Perhaps the right thing at this point would be to change his name. After the pope of the Citizenship Income, Luigi Di Maio, published in the paper a substantial self-criticism on the flag provision of the Five Star Movement (I think it is appropriate to rethink some mechanisms) we can say that the son no longer exists. At least with the characteristics described at the time. And then it would be worth abandoning even that pompous quote that refers to the French Revolution. And accept that it is called minimum income, like almost all the other brothers around the world. At the time of its conception, the grilline eggheads wanted the income to have two objectives, the fight against poverty and activation on the labor market. Behind was the idea of rewrite the social democratic welfare by paving the way for occupation for the entire population of relative poverty, approximately 15% of Italians. The lack of work was in fact seen as the main cause of poverty, not grasping how the Great Crisis of 2008-15 had changed the cards with the advance of the figure of the working poor, salaried who cannot make it to the famous fourth week.
–
To attempt the operation, the initial allocation foreseen by the 5 Stars was 16 billion, partly provided directly and partly intended to strengthen employment centers. Those who criticized the double objective of the fight against poverty and unemployment right from the start were covered with insults and had to swallow the distortion of the active policies envisaged for the unemployed and the birth of navigators. Thus took shape the grillina reworking of the Italian welfare system signed at the beginning by Nunzia Catalfo, current Minister of Labor and entrusted for implementation to the young professor Pasquale Tridico and an Italian-American named Mimmo Parisi. That initiative had an element of strength: it pierced the laziness of the left and of the trade union, which despite having an enviable roots and tradition in Italy, had forgotten the last ones (except to repent in extremis under pressure from the Alliance against poverty. ).
–
Between saying and doing even for populists there is a distance. And even though the 5 Star Movement won the elections, in the end a coalition government was born and even the Northern League had the need to keep faith with the promises of the electoral campaign. The result was that the resources to be distributed on the social network went in part to income and in part to finance the measure of quota 100 and so the 16 billion that the Grillini had dreamed of became 6 with the addition of the 2 billion of the “little” Rei, inherited from the Gentiloni government. But in addition to undergoing the Northern League, the 5 Stars had to experience first-hand that the populist myth of the Caste’s alternation in power with the Honest ones is not equivalent to a magic wand, whoever goes to the control room is confronted with many of the problems that had troubled the predecessors.
In concrete terms, if the Employment Centers had not worked until then, Di Maio was not enough in the government to make them become “Germans”. And then, in any case, the reforms need time, their implementation cannot be bent to political calculations just because an electoral campaign is at the gates in which to say that they have abolished poverty. But even in this case, the 5-star was betrayed by a lack of knowledge of the country: to truly improve the employment balances, it is not enough to change the offer but you have to act on the chronic weakness of the demand for work, you have to get your hands dirty and deal with the market and business choices. Possibly not as Di Maio himself wanted to do with the Dignit law, an orphan provision that no one claims anymore and which has complicated the already difficult flows of youth employment.
–
If that were not enough, even in the middle of the journey the Income has encountered other obstacles. A network of friends has not been built, we could say. And for one more lack of political culture of the 5 Stars who did not know the complexity of the levels of government in the Italy of the Fifth Title. Municipalities and Regions that should have been associated with the extraordinary operation of rewriting the welfare of Western countries, have got in the way or have not found the right links. And finally the spoils of the double target that had moved the meager income. Calculating that 1.1 million families benefited for a total of 3.1 million people, they found a job opportunity – it is not known whether independently or through placement, for what duration and if they are still employed – about 200,000 Italians. A result that the grillini themselves considered not very usable on the consensus market in the final phase of the legislature. Hence the unexpected self-criticism of Di Maio: the Grillini have discovered that society is not as they had thought it and that administrative and technical culture is not a toy for conservative bureaucrats.
–
