For those who really think that the government team can be in any way
declined with the term "sovereignist" (whatever that word means) andminimally critical of the absolute dominance that capital has achieved
in the last 30 years, I would like to focus on some specific
characteristics, which really seem to represent a textbook case. ---- As
we know, capital, in order to function, needs a specific legal framework
that first of all protects private property, that puts citizens (but not
all, and I will return to this below) on the same level (legal equality
as neutralization of class diversity) and that guarantees above all,
from the bottom up, property rights and profit against any limitation,
both from the State and from small and medium producers. The "natural"
tendency of capital to monopoly will mean that, in the eyes of the law,
the multinational that invoices more than a State will be equal to the
individual citizen damaged by it, to the small business that has ended
up in its coils, or to the public interest that is opposed.
This aspect of ordoliberalism (i.e. the State that manifestly
facilitates capital with its action[1]) has created a class enemy that
is much less easy to fight than the old liberalism. Ordoliberalism
arises from the awareness that the capitalist method of production is
historical and not immanent, and this awareness has meant that,
paradoxically (but not so much) by fully enlisting the State, no longer
the "minimal" nineteenth-century State, capital has been presented as
"the natural order of things". A hegemonic method that seems to have
worked wonderfully.
However, as is obvious, the legal construction, the propaganda of
soft-power and the enlistment of embedded troops at all levels have not
been able to eliminate reality. And in capital, reality is given by the
objective presence of class conflict. As has already happened in
contemporary history in these cases, politics also goes beyond the role
envisaged by ordoliberalism and attempts to bring the class conflict
back into a "national" and "popular" logic.
This is what this government is trying and is trying.
As already happened with Berlusconi in previous decades, the right
presents itself on the Italian political scene as an "outsider". This
self-representation has in fact corresponded to reality, given that
Italian capital, the old one, of the Agnellis, so to speak, was much
better off with the old Christian Democrat and even Communist ruling
class, within a panorama that is completely different from the one that
has been structured since the digital revolution.
As in the USA, with Trump (but perhaps more with Reagan) Berlusconi, a
global capitalist, but apparently not "internal", had managed to
represent well a middle class (in Italy traditionally reactionary and
subversive on the level of social rights but not on that of "personal
freedom") that was starting to be frightened by global changes.
The current right, on the other hand, is doing something different.
Having acknowledged the absolute impossibility of Italy to carve out any
role for itself within global capital (since the "globalist" left and
right from Ciampi to Monti, from Draghi to Renzi have completed the
demolition of Italian manufacturing, perfectly carrying out the orders
of the transnational financial world) and having certified the
subordinate role of our country in all fields (except tourism, typical
of a State destined for underdevelopment), it must therefore operate, as
mentioned above, a twist that is neither new nor original. That is,
bring the intercapitalist and class conflict back into the national
fold, to be understood in the sense of blood and soil.
A kind of nationalization of the masses that is a bit of a bungler, but
effective, for which I would avoid comparing it with Mussolini, who,
coming from Italian socialism, knew much better how to work with the
masses and the Italian bourgeoisie.
In this context, the 2 truly exemplary cornerstones of Matteo Salvini's
statements and the new "security" decree fit in. Salvini is being
investigated for a specific crime, that of kidnapping, which is one of
the 'as always personal' crimes provided for by the Penal Code. The
politician's response, neither casual nor passionate (Salvini is a
terrible actor but has a team of excellent communication professionals)
ignores this aspect, rather it bypasses it and instead speaks directly
to the "people". This pre-Roman and even proto-Nazi "right"[2], is a
different right from the abstract one on which the West has based its
history. Indeed, not everything, because in what Canfora defines as "The
Far West", or the US empire, this aspect of "popular consensus" and
"revenge", permeated by a biblical culture that stopped at the Old
Testament, is absolutely present. And if the homeland of capital happily
coexists with this type of "Teutonic" law, as long as it maintains the
cornerstones we talked about above.
So Salvini can act and speak calmly in a subversive manner, with respect
to our legal system, confident that the dominant classes (who do need
immigrants to work, but are certainly not known for their ability to be
moved and, indeed, the illegal immigrant is for them an absolutely
positive declination), will have nothing to object to (unlike the jokes
about the abolition of the Fornero law - which this government has
instead worsened).
So we speak directly to the "people", to the gut, to criminal law that
must respect consensus, must adapt to the spirit of the times, above and
beyond the principle of legality. How devastating this aspect can be for
the subaltern classes, I believe that the left that is still alive has
not yet understood.
And it seems to me that he has not even understood the new security
decree: a totally classist decree, where, in the face of the gag on the
press for the high-profile suspects and the defense to the hilt of every
dirty trick done by the ruling classes (the dominant ones, as I said
above, don't give a damn), penalties and repression for criminal
behavior are dramatically increased, especially related to protests,
demonstrations, minor crimes. After, obviously, an impressive hype on TV
(all of them: public and private) in the "give it to the thief" and a
crime news that (in the face of statistics that do not record any leaps
forward in crime, but, you know, reality is what is constructed) has
become the main part of newspapers and TV news, with morbid and hateful
details, all aimed at creating a climate of consensus for a repression
that is expected to be very harsh, given the real social and economic
conditions of a large part of the population. Obviously this aspect:
repression, racism and authoritarianism go hand in hand with obedience
to the ordoliberal and financial diktats of "Europe is asking us to do
so" (that is: cuts to healthcare, pensions and a perpetual austerity
that the boss of bosses, Draghi, would like to fight - it is really the
case to say it - by increasing military spending).
But the left is doubly blind. It fails to see that the internal Meloni
is the mirror of the external one and that the two aspects touch. But
the external one, prone to the wishes of the liberal EU, cannot be
criticized since everyone or almost everyone agrees with those policies
and therefore the attack on that "fascist" Meloni is a blunt weapon.
Just look at the conditions in which the left arrives on the war and on
the Middle East, where Tajani seems more moderate than a significant
portion of the PD, in full war euphoria, while there is silence on the
genocide in Gaza.
After all, Meloni is Draghi's daughter. A minor daughter who breaks some
toys, but obeys her father. If it weren't so terribly tragic, we would
be looking at a new successful TV series.
Andrea Bellucci
[1]A fundamental text still remains that of P. Dardor and C. Laval "The
new reason of the world. Critique of neoliberal rationality", Derive
Approdi, 2019 (original edition 2013). In this regard, among the many
points touched upon by the complex, debated, volume there is one that
perhaps has not had the attention it deserved. Namely, the abnormal
growth of bureaucracy that the ideology underlying the EU has brought
into being with the idea that everything must be in competition,
including and fully entitled to public institutions (leveled on an
"equal" basis with private ones). This has led not only to the monstrous
levitation of increasingly complex and self-referential documentation
(hence the new professions aimed at "decoding" this inextricable jungle
of rules, guidelines, FAQs, very often in conflict with each other) but
also to the exponential recourse to judicial practice, making litigation
the normal path followed by administrative proceedings. This has given
rise to the development of "defensive" conduct that the various
institutions have implemented, which are still added to the increasingly
inextricable "regulatory" network. This type of hyper-bureaucracy,
however, has not been the object of the fierce criticisms that in past
years had attacked the "state" one. On the contrary. This is because it
is an integral part of the neo-liberal and ordo-liberal ideology and
practice. This confirms that the State has become a fundamental
component of the same pro-market twist of the entire society.
[2]See in this regard the notable essay by Johann Chapoutot, "The Law of
Blood. Thinking and Acting Like Nazis", Einaudi, 2016.
https://www.ucadi.org/2024/09/28/dragoni/
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