Good Italy, Bad Italy

June 4, 2012
Travelers to Italy this summer may find economic catastrophe as omnipresent as monuments and sidewalk cafes, according to this former editor-in-chief of the Economist. Emmott’s breezy narrative provides a quick overview of the beleaguered Italian economy and sketches some background causes for its woes before offering glimpses of a brighter future. He outlines how Italians would like to share the European belief that public spending and taxation should be used to finance services and redistribute after-tax incomes, but lack faith in government’s ability to do so “effectively or equitably.” Traditionally, Italian politicians have manipulated power for the protection and enrichment of themselves and their friends, fulfilling a dual vision of government as both provider and leech. Emmott also reflects upon the North-South economic divide and the specter of Mafia power, suggesting that Italy’s strengths, paradoxically, largely mirror its defects; creative measures are taken in defiance of prevailing conditions, like the “Addiopizzo”: a youth movement challenging Mafia power. Little attention is paid to the constraints of European Union membership or whether the much emphasized Italian uniqueness truly exists. Regardless, Emmott’s key insight may be that the simplistic divide between “Good Italy” and “Bad Italy” is moral and philosophical, not economic, though failure to resolve the conflict still threatens looming disaster. Agent: Arthur Goodhart, AWG Literary Agency.

June 15, 2012
The former editor-in-chief of the Economist finds a few bright spots amid the dark economic clouds in post-Berlusconi Italy. Expanded and updated since its 2010 publication in Italian, this brisk journalistic account by Emmott (Rivals: How the Power Struggle between China, India, and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, 2008, etc.) argues that Italy's current financial crisis eerily echoes the previous one of 1992-1994, and that understanding why meaningful reforms failed to be enacted then may help Italians do better this time. He dismisses as unhelpful in this effort the traditional distinction between the wealthy, industrial north and the poor, rural south. Instead, Emmott discerns a "Bad Italy...selfish, closed, umeritocratic and often criminal," and a "Good Italy...more open, community-minded and progressive." As examples of the Good Italy, he offers social movements such as Addiopizzo ("goodbye bribes") and Ammazzeteci Tutti ("kill us all"), an anti-mafia group. Emmott also visits and praises various nimble new businesses that have managed to thrive despite restrictive labor laws and a glacially slow judicial system that makes it extremely difficult to enforce contracts. The slow food movement in Turin, a cashmere exporter in Perugia and a company that manufactures sophisticated measurement devices are among the author's examples of the kind of dynamic capitalism Italy needs. However, these praiseworthy efforts don't immediately address the problem of Italy's massive debt, which occurs in the context of a global economic crisis due in large part to the kind of unrestricted, unregulated capitalism the author seems to be advocating, despite a brief acknowledgement of the banking industry's excesses. When Emmott praises Ireland's governing institutions for becoming "from the late 1980s onward...more efficient and less profligate," without making any reference to the fact that Ireland is now experiencing a financial crisis at least as severe as Italy's, it's difficult to entirely trust his prescriptions for economic health. Well reported but with debatable theoretical underpinnings.

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October 15, 2012

An old joke says that heaven is where the Italians are the chefs and hell is where they're the organizers. In light of Italy's current economic difficulties--at 120 percent of GDP, Italy has the second-highest public debt in the eurozone (Greece is first at around 160 percent)--one might find in the joke a cultural explanation. Emmott (former editor in chief, The Economist; Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India, and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade) pushes aside the stereotype and delves into the complex causes of "bad Italy," such as small companies' inability to grow, the use of public money to reward political patronage, and organized crime. Having dealt with these subjects he then searches for counterexamples of "good Italy," in which small companies have managed to succeed, organizations have formed to fight organized crime, and local politicians have instituted systems of meritocracy. The author provides historical context and compares Italy with other eurozone countries piecemeal throughout the book, rather than in separate chapters. Such an organization makes this a book readers must read cover to cover for the full picture. VERDICT This book has limited appeal owing to its emphasis on Italy alone; readers interested in European economics will want more comparison with other eurozone countries, but such content appears only occasionally here. Recommended only for readers interested in Italian politics and economics.--Heidi Senior, Univ. of Portland, OR

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