Italy - A Power Crazed Nation? Part 2

This is part 2 of my attempt at psychoanalysing Italy and its inhabitants. Part 1 is here.

In the first part of this series of posts which tries to understand why Italy is the way that it is, I looked at how Italians tend to thirst for status, superiority, and power.

In this part, I’m going to look at how the lust for power is manifested in Italy.

As you may know, Italy has had over 60 governments since the end of the second world war. 60 fragile coalitions which have never really managed to prepare the country for the future. It is only very recently that the Italian electoral system, which supported and promoted a plethora of parties, was finally altered to reduce the number of curious ideological combinations which made up each shaky coalition driven government.

The question is - ‘Why did this system which created such fragmented governments manage to teeter on for so long?’.

Well, maybe I have an answer, although do feel free to disagree.

The basic reason is this: Power. Power is the ultimate expression of status and superiority. And in Italy, everybody wants a piece of the action. Hence the dominance, until very recently, of small parties. Each party was a mini-political empire led by a mini-despot. The mere idea of creating a unified force was just not entertained because to have gone down such a path would have meant conceding power to another. This would have been thinking the unthinkable here in Italy.

Prodi’s recently collapsed government with its innumerable ministers was a yet another example of trying to give as many people as possible a slice of the power-cake.

The trouble is that the powerful do not like making any form of concessions, as this would be giving the impression that they had lost their potency. Political infighting is the norm in Italy solely because each and every mini-political emperor wishes to hold onto his mini-empire. Small things, like the long term good of the country, rarely came into play. Power was, and still is, king.

However, it’s not just within Italy’s political parties that this thirst for status and power exhibits itself.

How about some more evidence of this fever for power?  Well, there are the powerful business clans - the Agnellis, the Berlusconis and the Pirellis, and the secretive ’salotto buono’ which is a small group of Italian business power mongers who meet up to discuss how to extend and maintain their grip.

Then there was the infamous Propaganda Due (P2) masonic lodge, which was all about exerting power and influence, and this group’s power was such that it was sometimes referred to as a government within a government.

Further evidence of this Italian lust for power can been seen at other levels of society too.

As some may know, Italy is chock a bloc full of entrepreneurs and family businesses. Very few of these people actually get together and combine forces - chain stores are almost non-existent here for example. Again, the reason for this is probably that any kind of joining of forces could potentially lead to a reduction in power, and this, for many, as for the mini-emperor political leaders, would be far too hard to bear.  There is also evidence of this in the fact that many Italian companies are family run organisations.

At an even more basic level in Italian society, there is the close knit clannish Italian family, and these social units tend to foster and protect power. Italy is almost overflowing with family dynasties, especially in the fashion industry. Versace, Prada, Benetton, to name but a few, are good examples of powerful family groups.

As was pointed out by Joe Tangredi, who commented on the first part of this short series, the dynastic Italian families are not dissimilar to the aristocracy which exists in UK.  However, whereas there is still something of a class system in the UK, in Italy, as in the States, the ‘class’ system is based on money and power.  Having a substantial amount of both is one way to obtain social status in this country.  Italian ‘titles’ such as dottore, ingegnere, architetto, and avvocato, also help Italians step onto the first rung of the ‘ladder to power’.

Indeed, reaching the first rungs on this ‘ladder to power’ is so important in Italy that well-heeled Italian parents will employ just about any means to ensure that little Giovanni obtains his ‘title’.  On occasions, and more often, I feel, than in the UK, and other countries, money will literally change hands in order to ensure exams are passed, and the precious title is secured. Then the extensive Italian equivalent of the ‘old school tie’ network is called up to ensure that an appropriate job can be found.

Yes, I know this goes on in other countries, as I have mentioned, but my impression is that such practices in Italy are more widespread and overt than in the UK.

As to why this is the case, well, in Italy, what may be regarded as being dishonest or unscrupulous in other cultures,  is not considered as such here, but, rather, as being ‘furbo’.  To many in Italy, any and all means are acceptable ways of achieving power related aims. ‘By hook or by crook’, as the old saying goes.

Part 3 of this series, which will look at other Italian ‘families’ is to follow.

Too Young Too Good 2

A short while back in April, I wrote a post about a 23 year old Italian graduate, Too Young, Too Good, who was feeling too young to be so well qualified. Well, I received some feedback about the post the other day.

The comment was that the person I wrote about was too good for Italy. Odd, I thought, I did not remember writing this, at least not in so many words. However, I suppose that by ‘reading between the lines’ such a conclusion could have been reached.

To set the record straight, I don’t think that she is too able for Italy. What I do think, on the other hand, is that Italy is not always too good at recognising its ‘in-house’ talent. This is partly down to the prominence of the ‘it’s not what you know, but who you know’ system which exists here. And it is also down to the fear that certain interviewers here sometimes display when confronted by a candidate who they suspect may be so good as to do said interviewer out of his or her own job.

Of course, I’ve got no proof of this assertion, but for the fact that certain potentially good job candidates don’t seem to manage to get that job. It also appears that non-Italian organisations tend to be more objective when considering individuals for posts than perhaps some Italian enterprises are.

I should add, that the young lady mentioned in my previous post, did in fact manage to find an internship, despite not knowing anyone. She also, possibly, managed to avoid making her interviewer feel too threatened, luckily for her.

Over on my ex-master student Savio’s Orecchiette alla Milanese blog (in Italian), there is a post, Le multinazionali: “Questi italiani bamboccioni poco intraprendenti” about the frustration of multinational companies who find young Italians both lacking in initiative and not having much of a work ethic. A comment on this post has been left by a disillusioned young Italian who, it would appear, has done all the right things, and is just the opposite of the Italian youngsters to whom the post refers, but this individual still cannot find the right job. One Sandro thinks that his problem is quite simply that his family does not know the right people. In Italy, where relationships matter, this can indeed be a snag.

On the assumption that there are not other issues which affect his ability to find a job, such as poor interview technique or bouts of arrogance, my advice to Sandro would be to confine his job hunting efforts to non-Italian companies. Or even to companies outside of Italy.

Strange how a country which loves to boast about its ‘Made in Italy’ brand seems to be reluctant to foster the talents of young people who have been, so to speak, ‘Made in Italy’.

Oh, by the way, Savio is not doing too badly. Indeed, he managed to find a position with Yahoo Italy. Well done Savio! Yahoo obviously realises that there are some pretty darn good people in Italy, and, so far, it has managed to remain free of nepotism and cronyism.

Italy - A Power Crazed Nation? Part 1

I’ve been in Italy for a good few years now, and my psychoanalysis of the place and its people continues.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m starting to grasp how the Italian mind works. In fact I have written quite a bit on this subject several times including, oddly enough, after I came back from my last summer holiday down in Tuscany and wrote ‘Why Italy is the Way it is.‘

My post entitled ‘Furbo‘ also looks at another aspect of Italian mentality.

When you think about it, Italians do seem to display a strong desire for status, superiority, and that most addictive of drugs, power. Once the desired level of power has been reached, Italians will then jealously guard their positions by any and all means in an attempt to enable them to retain the status, superiority, and power they believe they have managed to attain.

Why is this attraction to power noticeable to me? Well, I guess it’s because the same fixation with power and status is just not as overt back in the UK as it is here.

In Italy, manifestations of Italians’ lust for status are everywhere. From the preponderance of almost garishly uniformed police forces, to use of the ‘Lei’ form, and all the titles which Italians go by - dottore, ingegnere, architetto, and avvocato. Age is also a great indicator of status for Italians, and grey hair commands respect, and the inevitable ‘Lei’ or ‘Voi’ form.

However, there is more, much more.

Part 2 is coming soon.

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