancing of small entrepreneurs from the shopfloor of their factories in the 1990s, for a whole series of reasons connected with growth and the need for greater efficiency; see M. Franchi, V. Rieser, ‘Le categorie sociologiche nell'analisi del distretto industriale: tra comunità e razionalizzazione’, Stato e Mercato, no. 33 (1991), pp. 451–76.

68 L. Tulli, ‘Ingrandire la stalla, allargare il magazzino’, Altrochemestre, no. 1 (1994), pp. 8–9. Silvana's daughter Ester commented in the course of the interview: ‘My mother is a slave to work, for her nothing else exists, it's absurd, this can't be what life is about. I want to work as a secretary with fixed office hours.’

69 P. P. Poggi, ‘La Lega secondo natura’, Iter, vol. II (1992), nos. 5–6, p. 152.

70 For a further discussion of these processes, see Chapter 4, p. 107 and Chapter 5, pp. 174–8.

71 G. Brosio, The Regulation of Professions in Italy, Roma, 1997 (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Nota di Lavoro 36.97), p. 9, table 1; L. Speranza and W. Tousijn, ‘Le libere professioni’ in Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni, p. 82. However, 197,600 of these were nurses. The groupings whose members for the most part clearly belonged to the upper middle classes were as follows: doctors and dentists, 346,013; engineers, 121,625; architects, 70,763; lawyers, 70,413; journalists, 72,214; accountants, 46,000. To this list must be added university professors, who are not, however, a recognized profession in Italy, but rather public employees.

72 W. Tousijn, ‘Tra stato e mercato: le libere professioni in una prospettiva storico-evolutiva’, in W. Tousijn (ed.), Le libere professioni in Italia, Bologna, 1987, pp. 38–9.

73 E. Durkheim, Lezioni di sociologia. Fisica dei costumi e dei diritti, Milano, 1973, p. 33 [original edn Leçons de sociologie, Paris, 1950].

74 A common distinction between entrepreneurs and managers is that the first group displays a talent for innovation, while the second has a talent for organization. But Giancarlo Rovati has warned against any over-simplification, stressing instead the heterogeneity of the world of both managers and entrepreneurs, and the importance of generational differences; ‘Imprenditori e dirigenti’, p. 70.

75 P. Gagliardi and B. A. Turner, ‘Aspects of Italian management', in D.J. Hickson (ed.), Management in Western Europe, Berlin and New York, 1993, p. 151. See also G. Sapelli, ‘The Italian crises and capitalism’, Modern Italy, vol. I (1995), no. 1, pp. 86–7, where he makes a fundamental distinction between the management culture of northern Europe, based on universalist values, a low level of class segregation and a respect for the impersonality of the market and state, and that of southern Europe, where clientelism, familism and traditional non-meritocratic deference dominate.

76 M. Deaglio, La nuova borghesia e la sfida del capitalismo, Bari, 1991, especially pp. 41–64.

77 For some similar, though not identical, ideas on the new élite of symbolic analysts in the United States, see R. Reich, The Work of Nations, New York, 1991, pp. 169–240; and, on a global level, under the general umbrella of ‘professional society’, H. Perkin, The Third Revolution, London, 1996.

78 P. Perulli, Atlante metropolitano, Bologna, 1991, pp. 143ff.

79 A mine of information is to be found in G. P. Prandstaller (ed.), Le nuove professioni del terziario, Milano, 1994 (4th enlarged edn).

80 Paci, Il mutamento, p. 285, table 18. Cobalti and Schizzerotto give a similar figure, 22.4 per cent, for the traditional ‘urban petite bourgeoisie’, and a very detailed breakdown of the categories that constitute it (principally artisans with 0–14 dependants, as well as ‘self-employed in the commercial and services’ sectors); La mobilità sociale, pp. 216–17 and Appendix 1, pp. 251–2. According to the statistics of Sylos Labini (see Statistical Appendix, no. 22), only 29 per cent of the workforce in 1993 were white-collar workers in the public and private sectors. Overall, though, his ‘urban middle classes’ account for 52 per cent of the working population.

81 See in particular the work of G. Esping-Andersen: ‘Strutture di classe post-industriali’, pp. 219–47, and ‘Occupazioni o classi sociali: esiste un proletariato postindustriale?’, Polis, vol. VII (1993), pp. 453–75.

82 Cobalti and Schizzerotto, La mobilità sociale, p. 216, give some indication of this when they note that their category of ‘urban petite bourgeoisie’ was in Italy more than twice the size of that of any other country in their comparative survey (the other countries being Hungary, Sweden, France, Great Britain (without Wales), Ireland, Poland, W. Germany). See also Statistical Appendix, nos. 29 and 30.

83 See, for example, J. Morris, The Political Economy of Shopkeeping in Milan, 1886–1922, Cambridge, 1993. A good introduction to the commercial sector in Italy is to be found in C. Barberis, La società italiana, Milano, 1995 (2nd revised edn), pp. 350–73.

84 The survey was reported in F. Recanatesi, ‘Compro, vendo, evado’, la Repubblica, 17 January 1984. For some European comparisons, see Barberis, La società, p. 362, table 3. In 1991 there existed in Italy 171 shops for every 10,000 inhabitants (one for every 59 inhabitants), in Spain 134, in France 97, in Germany 85, in Great Britain 81.

85 For meat consumption, see Eurostat Yearbook 95, p. 136; for pharmaceuticals, CENSIS, Consumi e spesa farmaceutica, Milano, 1997, p. 47, figure 3 and pp. 61ff. for some international comparisons.

86 See, for example, ‘Il fisco vola alto sopra i 40 milioni’, Il Sole – 24 Ore, 19 October 1996. For an even worse situation a decade earlier, see T. Oldani, ‘I miserabili’, Panorama, vol. XXVI (1988), no. 1173, pp. 68–77 (for 1984–5); A. Forbice and G. C. Fornari, I bugiardi del fisco, Roma, 1985, and A. Tagliacozzo, Per una sociologia dell'evasione fiscale, Roma, 1984.

87 Some indications on the diffusion of state bonds for the years 1992–3 are to be found in L. Cannari and G. D'Alesio, ‘Composizione e distribuzione della ricchezza delle famiglie’, in N. Rossi (ed.), La transizione equa, Bologna, 1994, pp. 267–8, tables 4–9, and pp. 276–7.

88 For a balanced view of the relative advantages of small shops and supermarkets, see G. Pini, ‘Grande distribuzione, modelli di consumo e costi sociali’, Commercio, vol. XVI (1994), no. 52, pp. 87–110.

89 A. Perulli, ‘Com'è cambiatal'occupazione’, p. 446.

90 M. Mafai, ‘Ora la paura della povertà contagia i “colletti bianchi”, la Repubblica, 1 April 1996.

91 ibid. For a sociological profile of bank clerks, see E. Campelli and E. Testi, I bancari, Roma, 1988.

92 Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Dipartimento per la Funzione pubblica, Rapporto sulle condizioni, p. 41.

93 Between 1973 and 1989 women increased their presence in the schools from 83 per cent to 90 per cent of elementary teachers, 63 per cent to 70 per cent in lower secondary schools, and 48 per cent to 52 per cent in the upper secondary schools; see M. Dei, ‘Insegnanti, parola d'ordine: insoddisfazione’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, p. 574. For the percentage breakdown of national public sector employment in 1992, see F. P. Cerase, I dipendenti pubblici, Bologna, 1994, p. 26, table 2.1.

94 ibid., pp. 107–62.

95 This was my very strong impression after taking part in four large further-training courses in the period 1994–7.

96 A. Cavalli, ‘Valori, orientamenti politici e opinioni nella politica scolastica’, in A. Cavalli (ed.), Insegnare oggi, Bologna, 1992, p. 220.

97 G. Gervasio Carbonaro and G. Paoletti Sbordoni, La qualità possibile. Educazione, cultura, servizi sociali nel territorio, Firenze, 1995, p. 14.

98 See Statistical Appendix, no. 22.

99 Bagnasco, L'Italia, p. 27.

100 Revelli, ‘Economia e modello sociale’, pp. 185ff.

101 G. Bonazzi, Il tubo di cristallo, Bologna, 1993, pp. 185–6.

102 M. Revelli, Lavorare in FIAT, Milano, 1989, pp. 125ff.

103 On the delicate balance between autonomy (of the worker) and control (by the firm), see G. C. Cerruti and V. Rieser, Fiat: qualità totale e fabbrica integrata, Roma, 1991, pp. 52–5.

104 B. Trentin, II coraggio dell'utopia, Milano, 1994, pp. 16–18 and 36–7.

105 Revelli, ‘Economia e modello sociale’, passim.

106 M. L. Blim, Made in Italy, New York, 1990, p. 194. His research was carried out in ‘San Lorenzo Marche’, ‘one of a half-dozen key shoe production towns in the Marche’, with a population of 7,000.

107 See above, p. 19.

108 Ginsborg, A History, p. 322.

109 P. Giovannini, ‘Trasformazioni sociali e crisi di rappresentanza’, in P. Giovannini (ed.), I rumori della crisi, Milano, 1993, pp. 238–9.

110 R. Edwards, P. Garonna and E. Pisani (eds.), Il sindacato oltre la crisi, Milano, 1988. In this period an Italian trade-union delegation on a visit to Britain was received briefly by Mrs Thatcher at 10 Downing Street. A leading British trade-unionist who accompanied the delegation confided afterwards to his Italian counterpart that only the protocol of the Italian visit had constrained the Prime Minister to allow a British trade-unionist to cross the threshold of her official residence. I owe this anecdote to Vittorio Foa.

111 A. Accornero, La parabola del sindacato, Bologna, 1992, p. 251. For a critique of trade-union organization, ibid., pp. 213ff.

112 ibid., pp. 259ff.

113 G. Ricordy, Senzadiritti, Milano, 1990, pp. 9–10.

114 ibid., pp. 13–28.

115 P. Perulli (ed.), Piccole imprese metropolitane, Milano, 1990, pp. 42–3. See also the article in the same volume by E. Baptiste and A. Michelsons, ‘Artigianato e piccole imprese nell'area ovest di Torino’, especially p. 122.

116 Letter from F. Capalbo to U. Galimberti, in la Repubblica delle donne, 8 April 1997.

117 N. Negri and C. Saraceno, Politiche contro la povertà in Italia, Bologna, 1996, p. 12.

118 G. B. Sgritta and G. Innocenzi, ‘La povertà’, in Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni, pp. 261–70, offer an exceptionally clear account of the different methodologies and results.

119 Commissione d'indagine sulla povertà e l'emarginazione, Secondo rapporto sulla povertà in Italia (ed. G. Sarpellon), Milano, 1992, pp. 30ff.; and Negri and Saraceno, Politiche contro, pp. 121–2, table 3.1, for the figures for 1994.

120 Commissione d'indagine, Secondo rapporto, p. 35.

121 ibid., p. 37, table 8. Among the elderly population, it was women living alone who were most vulnerable. One's previous working life, and the pension deriving from it, were decisive for the quality of life when over sixty-five. Most old women in the Italy of the 1990s had very discontinuous employment patterns or had worked only in the home.

122 E. Pugliese, Sociologia della disoccupazione, Bologna, 1993, pp. 147–90.

123 Eurostat, Statistiche generali dell'Unione Europea (1997), Luxembourg, 1997, pp. 154–5.

124 E. Mingione, ‘La disoccupazione giovanile’ in Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni, pp. 251ff.

125 Pugliese, Sociologia della disoccupazione, p. 152.

126 P. Romito, ‘La depressione delle donne, ovvero la radicalizazzione dell'oppressione quotidiana’, Inchiesta, vol. XVIII (1988), no. 81, pp. 48–53.

127 See A. Becchi, ‘Città e forme di emarginazione’, in Storia dell'Italia repubblicana, vol. III, pt 1, pp. 837–929, and especially the comparison between Turin and Naples, p. 907.

128 Ginsborg, A History, pp. 438–9, for the case of Quarto Oggiaro in Milan.

129 For documentation on Le Piagge, see the excellent local journal L'Altracittà.

130 Ministry of Interior figures for 1990 estimated at around 300,000 the number of Italian drug addicts, mainly male and mainly in the great cities and the North of the country; N. Negri, ‘L‘esclusione sociale’, in Paci (ed.), Le dimensioni, pp. 294ff. Obviously, not all addicts came from the urban peripheries. For Naples, see below, Chapter 5, pp. 122–3.

131 Ruffolo, Lo sviluppo dei limiti, p. 57. Nor did they fit Ruffolo's own description of them as ‘disorganized and turbulent, of the late Roman Empire’.

132 For a reflection on the synonyms and metaphors used in connection with immigration to Italy, see J. ter Wal, ‘Il linguaggio del pregiudizio etnico', Politica ed Economia, vol. XXII (1991), no. 4, pp. 33–48.

133 L. Mauri and G. A. Micheli, ‘Flussi immigratori in Italia: una scheda documentaria’, in L. Mauri and G. A. Micheli (eds.), Le regole del gioco, Milano, 1992, pp. 213ff. Another measurement of the same year was provided by the national census; see ISTAT, La presenza straniera in Italia, Roma, 1993, pp. 33ff., which gave a total number of 519,613 resident and non-resident foreign citizens (this figure excluded those staying in hotels, etc. for less than a month). Of these 99,166 were from the European Community (see also table 2.3, p. 40).

134 Official Eurostat figures (which obviously could not take into account illegal and non-registered immigrants) offered the following picture for non-EEA (European Economic Area) citizens present in the major western European countries in 1992 (EEA = EU + EFTA countries, but not Switzerland): Germany, 4,176,000; France, 2,273,000 (1990 figures); UK, 1,200,000; Netherlands, 549,000; Italy, 418,000; Eurostat Yearbook '95, p. 68. See also Statistical Appendix, no. 19.

135 For the different strands of immigration to Milan, see G. Barile et al., Tra due rive, Milano 1994, and especially the excellent article of A. Marchetti, ‘La nuova immigrazione a Milano. Il caso senegalese’, ibid., pp. 241–366. Four regions – Lazio, Lombardy, Tuscany and Venetia – absorbed 52.3 per cent of immigration in 1991 (ISTAT, La presenza straniera, p. 34). Major cities tended to have a mix of ethnic groups, but smaller ones sometimes found themselves with an intense immigration from one country alone. Thus 71 per cent of the immigrants to Rieti by 1992 were from Morocco, 85 per cent to Trapani were Tunisians, 50 per cent to Ravenna were Senegalese (Mauri and Micheli, ‘Flussi immigratori’, p. 218).

136 E. Biagi, ‘Niente spaghetti’, Corriere della Sera, 12 August 1991.

137 On 12 August 1991, those still in the stadium at Bari were offered a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, MS cigarettes and 50,000 lire if they would go peacefully. Most did, but the 1,000 who resisted to the last were eventually allowed to stay ‘temporarily’. It thus appeared that the most violent of the immigrants had been the most leniently treated by the Italian authorities.

138 Often these women took the place of Italian family members, while their own families paid a heavy price. For an interesting analysis see J. Andall, ‘Catholic and state construction of domestic workers: the case of Cape Verdean women in Rome in the 1970s’, in H. Koser and H. Lutz (eds.), The New Migration in Europe: Social Constructions and Social Realities, London, 1997, pp. 124–42.

139 Pugliese, Sociologia della disoccupazione, p. 176.

140 Ginsborg, A History, p. 222.

141 F. Gatti, ‘Centrale, guerra dei binari’, Corriere della Sera (Cronaca di Milano), 16 March 1993. At the Stazione Termini in Rome, violence was also the norm, but the most remarked-upon phenomenon was the great gathering in the early evening of Sunday of the Somali community, in front of the station. As the anthropologist Pietro Clemente has commented, ‘As evening falls, Stazione Termini is not a place that is frightening, as some believe. On the contrary, it is reassuring, because it becomes a Somali village, it has the serenity of a village. It is when the immigrants go away that it is time to be afraid’; P. Clemente, ‘Immigrati: incroci di sguardi’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, p. 244. See also M. Cuffaro, ‘Roma dopo mezzanotte’, il manifesto, 2 September 1990.

142 For the treatment of these themes with respect to the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean, see above all M. Livi Bacci, ‘Introduzione’, in M. Livi Bacci and F. Martuzzi Veronesi (eds.), Le risorse umane del Mediterraneo, Bologna, 1990, pp. 11–40.

143 See the discussion between M. Livi Bacci, A. Lonni and E. Pugliese, ‘Immigrazione e razzismo nel Mediterraneo’, Passato e Presente, vol. XVI (1998), no. 43, pp. 15–34.

144 P. Tabet, La pelle giusta, Torino, 1997, p. 24.

145 L. Balbo and L. Manconi, I razzismi reali, Milano, 1992, pp. 30–40.

146 ‘Immigrati in Italia, un'aggressione al giorno’, la Repubblica, 12 June 1997.

147 F. Mazzonis, ‘Un problema capitale’, in Ginsborg (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, p. 108.

148 See, for example, V. De Lucia, Se questa è una città, Roma, 1992, and M. Pazienti, Roma e la sua regione urbana, Milano, 1995.

Notes

Preface

Chapter 1: The Italian Economy: Constraints and Achievements

Chapter 2: The Social Hierarchies of a Prosperous Nation