WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Sicilia Libertaria, Oct-23: THE NEOLIBERIST CHASSIS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

The saving effect that the Pnrr, the National Recovery and Resilience

Plan which is also the object of attraction for the most radical left,
should have had on the country is turning, as was foreseeable, into a
useless waste of resources, the negative effects of which they will be
seen in public finances before long. And let's say it straight away, it
is not a question of the government in office: from Conte to Draghi to
Meloni the logic underlying the Plan is no different: continue along the
path of presumed growth, support big capital, attempt to carry out some
major works, accelerate in terms of so-called digital transition, for a
developmentism that continues to drain, suck and annihilate spaces and
energies. Finding out about the implementation of the Plan is not easy,
given the proliferation of tenders, projects, objectives and
implementation of projects. The latest journalistic news reports that of
the ten financing installments that Europe should pay until 2026, the
first two have currently been disbursed. The third installment has yet
to be paid but it seems that the government will collect it shortly,
while for the fourth installment the European Commission has just given
the green light after approving the changes made which canceled 15.9
billion in funds, but the The collection is not yet foreseeable; the
fifth installment is more problematic, for which it seems that the
government intends to reduce the objectives from 69 to 55, in order to
be able to obtain the financing. In short, there is a certain delay in
the stages envisaged by the Plan, but even more so in the implementation
of the projects for which it seems that to date only a part of the funds
granted have been committed and around 28.7 billion in investments are
missing.

Who is trying to monitor the implementation of the Plan is the
independent foundation Openpolis. On its website dated 25 September 2023
it is written: "Despite the delays, the executive has just sent the
request for the fourth instalment, relating precisely to the first 6
months of the year. How is it possible? On the one hand, the technical
checks on the implementation of the plan have gradually lost relevance,
leaving room for political negotiations between the Italian government
and the European Commission. On the other hand, there is less and less
transparency regarding all these processes and the achievement of
deadlines." Of the deadlines that the government had to achieve in the
third quarter of 2023, it is underlined that only 2 out of 6 have been
reached, while 11 out of 27 are missing for the first half of the year.
Not so subtly from Openpolis, therefore, it is hinted that there is
between the Italian government and the European Commission is a more
complex game than just the PNRR which has nothing to do with technical
or economic issues, but is entirely political. Moreover, an Italian
failure would imply a delegitimization of the entire European framework
of post-pandemic policies.

But our judgment on the PNRR certainly cannot depend on the greater or
lesser capacity or efficiency of the governments and institutions called
upon to put it into practice. The Plan is on the one hand a good
distractor for a public opinion drugged by market logic, and on the
other a tool to strengthen that neoliberal vision, which it wants to
impose through entrepreneurship, competitiveness, competitiveness, and
futuristic, which would like to reduce people and nature to mere cogs in
a system controlled by algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Well, if you now want to get an idea of how we are trying to realize
this vision, just look at what we are trying to do in schools, invested
by a considerable amount of funds. The School 4.0 plan plans to renew
teaching through its ever-increasing digitalisation. For this reason,
many specialized companies are working hard to market their products.
Ranging from the immersive classroom, equipped with a large screen to
"create experiences with a high visual and emotional impact", to virtual
reality laboratories, where students equipped with viewers and sitting
on swivel chairs "enter virtual environments of an educational nature
managed by the teacher", to the augmented reality laboratories. Or you
can opt for immersive eLearning, "the teacher and students meet in
virtual environments, where lessons led by the teacher take place, or in
the form of interactive explorations. People do not appear as 3D
avatars, but in audiovisual form." Finally there are also
meta-classrooms, "virtual environments in the form of educational
metaverses. Teachers upload content (images, texts, Powerpoint, videos,
3D models) and distribute them in the environment by creating exhibition
itineraries. Users enter in the form of avatars, explore, enjoy the
contents, interact with each other".

It is obvious that not even the funds of one hundred Pnrr would be
enough to transform Italian school classrooms in this direction. (Funds
which incidentally are not even sufficient to make schools safe from a
structural point of view, as was recently reported by the XXI Report on
school safety by Cittadinanzattiva). It is obvious that the
"traditional" school will still offer resistance, even if involuntary.
However, the futuristic world of complete submission to surveillance
capitalism and the construction of a society of appearance and
fragmentation continues to put one piece on top of the other. A school
reduced to interactions mediated by machines in which bodies and
relationships are replaced by standardized mechanisms is what is prefigured.

Ultimately, the world economy will continue to be affected by
turbulence. States now only implement Keynesianism in support of banks,
financial institutions and large businesses, while unemployment, low
wages, unstable prices, social imbalances and the three crucial issues
of our time - environmental crisis, migration and wars - will mark the
coming years ( or decades). Thus clouds are gathering on the horizon of
a society of growth without growth, as Serge Latouche claims, where the
European constraints on deficit and public debt will soon be restored
and in the face of which the government proves no less incapable (or
equally capable, depends on the point of view) of the previous ones. The
Italian people, to use a high-sounding expression, now no longer know
which saint to turn to. After having entrusted himself to the miraculous
virtues of Berlusconi, to the presumed balance of Prodi (and his
followers), to the newness of Renzi, to the resentment of the Five Star
Movement, to the false pragmatism of the post-fascist movement, who is
left to him? Will a new saint arise who will promise to lead him towards
a more balanced development and a more equal society, or will it be a
case of taking one's destiny into one's own hands (to close with an
equally demanding and emphatic expression)?

Angelo Barberi

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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