Posted by
voice_of_reason on Saturday, December 15, 2007 9:56:37 AM
In an article titled "
In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment " that was recently published in the NYTimes, Ian Fisher writes
"The word here is “malessere,” or “malaise”; it implies a collective funk — economic, political and social — summed up in a recent poll: Italians, despite their claim to have mastered the art of living, say they are the least happy people in Western Europe.
“It’s a country that has lost a little of its will for the future,” said Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome and a possible future center-left prime minister
Other excerpts from the NYTimes article:
* Internet use and commerce here are among the lowest in Europe, as are wages, foreign investment and growth.
* Pensions, public debt and the cost of government are among the highest.
* Bureaucracy and unclear rules kept United States investment in Italy in 2004 to $16.9 billion. The figure for Spain was $49.3 billion.
* Only 36 percent of Italians trust their government
* Statistics now show that 11 percent of Italian families live under the poverty line, and that 15 percent have trouble spreading their salary over the month.
* Italy has one of Europe’s lowest birth rates, the fewest children under 15 and the greatest number of people over 85, apart from Sweden.
* Unemployment is low, at 6 percent. But 21 percent of the population between 15 and 24 did not work in 2006.
The article also paints an interesting picture in the following:
But the government has fallen once and threatens to fall again at every difficult vote. Small proposals bring protesters to the streets, one hurdle to making changes as protected interests seek to preserve themselves. Pharmacists shut their doors this year when the government threatened to allow supermarkets to sell aspirin. The cost for just 20 aspirin tablets at a pharmacy is $5.75.
The measure passed, but the government is largely paralyzed. Voters are fed up, and Mr. Prodi’s foes know it.
“I understand the bad humor, the malaise,” said Gianfranco Fini, leader of National Alliance, the second-largest opposition party. “People are starting to get strongly angry because you have a government that doesn’t do anything.” Hmm .. could it be that the Italian Government does too much, and actually erodes the economic freedom of its citizens?
Unfortunately, the NYTimes writers do not delve into the root cause behind this malaise. Either due to ignorance or philosophical bias, the writers seem to miss the correlation between affluence and economic freedom. Or, did they chose their interview subjects in a way to deliberately obscure the lack of economic freedom in Italy?
The 2007
Index of Economic Freedom that is publshed by Heritage.org measures and ranks 161 countries across 10 specific freedoms, things like tax rates and property rights. Italy is ranked 60th, neatly sandwiched between Uganda (59th) and Nicaragua (61st). Other countries of note that rank
higher than Italy are: Spain - 27th, France - 45th, Mexico - 49th, Jordan - 53rd.
Incidentally, Heritage.org has an excellent book that is available as a
free download from this link. In it, you will find excerpts such as the following from chapter2:
For several weeks during the autumn of 2005, riots raged in the streets of Paris. Every night, hundreds of cars were burned, shops were vandalized, and violence ruled. French President Jacques Chirac concluded that his nation was suffering from a profound "malaise," a word that indeed captures the reality of economic and social problems in many European countries. After centuries of economic leadership, Europe must now face the truth that its governing institutions—especially its labor markets—are deeply flawed. Those who finally took to the streets, native and immigrant citizens alike, were severely affected by unemployment.
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Imagine that your neighbor, having broken a leg, wants your son's help to mow his lawn. He is prepared to pay 20 euros, and your son is willing to do the work for as little as 15 euros. But imagine the state demanding a 50 percent tax. The deal (and work) are taxed out of existence. Or suppose the government demands that the service be performed by a public monopoly, which perhaps charges above 20 euros. Again, your son is without work. Or a labor market regulation demands a minimum wage of 50 euros, and the neighbor is not willing to pay that much. Again, nothing happens. Or a trade union is allowed to deny your son access to your neighbor's lawn because he is not a member of their organization. The result: no job. My question to the NYTimes writers is: if an armchair blogger can find such information in a few minutes, how could you possibly
not explore the cause-and-effect that is clearly responsible for the malaise in Italy? Perhaps they were too busy enjoying Italian culture .. on the NYTimes expense account.