One of the serious problems of this unfortunate country is represented by the dominant presence of a Keynesian economic culture, by which is dogmatically believed that the only way to recovery growth and development comes from a continuous state intervention in public spending.And among the most accredited theorists of this, in my opinion, “bankruptcy doctrine” there is the economic historian, Giulio Sapelli, which is masochistically invited to many TV talk shows to explain the correctness of his recipes.
Just last Sunday, during the transmission of “in Onda” ( LA7 channel), he left stunned the brave liberals listening to him by an astonishing statement.
To make it short, he proposed to establish a kind of trans-national authority for the re-industrialization of Europe. A strictly public organism , in his words, to be able to coordinate private companies operating in various sectors, avoiding the deleterious infighting that characterize especially our small and medium-sized businesses.
Obviously if Giulio Sapelli is thinking about resuming the ghost of the Soviet Gosplan – the State Commission for Economic Planning – to revive the Italian and European industry, this means that he has no confidence in the strength and capacity of the spontaneous society, the so-called “invisible hand” from Adam Smith’s thinking, to improve the situation.
Although the applied dogmas of the state interventionism are leading us inexorably to the verge of bankrupt, their false prophets are often requested to expose them publicly without a real debate .
Indeed during the course of above mentioned TV program, to act as counterbalance to the delirious Sapelli`s theories there was the Secretary for Economic Development, Claudio De Vincenti, which, without flinching in the face of fanciful Sapelli`s theories, has candidly admitted he is a fervent supporter of Keynes as well.
So, if even the upper rooms of the technocratic government adopted the idea that only through a deliberate act of the public bureaucracy it is possible to organize the development, we are not surprised at all that our country will close in severe recession in 2012, with little prospect of recovery for the following year.
But yet the mainstream media do not seem to be able to propose another way to get out of the crisis than, despite the different sauces, a more massive state intervention. Intervention which, ultimately, can just bind more tightly the hands of who would still want to embark on new activities. We just have to emigrate.
Translation by Lorenzo Altieri
Original article by Claudio Romiti from L’Opinione