POLITICA
Therefore, I think any reasonable person would admit that Italy does from time to time benefit from a technocratic cabinet. It seems reasonable to appoint cabinet members because they are capable of doing a specific role. Why appoint a career politician, who may well not have any experience in economics, run the country’s economy?
More and more, politics nowadays has come to focus more on an individual’s qualities than a party’s ideology. This is the main reason why the concept of technocracies have been steadily growing in popularity. Yet this is no novel idea.
Io sono troppo bolognese,
Tu sei troppo napoletano
Egli è troppo torinese
E voi siete troppo di Bari
Sì noi siamo troppo orgogliosi,
Loro sono troppo veneziani…
…Sì che eravamo troppo fascisti
Oppure troppo menefreghisti…
Poi diventammo troppo comunisti …
E anche troppo democristiani.
E sì che il tempo passa
Siamo ancora troppo italiani!
Luca Carboni, Inno Nazionale (1995)
I’m too much of a Bologna guy
You’re too much of a Neapolitan
And him, he’s too much of a Turin man
And you are too much from Bari
And is we are too proud,
That makes us too Venetian…
If once we were too fascist
And now too don’t-give-a-f***ist
Then we became too communist
And then too Christian Democratic.
And even as time passes
We are still too Italian!
I have chosen Italian singer-songwriter Luca Carboni’s song lyrics as a prologue to this article because they accurately represent the division within Italy. Its no different for Italian politics. The irony of the final line is reflected in the Italian parliamentary system, the numerous coalitions due to this and the divide between the north and south.
Democracy is the worst form of government? At least, in Italy, scandal and corruption seem to have plagued democracy’s authenticity. In moments of political crisis, a technocratic cabinet - a cabinet of people who are not politicians, but who are “experts” in the roles they fulfil - seems to come to Italy’s rescue. Our Co-Editor Will Holmes evaluates the benefits of a technocracy in Italy.
The first and last verses from Luca Carboni’s song “Inno Nazionale”
TIME FOR TECHNOCRACY?