Cesare Romiti marked the Italian history of the second half of the twentieth century. His idea of a capitalism strongly intertwined with political power and therefore able to condition its choices to the advantage of the company, has made school. With Romiti, private industry and public institutions became one, a system. Romiti’s was the large company, the one which, in terms of size, turnover, number of men it employed, was able to think up strategies and withstand the impact of international competition. In some ways the opposite of the “small is beautiful” philosophy that would have permeated Italian economic history starting from the 1980s. Yet that decade Romiti ushered in by defeating the union at Fiat. By imposing the law of the company and cutting thousands of jobs to get out of the difficulties triggered by the oil crisis. It was not just an economic and industrial choice. The union suffered a severe blow. The turning point had effects on politics and strengthened that idea of a pyramidal enterprise with centralized command that would last until the beginning of the 2000s with the advent of the cyclone Marchionne. In the meantime, the economy had globalized and the Fiat designed by Romiti also had to adapt to the times. But woe to accuse him of having imagined a company too tied to Italy and to the palaces of politics: “I will not accept this reading”, he had replied recently. Adding: “After all, I made Fiat grow in South America”.
–
