The newborn government represents a new step in the instability of the Italian politics, that unveils the mutating essence of the “populism” of the XXI century: flip-floppers at the service of the bourgeoisie, like the transformists of the late XIX century and the beginning of the XX one.
The past
The so called “populists” in Italy (League and Five Star Movement), basically demagogues that came from the petty bourgeoisie instead of the high one, could enter massively the parliament because they wanted to fight neo-liberalism, in opposite ways.
Their strategy and tactics failed so they fitted their narrative to reality, with weird but not unusual twists. From enemy of the system, to functional to the system. There exists many steps of these mutations for each of the two groups, but that insight would result way too long for this article. Just to make an example, one not so past event of the Five Star Movement (FSM from now on), the votation of an hawk, Ursual von der Lyen, showed how most of the base and top of the movmenet felt willing to betray their original values, one step at time.
This event counts as one of the thousands facts showing how the will to negate a certain reality by a certain group can, with time, transform into its exact opposite. From the League we have examples as well.
The present
Thanks to Mr Renzi, that caused the crisis because he wanted to allocate more money of the Recovery Fund to his sponsors, and didn’t want to go to elections to bring the League and Brothers of Italy (another “populist” party similar to the League) to the government. we will probably see that at least one of the last will participate in the current government.
That could probably mean that we’ll assist to a bourgeoisie bonapartism: Mr Draghi will benefit many donors of the parties that will sustain the government, to create the least amount of malcontent among them. The bonapartist pretends to elevates itself above the interests of the wings of bourgeoisie (left, right one), in the name of serving the Highest interest of the State, with the consent of the finance capital, the benediction of the Vatican and the absurd support of the major trade unions. We saw the same premises with the last government, Conte 2, that failed especially in serving the interests of the donors of Italia Viva, the party of Mr Renzi.
The FSM confirmed the support of the government in the name of “maturity”, paying with gastritis inside the base of the movement. Nor the first nor the last of the recent years.
The League said it will enter at some conditions. Given how they helped mafia with the Conte 1 government, we’ll know which.
Brother of Italy said they won’t enter for theatrical reasons. They won’t stay in the same government that contains a person they criticized for years (360° turns never happened right?)
The future
The new government will probably realize a kind of wealth tax, given the words of most Central Banks of the world, a proposal that took place already in the past month, but got rejected by the commission controlled by Italia Viva, for paradoxical reasons.
Draghi’s government will probably just cut the Reddito di Cittadinanza, a kind of conditional basic income, in the amount that results improductive. The union of industrialists, instead, wants a complete cancellation. Even though the central bank of Italy studied it has a positive impact (!).
Draghi’s government won’t renew, most likely, Quota 100, a greatly penalizing severance package to retire earlier. It will create new penalizing opportunities like other governments did in the past, though.
Draghi’s government will most likely cut state aids to zombie companies. This will surely anger many petty bourgeoisie that voted the League, the FSM and other government parties.
Draghi’s government will most likely realize a program that respects a discourse made by Draghi time ago: increase public investment, reduce current expenditure, especially the improductive one. That sounds like keynesian logic but with a trap.
Trap coming from making private debt public, like it happened already with the Great Recession. We saw already where the cuts to public spending occured.
We’ll see the major trade unions behaving passively and/or with some appreciation, like for the wealth tax. It happened already with Monti. The servitude of the major trade unions will leave an empty, sparking spontaneous strikes by people not affiliated to major trade unions, like it happened already in the first months of the pandemic. And in the 70s, where the colluded nature of trade unions emerged again.
The management of the pandemic won’t see a drastic change, continuing the line save yourself if you can till the summer.
In the “worst” case the current government won’t serve much the donors of the sustaining parties but just the salaries (and mortgages?) of the politicians inside them. Because elections mean loosing the benefit.