[pigro]

Damiano's post presents an interesting conundrum for many of us on here ... I found my self broadly agreeing with every individual point he made, but after I got to the end of the post, my head was filled with a horrible preminition of Italy as yet another grey, dull, market driven economy with no room left for slow paced small concerns whose workers actually have time & skills to perform their role on a human level, safe in the knowledge that if they work to a decent standard, they are likely to have job security, job satisfaction and a living wage.

I mean, I want a cheap bank account without the stupidly high overheads, but OTOH I appreciate going into my branch and seeing staff there who can deal with me individually and who still have a lunch break ,as opposed to calling a call centre in Albania or somewhere to query a transaction.

I want to have the local plumber, electrician etc. mobile numbers programmed into my phone and for them to recognise me by name when I call - I shiver at the thought of calling a 'green number' from the pagine gialle and being connected to some anonymous guy who hits me with a call out charge on arrival and then spends time on the meter acquainting himself with the pipe runs of a house he's never seen before and does a half arsed repair (cos he'll never see it again).

I want the local bar to remain friendly and busy and to be run by the same family through the generations - the thought of it being re-themed every 5 years and starting quiz nights, karaoke and happy hours in order to maximise footfall at quiet times is anathema to me.

I'm sure most of you know where I'm coming from - many of the quaint, oldy worldy things we love about being in Italy (because they remind us of how things were & how we think they still should be) are the very same things that are holding back its economic progress.

However, if these matters were addressed systematically throughout society, Italy would be left as another pale imitation of American corporate culture, and the personal glue holding society together would start to weaken over time, just as it has in the UK and other countries who have bought too deeply into consumer culture ... and if we're honest, aren't many of us fleeing to Italy precisely to avoid living in such societies?

I don't have the answers I'm afraid, but they are important questions ... economic progress/prosperity vs. state protectionism and preservation of an archaic and corrupt system which tacitly preserves the traditional societal structure.

You'd normally think there was a 'happy medium' for progress but my view is that shaking up the economy sufficiently to actually initiate permanent cultural change creates a runaway train (with institutional investors & speculators as the only brakeman) that can't really be stopped once it's picked up sufficient momentum.

In short, I'm a bit of a NIMBY when it comes to the kind of economic reform that would really be required to address the big problems with Italian industry.

I don't suppose it's a solution but an observation nonetheless - there are simply far too many people in the world. They are consuming too much of the finite resources, and requiring too big a public infrastructure to support their needs.

Think water, oil, forest, staple food crops; think siting of new conurbations on flood plains, earthquake zones, consider the placement of new golf courses all over the arid parts of the med/middle east/north africa ...

population & it's associated infrastructure need to be pegged back over time to sustainable levels, in a model where people can return to a more "cottage industry" type lifestyle (living mainly in places which are geographically conducive to settlement; working close to where they live; supporting & sustaining their local communities by theiur physical and economic presence; replacing commuting time with time spent growing some of what they eat in their own ground etc. etc.). That doesn't mean going back to mud huts & barter based economy, you can easily deploy a high tech/finance/service teleconomy to a decentralised model these days if the political will is there and companies are suitably incentivised.

I know this is more "pie in the sky" than "blue sky" thinking - it wouldn't work convincingly unless it was implemented globally (tell that to China/India...) and I have no idea how you would ethically reduce populations by the amount required to make this work (well, I do, but this post is out of control already!)

Anyway, the point for me is that what I just described above (with the partial exception of the teleconomy bit) is not dissimilar to the lifestyle that I see my own Italian neighbours actually leading today, hence my selfish choice to locate there.

I'm not saying that all of Italy has that rosy glow - far from it, I understand that I live in a fairly affluent area and that there is real deprivation, poverty etc. in the big cities and in the south.

I guess all I'm saying (in my long winded way) is that the baby mustn't be thrown out with the bathwater when the economic/political change that we all know is required eventually comes.