Read the Foreword
The time has come for a people’s social comeback, both in Europe and in the whole World.
Numbers count.
« It is a time that nations should be rational, and not be governed like animals, for the pleasure of their riders. » (Thomas Paine)*
1) The contest; 2) The program’s core; 3) The method: Citizens’ Committees for Social Rights; 4) Appendix: The basics about the needed new anti-dumping definition.
1) The context.
The neoliberal strategy which has been unfolding for more than 3 decades is now taking a turn to the worse with the austerity politics. It aims at the pauperisation of the blue collar workers and of all those employees who previously thought to belong to the lower and upper middle classes. It aims at the general weakening of our people, and of their union, political and cultural organizations.
The recent blackmail from Electrolux against its Italian workers has clearly spelled out what the business and neoliberal leaders have in store. (1) Namely, given the wrecked ethico-political fiber of the Italian elites, specifically within Parliament and at the heads of the unions and of the parties still nominally on the (center)-left, the transversal business elite represented by Electrolux is asking nothing less than the cutting by half of the workers’ pay together with a shorter working time, and degraded working conditions and social benefits. The Italian ministers and politicians agree and continue to point to the so-called « labor costs » still deemed to be too high. Although my example here deals mainly with Italy, the same is happening elsewhere in Europe and in the World. In fact, as far as social and democratic degradation is concerned, Italy now seems to be the model to apply through out: The neoliberals seem to think that if they can get away with it in a country which once had the greatest and most original Communist Party in the Western World, a Party now replaced by subservient and soulless renegades, then they will be able to carry the day elsewhere. I personally think that they are dramatically wrong.
In such an environment it is not surprising to see a so-called centre-left party (the PD), under the leadership of a leader who belongs to the Trilateral Commission (Mr. Letta), enter into a transversal alliance with the Right. In mid-February Mr. Letta was pushed aside by the non-elected leader of the Pd Renzi which may cause dismay but no real surprise … The PD was born out of many tribulations from the dissolution of the old PCI in 1992. Its degeneration has now reached its logical conclusion with the election a new leader Matteo Renzi, a Florentine vacuous soufflé who would pretend to talk with a loud voice while disregarding and trampling under foot the core principles of the Constitution of the land; not surprisingly, he comes from the old Christian Democratic Party and would now pretend to front for the transnational and stateless capital well implanted in the Peninsula today, as much as in Europe and elsewhere. Usually, little compradore bullies feel strong, even against their own people, when they think that they enjoy a strong backing from the powers-that-be. Renzi’s program was notoriously laid down by Yoram Gutgeld. Of course, that calculus is the same everywhere and it is tragically wrong.
The so-called Jobs Act of Gutgeld-Renzi aims at laying the last mortal stroke against labor’s rights in order to finish the job which was launched years ago with the so-called Law 30 and its sequels (namely the introduction of workfare accompanied by multiple forms of precarious low-paying work with reduced rights and, consequently, with an evanescent pension.) The retirement age has been postponed again, and the public pension regime transformed into a minimal contributory regime ferociously linked to the presumed secular increase in longevity. It has long been evident that the neoliberals want to return to the original public pensions plans of the 1920s calculated to pay out pension only three years before the average age of death. This is imposed against reason given the known data about the seniors’ state of health after age 55 and the impact this has on the health-care system. It is imposed without paying any attention to the differential arduousness of work between professional categories, or only paying lip service to the principle as in Hollande’s France. More ignominiouslyy, while seniors are irrationally forced to work longer, Gutgeld-Renzi’s Jobs Act parrots the same neoliberal blueprint used elsewhere, but with an opportunist flair for any opportunity to push it down the throat of a weakened population, while it demagogically pretends to help the youth. This help would come from fake, subsidized and non-permanent jobs freed for a three years period from the already diminished provision of the labor Code (i.e., Article 18). Of course, few of these non-permanent and second-class jobs will ever be transformed into permanent employment after this 3-year term: The likelihood is rather a lay-off before the end of that term and perhaps a re-employment in those same precarious conditions by another employer attracted by such a cheap and state-subsidized labor force. In any case, even before this shameful and reactionary Gutgeld-Renzi’s scheme, the data was pitiless: In Italy, younger employees were made to wait 17 years on average before they landed a permanent job, the waiting time being around 11 years in France. The story is the same elsewhere, though one should account for small variations according to the industries considered and such other factors. As we can see, what motivated the proposal was the worrisome Youth’s participation rate now at a record low level and their unemployment levels reaching new heights. Forcing the seniors to work longer while keeping the Youth in precarious working conditions without any real protective rights is nothing but a cruel strategy cynically intended to induce an artificial conflict of generation. It is nothing more than an implementation of the same old rule, to divide and conquer.
The trouble is that these stateless people want to eat more than they can chew. The now over-mature economy is not creating jobs for the older workers; civil workers are laid off due to the implementation of the Monetarist « public policy » which prescribed a minimum State to complete the wall-to-wall liberalization and privatization program well fitted to the speculative economy. The numbers pointing to a structural degradation have become so dramatic that even the OECD took note – i.e., the long-term unemployment rate affecting the over 54 now affects the over 50. Yet, the OECD barbarously advised more stringent conditions calculated to force seniors back to work, to any work of course, with the added benefit of diminishing their pension rights. (see Note 14 below) As for the Youth, even the Italian labor minister failed to be impressed by this so-called Jobs Act which he commented pointing to a cruel evidence; he said : « Every quarter we now have 400 thousand new full-time hires and around 1 million and 600 thousand non-permanent hires » (3) With numbers like that even the minister found it hard to square the numbers with a so-called « minimum guaranteed revenue » strategy. A full implementation of this « share the misery among gullible citizens strategy » would however cost from 25 to 30 billions and the coffers are empty! Meanwhile, just a few days ago, we were offered by the Inps – the Italian umbrella pension organization – a report summarizing the balance sheet for last year and for the 3 years ahead in the light of the current « spending review ». The transition from a pension plan constitutionally based on national and inter-professional solidarity to a contributory minimum plan which forces employees to pay for private speculative plans – when they can afford to do so – has been scientifically managed to preventively empty the coffers. Hence, the Inps ended up the year in the red and plans to remain in deficit until 2016 and beyond. But that is not all. While the switch to a contributory plan is implemented, the remaining interprofessional national solidarity is made to work in reverse: In short, most branches are in the red and kept afloat only through the raiding of the contribution paid by part-timers and non-permanent employees, mainly the Youth. As the Youth can see, they are being helped from both ends at once by these reactionary scoundrels who are nevertheless (wrongly) counting on their instinctive and blind resentment against the seniors, whereas it should be directed against their real exploiters.
This offensive against the Italian people is unleashed as part of a wider strategy which Gutgeld has summarized with the following lapidary phrase: « dislocate, evaluate and sell Italy on the derivative market.» (translation mine; in Italian « dislocare, valorizare, cartolizzare l’Italia. » ) He actually means the whole country, including its artistic heritage and not only the remaining partially State-owned big enterprises such a the Post Office, Enav, Fincantieri, Sace, Finmeccanica etc., or the 3500 local enterprises, including water, transport and utilities, to be privatized thanks to a new modification of Title V of the Constitution. (4) Of course, this too is going on elsewhere: Lately it was reported that Portugal was selling its Mirò’s paintings – a few millions – to pay for the debt. This is a clear crime since it is obvious here that the huge Portuguese debt is used as a pretext to take possession of the cultural heritage of the people, at bargaining prices.
Neoliberal filosemite Nietzschean labor experts are all the same, they sing from the same blueprint. Hence, the Gutgeld-Renzi’s Jobs act has their support. Here is what Ichino, one of the most mediatised of the bunch in the Peninsula together with Boeri and Garibaldi, has to say with respect to the Electrolux affair: « Pietro Ichino negated that it is a blackmail from Electrolux. ”The problems are the cost of labor, the average law rate of productivity and the lack of openness to foreign investment”» (5) As we know the cost of labor amount to around 20 to 25 % of the cost of production. (6) Consequently, even if all payroll social contributions would be canceled – something that would not be possible in any case – the cost of production would diminish some 6 to 8 % maximum. This would have disastrous effects on social programs since they would have to be abolished or transferred on general fiscal revenues. In brief, they would be transferred mainly on evanescent income tax and value added taxes, the tax share of capital having almost totally vanished (7). Yet, even so, fiscal revenues are now melting away as a result to the generalization of part-time and non-permanent jobs. But this is not all: Contrary to payroll taxes, these social contribution cuts are not likely to be transferred on selling prices. Even if one part would, the effect on sales and exports and on investment and R&D would be indifferent because most of the benefit would be invested speculatively on the stock and derivative markets. Not even the on-coming change in the Marginalist accounting method used to derive the GDP can help; besides this is a sheepish imitation of the USA recent reform of national accounting which favored speculative services sold as the « immaterial economy ». At most, these gimmicks can contribute to mask the current state of affairs characterized at best by a jobless recovery, one heavily aggravated by the general lowering of the active labor force. (8)
What is at stake, for now, is more than just the cutting by half of the paycheck with the fallacious pretext of sustaining productivity. The real objective is to impose a new economic equilibrium squarely based on the lowest possible physiological level in accordance with the globalized function of production of Robert Solow et al. To achieve this result, one only needs to calculate global competitiveness based only on the individual capitalist salary without taking into account the payroll social contributions – UI, health, pension etc. This is done with the pretext that these have now become unbearable costs for capital. It is nothing but a brutish neo-Malthusianism. It goes without saying that this presumed physiological level is itself ferociously elastic as is plainly demonstrated by the average longevity of around 40 years for the over 500 millions Dalits comrades in India. This is no joke. Neither for Italy nor for Greece nor even for Germany, a country in which more than 20 % of the labor force is now forced into so-called Kürtzarbeit (earning around 450 euros a month, that is to say 15 euros a day maximum …)
In retrospect, one can clearly see that the leading classes have planned this for a long time – the great American Marxist Paul Baran rightly spoke of the « longer view» of the bourgeoisie. They advance their cards methodically in proportion to the degree of weakness verified within the ranks of labor and of the authentic parties of the Left. The Italian leading circles are made of the top 10 % who control 48 % of national wealth. They are made of those who like the couple Mastrapasqua monopolize dozens leading positions and grotesque salaries while the Inpdap, Inps and the entire Social State are systematically ruined. The complicity of the members of these circles is now transversal: It is maintained with very high pay, much higher than the European and World average, and with the quasi-mafia privatization of public goods.(10)
Our leading circles are subaltern to their European and global accomplices. Just remember the letter by Trichet which resulted in transforming Italy into a trusteeship of the ECB and of Goldman & Sachs et al. This then quickly led to the Fiscal Compact with its murderous « spending review » (the so-called 2 and 6 pack), both unconstitutional and, in any case, far from realistic even when adopting a so-called « structural definition » of the deficit. As we know, Italy just escaped some 9 billion or so in penalties for not having respected its « fiscal consolidation path » just because the EU was too scared to apply them to a country which unlike Greece is « too big to fail ». While the latter accounts for around 2 %, the former weighs around 15 % of the GDP of the Eurozone; it was marginally more than 17 % before the subprime crisis.)
However, since the Social State is now being emptied of all its substance, Italy is no longer able to pay for its various forms of unemployment insurance and assistance. (11) Not even with the lowering of the size of the active labor force. In short, it cannot even finance a generalized level of relative poverty. This explains why, with the complicity of the Grillini – members of the M5s (anti)party led by the comic Beppe Grillo – an alternative solution was thought of. The various forms of aid, including unemployment insurance, social assistance and pensions are now unsustainable within the neoliberal « public policy » framework which is characterized by the generalization of labor precariousness – This implies a miserable salary reduced to the net individual capitalist salary or so. Given this quandary, these reactionaries came up with the so-called « minimum revenue of citizenship ». It is a rather stale proposal. It would not be cumulative with any other revenue, which it is intended to substitute to, but it would weigh on general fiscal revenue, especially those coming from the most regressive forms of taxation, namely the Value Added Taxes, with the ludicrous pretext to help lower labor costs. It is therefore not a coincidence to hear the tandem Renzi-Gutgeld propose the suppression of survivors’ pensions (the so-called reversibility pension.) I have been denouncing this regressive choice of Reaganian-Friedmanite workfare for quite a while in my site. Now it is becoming even more sinister. Witness the proposals made by the Grillini which are just a copy of those proposed by Yoland Bresson and others: The so-called non-cumulative « minimum basic revenue » is planned at around 350 to 500 euros monthly! We are dealing here with an enforced return to domesticity and salaried slavery. (12)
It is not only the wages that are now under attack but also the pensions. (13) The dominant circles are again saying that minimum pensions are still too high – golden pensions are never questioned but instead tightly protected. Thus, first the ending of pension indexing is advanced, soon to be followed by taxation. Yet, this does not prove enough. Nor does the anti-constitutional contributory logic introduced by Lamberto Dini – who ended the principle of national solidarity –, a logic later brought to its conclusion by Fornero, which forces employees to accept a postponed retirement age. Of course, this is calculated to unfold in a context in which generalized precariousness implies lower wages, thus producing an automatic curtailing of pensions when they will eventually be paid out. Meanwhile, the framework is set up for the emergence of private pension funds to feed financial speculation. Necessarily, aside from the TFR, or complementary in-house pension plan, already placed at great risk, the non-permanent workers and part-timers will not be able to afford a private pension worthy of the name! Nevertheless, the OECD pushes in this dangerous direction, cynically advising the toughening of conditions for unemployed workers above 50 years of age, so as to force them to accept any kind of job, at any condition, and with lower salaries, which of course will result in the end with lower pensions. (14) As a matter of fact after having emptied the Inpdap – around 40 billions euros – through its merging with the Inps in Mastrapasqua’s hands, now the discussion is focused on how to empty the Inps itself. Namely, given that few jobs are created, even low paid and subsidized jobs for those above 50-55 years of age, and given that the retirement age was nevertheless postponed, some are now busily thinking about ways and means to substitute unemployment insurance payment by granting them immediate access to pensions with the false prospect of paying it back once the concerned employees will find a job. It just does not fly. However, this amounts to generalizing at minimal costs the fate imposed to the « esodati » by the Fornero’s reform. Meanwhile, it was just reported that the Inps is now in the red, the deficit forecast being already extended to the period covered by the current spending review, namely up until 2016. The numbers are pitiless: The payroll levies on permanent dependent workers who pay for the rest now need to be supplemented by the fractional intermittent contributions paid in by the younger precarious employees to the fund. The Mastapasqua’s couple was monopolizing around four dozens high paying positions all by themselves; apparently, they did the job expected from them very neatly. Again, Italy is no exception although it serves as a « model » for the ongoing regression strategy and tactics carried out elsewhere.
Obviously, since labor power is the sole source of exchange value, thus of wealth, cutting the pay cheque amounts to the destruction of the residual social system still available, from education to health-care. In general it means the dismantling of all the public services, including those at the local level. I already had opportunity to explain that the pay cheque should be conceived as the « global net revenue » of the household. As such, it includes the individual capitalist salary, or net salary, to which must be added the differed salary, namely social contributions, in particular pensions and unemployment insurance. Added to these, are the various taxes – income taxes, property taxes etc. Individual capitalist salary plus differed salary plus the social transfers to the households, afforded mainly in the form of universally accessible social programs, constitute the « global net revenue » of the household. They do not constitute a legitimate part of profits (15), even if during the last three decades more than 15 % of GDP were transferred from salaries to profits without any counterparts for the workers, except in the form of generalized precariousness and the increase of relative and absolute poverty. (16)
We noted above that the choice to eliminate the payroll social contributions, transferring them on the general fiscal revenue in order to lower labor cost, is nothing but a foolish ineptitude. Or rather it is part of a cruel neo-Malthusean strategy. The impact on the cost of production will be marginal and will unlikely affect the selling price. This goes to prove that the true objective is not to sustain real productivity or growth; indeed, lowering salaries and cutting into social programs strikes a mortal blow to social demand, triggering the murderous negative economic spiral which was belatedly seen by the IMF. (17) Meanwhile, export seems to hold marginally only because import collapsed dramatically. Clearly, the goal is to scientifically impoverish the workers through the suppression of the public social system – though it is protected by the Constitution together with the public and private economic mix which implies that the entire economic sphere cannot be legally privatized. Nonetheless, this determined attack to social contributions will form the core of the next European semester under Italian leadership. It will be proclaimed that this is necessary to create jobs … for the youth … as always! Meanwhile, the number of youth without employment and without future has now reached new heights and continues to rise tragically.
This strategy aims at « dislocating, valuating and selling Italy » together with the Italian people. However, this last formally remains the sole constitutional sovereign. Thus the strategy requires the substitution of democracy – including the proportional system protected by the Constitution – with a shareholders’ democracy. And thus the most fraudulent electoral law ever proposed since Mussolini was punctually proposed by Renzi-Gutgeld and Co. (18) This despite the last judgment by the Constitutional Court. It stringently restricts the possibility to compete and fixes grotesquely high electoral thresholds. Now, 8 % of the expressed vote represent more than two million effective voters (on the basis of 2013), this is far from the constitutional principle enshrining the equality of each vote which the Court could not avoid to underline. Therefore, if the President of the Republic ever signs this fraudulent electoral law then, in my opinion, this will constitute an abuse of a principle erroneously evoked by the Court, at least when interpreted in a non-strictly restricted sense, namely that of the continuity of State’s instances. The principle of continuity can never be the pretext for the undermining of cardinal constitutional principles; therefore, it cannot be extended to anti-constitutional laws nor to their effects, unless these are rapidly corrected. This should likewise be true for the nomination of the Court itself. At most, the principle legitimately amounts to a recall addressed to the guarantying institutions to promptly return within the constitutional framework.
2) The core program
This situation has now become intolerable. The Italian and European reformist opportunistic bent must be definitively buried in all its versions. We must create an authentic Left, a determined anti-philosemite Nietzschean Left, anti-exclusivist, anti-racist and anti-fascist Left, in Europe and in the World. Its program would comprise the following key points, intended to be in phase with our Constitutions and thus with a wide class alliance:
a) A new definition of the anti-dumping – for details see the Appendix below. In the current global trading system institutionalized by the WTO, the base for the anti-dumping calculus is the net salary without any social contributions. We simply demand that it be the salary with all the social contributions. We therefore demand the defense of the three forms of revenue making up the « global net revenue » of the household. This new definition would remain compatible with the unfettered global mobility of capital, both qualitative and technical. It would simply interpret the current international accords without necessitating long and arduous modifications as would otherwise be expected due to the current unanimity rule in the WTO. The new anti-dumping definition is the key which will permit the introduction of recurrent cycles of Reduction of the Working Week without negative impact on the enterprises’ productivity and on the competitiveness of the Social Formation. Returning to a situation characterized by full employment would automatically rehabilitate the Social State, that is to say the social contributions and the fiscal revenues necessary to rebuild the industrial, economic, cultural, infrastructural and environmental base of the Country. It should be underlined that within the current European treaties social affairs are an exclusive national domain: So that it is only a question of national will, nothing else. Moreover, the Maastricht Treaty (Art. F 3, 3b) does recognize state enterprises, which do not necessarily have to be privatized. The « gauche plurielle » had introduced the 35-Hour working week (RTT) with the same initial salary and better social services, without having to exit the UE or the Eurozone. It had not introduced the « partage de la misère » or sharing of misery among the workers à la Hollande, only to please the bankers and the dominant neoliberal circles.
b) The nationalization of credit in order to simultaneously eliminate the public debt and the « credit crunch » with the added benefit of taking the Fiscal compact together with the bankers and their so-called « universal » banks off our back. (19) This can be achieved without having to negotiate any modification in the – already violated – ECB Statutes and without having to nationalize the private banks, at least until the next bailout out of the public purse. For instance, Article 47 of the Italian Constitution makes the management of credit a national domain. It is enough not to confuse it with the management of money and of private credit complete with its ruinous shadow banking. Thus, the real economy will effectively be sheltered from speculation. On this basis, it will be possible to comeback to the building of a Social Europe of Nations worthy of the name. The necessary public fund would be constituted, for instance, with a part of the revenues derived from the Tobin Tax, or better with a levy imposed over the more than 70 billions euros of profits paid yearly by Bankitalia to its member banks and Foundations. (The corresponding annual sums for the ECB amounted to more than 3 000 billions euros, this being quickly said here to show the plain absurdity of the bailouts effectuated with public money together with the ensuing « credit crunch ». ) (20) This public fund would have an initial financial lever of 40 or 60 to 1 – that is to say the average lever for the current visible banking sector. With 10 billion euros multiplied by the financial lever, one would control the necessary public credit to buy the entire new public debt at a low 0,5 % over 10 to 20 years one the primary market. In 2014 Italy will need to borrow around 350 billion euros. Moreover, one could use this fund to buyback year after year a slice of the accumulated debt to cancel it thus liberating needed budgetary margins. Similarly, this fund could provide long term and low rate credit to rebuild the public infrastructures and recapitalize state enterprises as well as Small Business now strangulated by the « credit crunch » cynically induced and maintained by the neoliberals. If it were possible to save and recapitalize the private banks – the bailouts caused by the subprime crisis amounted to around 13 % of GDP in direct public money and more than the double when all the socio-economic damages are computed – we do not see why it would be impossible to capitalize a public fund dedicated to preserve the public interest.
The second step would be to flank this public fund with a Workers’ fund on line with the original Meidner’s Plan; it is equally urgently needed to rehabilitate the overall public pension scheme with a progressive return to the 37-Year working contribution rule – 35 for the most arduous employment. It should be underlined firmly here that exiting the euro in favor of a return to the Lira – or of a grotesquely imagined Mediterranean euro (!) – is pure nonsense. Its usefulness would merely be to lift the weight of regional disparity off the Germans’ back. Given the global and strong European economic interdependency, export markets would be jeopardized, especially inside the EU, while imports particularly those making up a great share of the average consumption basket of the workers would shyrocket without any real possibility to attenuate the problem through import-substitution. For instance, a great share of the domestic market for automobiles and consumers’ electronic – both hardware and software – is now imported in Italy as well as in many other countries. This would represents a drastic real wage-cut for all domestic workers who would be paying with depreciated national money. This would remain true even for the labor force still employed in the remaining exporting industries, including in the North East. But, in an even more serious fashion, exiting the euro would immediately exposed our country to irresistible speculative attacks from global speculative finance in reaction to the first timid progressive reform proposal. (Check the immediate post-war dollar attack against the City and its Keynesian inclination for independence within a Commonwealth that had reformulated the old Imperial Preferences: On September 19, 1949 the UK government was forced to capitulate to the Washington dominated GATT and to devalue the Pound by 30. 5% … The UK never forgot that lesson. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Pound#Bretton_Woods)
In actual fact, the euro serves as a shield against such attacks as was clearly demonstrated by the program carried out by the « gauche plurielle »; although it could easily be argued, as I did long ago, that CDS over national debt should be made illegal and European investors be legally freed from the absurd subjective diktat imposed by foreign rating agencies. Inversely see the sheer perversity embodied by a few vulture hedge funds now leagued against Argentina. Note also that Italy imports the equivalent of more than 60 billion euros in energy supplies, without computing the huge cost and wastes induced by the huge State subventions to alternatives sources of energy, which in Italy were granted in the most irrational and most clientelist fashion. Oil and gas as well as most raw materials are still mainly denominated in US dollars. This cost would shyrocket once translated in liras or in Mediterranean euros and this would signify the total and definitive ruin of our country, abolishing its ability to rebound for many decades to come. Let us leave aside the calculated inept push from the racist and xenophobe Lega Nord, which is largely behind this ludicrous idea just because it lives out of outsourcing from Germany and can no longer compete despite the characteristic Lega’s vacuous sufficiency; note nonetheless that the Lega was behind the anti-constitutional introduction of the now miserably failed so-called « fiscal federalism » which it pushed through Parliament, despite my strenuous protests. It did this with transversal complicity, and without the least study about the expected impacts. And yet, among other things, this quickly destroyed the regionalized health-care system and thus one of the main bases for macroeconomic competitiveness. In my humble opinion, the proposal to exit the euro was invented by all those who, in their desire to protect the interest of the dominant classes at all costs, conspire to divide the ranks of the people and especially of the Left, which is still naively receptive to these sirens’ songs. The aim it to push it into a cul-de-sac. Making abstraction of honest but naif militants, it is enough to recall here the role played by some within the No Dal Molin to understand how these strategies do function, especially in a country like Italy which disposes of the greatest Western ratio of informers to the general population. Quite simply we are dealing here with the routine implementation of Sun Tzu’s recipes: Win without waging battle and, to achieve this, control both your generals and the leaders of the opposing parties, in the face of democratic representation. This remains the best defense available to the philosemite Nietzschean bourgeoisie: Mystifying scientific Marxist political economy and its socio-policial prescriptions while controlling both the discourse and the speakers (with the contributions of many domestic «servi in camera ») Aside from using « useful idiots » – this is how G. W. Bush was often portrayed by them probably after the second-rate actor Ronald Reagan – , the American top crusaders maliciously resumed the strategy with the following phrase: « let them have the talk while we control the walk ». And thus the role played by the grotesque Grillo together with his controller Casaleggio in Italy – and many like him elsewhere. You actually recognize them easily because of their subservient philosemitism and even their unquestioning and often venal pro-Israel stand so blind that it even forgets the unambiguous pronouncement by the International Court of Justice on the Israeli Wall of Apartheid and on the infamous colonization policy, thus greatly endangering what they would pretend to defend – or, at least, venally paying lip service to … These two highly remunerated Grillini, or whatever they may be, were very useful to the dominant system: With their demagogic campaign waged against the democratic public financing of political parties, they opened the road to Renzi-Gutgeld and many others transversally, to finally impose their private financing. In so doing, they sacrificed the political parties to the altar of speculative capital. A fitting holocaust with a pleasant scent to the nostrils of the Golden Calf since this will be the inevitable result of the maximum threshold fixed at 300 000 euros yearly, in a pauperized society characterized by the increasing divide between the top 1 % and the rest of the citizens! (Apparently the draft law has lowered that to 100 000 euros : see http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2014/02/12/news/dl_finanziamento_ai_partiti_tutte_le_misure-78411363/?ref=HREC1-19). Moreover, this financial expropriation of democratic representation will unfold within the framework of the new fraudulent electoral law, which is even worse than the so-called Porcellum it was supposed to correct. In short, it contrives to create an iron-clad bipartisan system offering an absolute majority to the winning party which will obtain just over a third of effective votes! Italian representative democracy is thus unconstitutionally transformed into a servile, Censitarian thing, in short an unegalitarian shareholders’ democracy. Again, Italy is here used as a model: De te fabula narratur!
c) Laicity, gender parity and civil rights;
d) Ecomarxism, careful urban and rural zoning and the implementation of the principle of precaution;
e) Democratization of education and culture as well as public financing of R&D;
f) The ending of socio-economic and media over-representation backed by the ending of false electoral and democratic representation – that is to say, the ending of false electoral representation at all levels, including at the union level, something which is now blatantly verified in direct violation of the Constitution. Equality is and remains a fundamental principle of our Constitution, one that cannot even be amended. The principle of equality is confirmed by the Declaration of Universal Individual and Social Rights written in the same democratic and anti-Fascist spirit. This is why the Left will have to be ready to take any measure necessary to correct the anti-democratic effects of such over-representation and such false representation. The Law of Great Numbers must be respected, if necessary with the recourse to positive discrimination as practiced in the United States of America. It knows no putative « masters of the World », only citizens equal among themselves.
g) The renunciation of any foreign intervention or war that would not be strictly defensive in character, together with the return to the spirit and letter of collective security.
3) The method: Citizens’ Committees for Social Rights.
This is a call for unity of purpose. We are calling on all progressive organizations, be they political, social, unions or cultural organizations; we are calling on Small Businesses, sellers, farmers, housewifes, academics and searchers, journalists, students, artists and pensioners. Without a new definition of anti-dumping there is simply no possible way out of the current crisis, not even with the forced sharing of poverty among the workers and the disappearing middle classes. The « structure of v », namely the employee’s « global net revenue » making up variable capital, is nothing other than the operative name and source of profits in the productive and merchandising sectors. When it is sacrificed, some 65 % of internal demand is under attack, so that the neoliberal and Monetarist epigons of supply economics are merely sawing the branch on which they are comfortably sitting.
The objective is to create a national and European Social Rights Party which would implement the program laid out above, particularly its two initial points (the anti-dumping and the public finance pole.) There is some urgency in initiating the grassroots emergence of Citizens’ Committees for Social Rights based on the basic program laid out above, so as to better it, exposing it in greater details, and to help disseminate and defend it. There is some urgency in adapting it at all levels, national, local, union and European levels. Only thus will it be possible to re-create the organic unity of the people around a minimal program fully compatible with the spirit and the letter of our post-World War II Constitutions, often born directly out of the Resistance.
These Committees will have to be opened to anyone without distinction who shares this minimal program – it is merely conceived here as a preliminary synthesis of the main elements held dear by the whole authentic Left. Above all, they will have to be opened to whoever is available to collectively elaborate it in more details, with the hope to arrive at the emergence of a national and European Social Rights Party, from the bottom up.
Once rooted at all levels, the Committees will decide how best to organize the Party. Meanwhile, the appurtenance to the new Party will be compatible with the appurtenance to any other party or pressure group already in existence, which will prove ready to participate in the creation of the Committees. In the implementation of this principle of coexistence of appurtenances, the only requirement is honesty with one’s one beliefs, as well as the respect of the obligations induced from the membership to the new Party. The principle of federation has always been dear to the Left.
At its formation, these Committees will be entitled to transform themselves into Grassroot Committees of the Party itself. These Grassroot Committees will then elect the Regional Committees but with a right of recall. The National Committee will be chosen by the Grassroot Committees through direct consultation (Internet). The final program will be written by the first Congress which will then seat every 5-Year without any possible postponement, and it will have to be subjected to the approval by the Grassroot Committees. Extraordinary Congresses should be convened if needed; however, no modification of the program outside the regular Congresses will be possible without a referendum involving the Grassroot Committees. These too appear to me to represent shared principles among the authentic Left at the light of the last 10-15 years of struggles. Yet, they are only meant as indication here, since they will have to be detailed and decided together. In effect, the first Congress of the Social Rights Party will act as a constituent assembly of the authentic Left.
The time has come for a social comeback of the people, both in Europe and in the World.
Paul De Marco
To contact me: [email protected]
4) APPENDIX: THE BASICS ABOUT THE NEEDED NEW ANTI-DUMPING DEFINITION.
« A standard technical definition of dumping is the act of charging a lower price for the like goods in a foreign market than one charges for the same good in a domestic market for consumption in the home market of the exporter. »
« If a company exports a product at a price that is lower than the price it normally charges in its own home market, or sells at a price that does not meet its full cost of production, it is said to be “dumping” the product. »
« According to Footnote 2 Anti-Dumping Agreement, domestic sales of the like product are sufficient to base normal value on if they account for 5 per cent or more of the sales of the product under consideration to the importing country market. This is often called the-five-per-cent or home-market-viability test. This test is applied globally by comparing quantity sold of like product on the domestic market with quantity sold to importing market.»
« The dumping investigation essentially compares domestic prices of the accused dumping nation with prices of the imported product on the European market. However, several rules are applied to the data before the dumping margin is calculated. Most contentious is the concept of “analogue market”. Some exporting nations are not granted “market economy status” by the EU: China is a prime example because its market status is considered “state-sponsored capitalism“. In such cases, the DG Trade is prevented from using domestic prices as the fair measure of the domestic price. A particular exporting industry may also lose market status if the DG Trade concludes that this industry receives government assistance. Other tests applied include the application of international accounting standards and bankruptcy laws. »
« Related to antidumping duties are “countervailing duties“. The difference is that countervailing duties seek to offset injurious subsidization while antidumping duties offset injurious dumping. »
«The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union has often been accused of dumping though significant reforms were made as part of the Agreement on Agriculture at the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations in 1992 and in subsequent incremental reforms, notably the Luxembourg Agreement in 2003. » in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
Comment: (To which should now be added the global financial market including the opaque shadow banking. As we know, it is not harmonized yet for prudential ratios and accounting rules etc.)
Lets « v » be the « variable capital » or, if you will, the remuneration for the work done by the employee. The transition to a better anti-dumping definition needs to be based on the « structure of v » inherent to the minimum legal wage, at least initially. It would include the basic payroll contributions, mainly UI, pension, health and family allocations. These constitute vital parts of the minimum tolerable cost of production. They would be easy to calculate during the transition towards a more refined salary scale based on the same principle. At the same time, the countervailing duty logic applies – especially given the now proven nefarious impact on macroeconomic equilibrium of the current anti-dumping definition which excluded social safety nets and environmental criteria from its calculus: i.e., the negative economic spiral which even Blanchard at the IMF was forced to notice! Similarly, this extends the principle of comparable markets: This is because even open capitalist markets are not the same, they do not apply the same rules and might not even belong to the same monetary union – see Sweden, Poland and Italy for Electrolux etc … So that the result is negative for all workers and for all capitalists at both ends (either salaries and social safety nets or profits.)
The implementation of the new anti-dumping definition would be straight forward. The sale price will be adjusted either by the exporter – to create a domestic workers’ fund – or by the importer simply through the Value Added Tax (or VAT): The bar-code will signal the product as an imported product and the special imported VAT would be applied for the sale price etiquette and again at the cash register. It would merely consist in a simple addition to the traceability protocols. There are no big implementation problems here, either for imported components or for finished products. One only needs to know how many full-time workers were involved in production and that number would then be multiplied by the minimum legal wage prevalent in the importing country. A variation would allow for the tolerable number of part-time workers expressed in term of the minimum legal wage.
The only thing to consider would be the content rule – such as applied within Nafta and the EU etc. As well as residual tariffs elsewhere. The content rule is currently undermined by new bilateral and multilateral extended free-trade treaties, and it works perversely. Either it favors the higher-end concentration within metropolitan areas which act as technopoles because of their acquired advantages in terms of localization factors such as infrastructures, services, environment, living standards etc., or else it favors McDo jobs and maquiladora’s pay. Hence, it would be better to free the whole global market but do so intelligently through the new definition of a just minimum cost of production – including the minimum individual wage and its payroll contributions. The result would be to protect the macroeconomic equilibrium and to sustain the domestic markets solvency, hence their attractiveness.
The only question remaining would be the likely effect of using the minimum wage – now being introduced in Germany and in the USA – as the calculus base. Its adverse effect on capital mobility would be nil as far as qualitative and technical mobility is concerned. Its effect on the wage scale might be a reduction of existing wage scale disparities (these went from 1 to 14 in the 60s to more than 1 to 500 now, which is plainly grotesque. But the impact would more likely be felt on the lower end of the scale.) Yet, this would be a good thing because the system would go ahead hand-in-hand with recurrent cycles of Reduction of the Working Time according to the real micro-economic productivity of the enterprises and to the real macro-economic competitiveness of the considered Social Formation. So that individual salaries would rise with real productivity gains – thus minimizing nominal price effects – but they would go further in terms of internal consumers’ demand because they would imply better collectively paid social services – or, whatever the choice may be in each country. The public system would have the upper hand being less onerous for a better universal access. (Public health and pension systems cost much less than the squandering private current systems. The weight of the in-house American pension system brought the collapse of GM and of Chrysler, two giants which had to be salvaged by the Federal government.)
The positive cybernetic feedback of competitiveness on productivity is key to a well-balanced socio-economic development, although it is blindly negated by the dominant Marginalist paradigm and its self-destructive « public policy ». This is simply because that badly fraught paradigm is ontologically incapable to conjugate micro and macroeconomics, or even to conceive a model more sophisticated than a plain barter system. In fact, money is just an afterthought for that failed paradigm, placing monetary phenomena out of its reach (be it inflation or deflation, or more precisely under-consumption coupled with over-production, etc.) Idem for speculation which should not be equated with capitalist credit.
Meanwhile, with the securing of the social base on the logic of the minimum legal salary, the social programs can be effectively bettered depending on the relative weighs of payroll contributions on the remaining wage scale. For its part, the wage scale remains bound by real productivity and real competitiveness in order for the Social Formation to remain rational and sustainable. This effect would be incremented by the mutualising or national solidarity principle inherent to any public system.
And, of course, State’s fiscal revenues would be ensured. This would constitute the true fiscal consolidation path. A new age of prosperity would ensue globally. Moreover, in the case of the self-imposed tax by exporters, it will allow for a rapid domestic catching up in terms of social safety nets. Social benefits would tend to harmonize globally according to the best existing parameters. There would be no self-destructive national race to the bottom, no social dumping.
Note that basing the system on the minimum legal wage makes it straightforward and equitable – free trade becomes global fair trade. But it supposes an extension of the anti-dumping definition to part-time work. It would only be strictly voluntary – a minimum of 24 hours a week with all the social benefits proportionately identical to those covered by the minimum legal wage or by the pertaining wage rung. A maximum percentage of tolerable part-time must therefore be fixed for each industry – or else it becomes unfair competition. The original Kürtzarbeit legislation did just that, i.e., it determined the maximum of Kürtzarbeit levels available in each firm or industry – incidentally, this kept the negotiations with the unions alive and fruitful. This too is easily managed through the countervailing mechanics. In reality, given that the system would stabilize UI funds, the needed labor flexibility would be obtained through easily accessible UI for seasonal and conjunctural needs, and through the use of legal overtime. Part-time would provide even more flexibility – including 10-hour students’ jobs after grade 12 in their fields of specialization or related filed in order to create the needed polyvalence and to prepare students for the employment market, even reducing drop-out rates etc. But this would answer a very different logic, namely a social one: It would be voluntarily chosen.
For the rest, each National Social Formation would be free to manage its own affairs as it wishes, but in so doing it would cause no harm to others: This would, in effect, become the « real anti beggar-thy-neighbors » policy. Not even Cordell Hull could object, and Walt Whitman Rostow might have conceded that such a system would indeed produce a rapid socio-economic take-off! Then, one would be able to check, in practical terms, what is superior either a system based on « social surplus value » or one based on a brutish and cynical « Monetarist workfare » … Hopefully, natural emulation would ensue.
Above all, this would do away with present discriminatory content rules replacing them with a rational and unfettered qualitative mobility of capital and techniques. This will also be beneficent to the environment : This is because it will reduce the useless intra-firms production and optimizing assembly strategy, shifting it away for the destructive race to the lowest global salaries, especially as the new calculus of the cost of production provided by the minimum legal wage scale would apply to both components and finished complex products. A modern energy-efficient re-industrialisation would ensue, and the ecologists will thus have their « zero kilometer rule », at least in a good, non discriminatory and easily implemented approximation.
Thanks to this, other ecological variables can be kept out of the anti-dumping calculus because they are often too subjective, if not at time too ideological. Instead – given that the States will have recovered their spending power – the principle of precaution will apply. And it will apply to all economic actors equally, both domestic and external actors. Idem for the domestic rules pertaining to the recycling taxes that are vital in order to launch a real grand scale Ecomarxist underlying policy – namely, the complete recycling based on preventively studied new product life cycles, the reproduction of raw material and resources, either naturally or artificially, as well as the development of massifiable substitutes.
We would thus be ushering into a pluralist New World Order, one backed by the most favored nation principle – access to resources without discrimination – and by the return to the peaceful collective security rules.
Competition among Nations would become peaceful and qualitative. Competing systems would be plural but not confrontational. The end of the patent protection regime would then logically follow – patents would largely emerge from public university and R&D anyway, and would be deposited to the UNESCO for all to use. During the transition period their use would be based on bilateral or multilateral reciprocity. Firms would then compete on the basis of their differential organization and efficiency and on their economies of scale, without having to be limited in their global reach. The World could be their oyster, so to speak, and for the good of all. This would ensure the rapid diffusion of the best techniques and practices as well as of good employment.
Universities and R&D would naturally flourish. This would be an added godsend given that the global diffusion of the best and most productive techniques would further reduce the need for active labor force. This would be managed by the secularly-driven Reduction of Working Time, by early retirement, seniors giving their chance to the younger workers earlier, and by the development of permanent education with the wide extension of adults’ education. This could be supplemented by active old-age, but strictly within the framework of the current legal working week and of the legally admissible levels of over-time and of part-time. Thus, seniors would be allowed to voluntarily continue their work on a part-time basis, at least when the non-tediousness of work permits it. At the educational and research levels, this would induce a trend that might create new interdisciplinary connections, and thus lead to a new scientific and applied science revolution. We would all be ushering into a real knowledge and leisure society, globally.
Paul De Marco
Notes:
* Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1996, p 188, « Chapter V Ways and Means of Improving the Conditions of Europe, interspersed with Miscellaneous Observations ». In this chapter, Thomas Paine exposes the main social programs fitted to a civilized Republic, namely public education, old age security, unemployment insurance and health care, progressive fiscal policy, lean and efficient government and bureaucracy, reduced army. He uses available tax revenues data to show that this would cost cheaper than the onerous maintenance and feeding of useless kings and aristocrats and of other powers-that-be. One only needs to replace kings and aristocrats by bankers and CEO-CFO to understand how modern and right to the point he still is.
1) Concerning Electrolux see: « Il piano Electrolux per l’Italia: “Salari dimezzati agli operai”» http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2014/01/27/news/electrolux_sindacati_crisi-77067887/?ref=HREA-1(Si, See also: Electrolux: tra banditismo padronale e complicità politiche e sindacali Mercoledì, 29 Gennaio 2014 10:16 Usb Lavoro Privato http://www.contropiano.org/archivio-news/documenti/item/21831-electrolux-tra-banditismo-padronale-e-complicita-politiche-e-sindacali
2) See Synopsis of Marxist Political Economy in the Livres-Books section of my site www.la-commune-paraclet.com
3) Jobs Act. “Servono dettagli e prevede molti investimenti” « The intervention of the Minister of Labor: ”The proposal is not new”. ”Choices have been made to quick start the economy and employment”. Quote: « In addition, the minister responsible for Labor explained how : ” Every quarter, we now have 400 thousand full time hires as against 1 million and 600 thousand non-permanent” »http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2014/01/09/news/job_act_renzi_i_dubbi_di_giovannini_servono_dettagli_e_prevede_molti_investimenti-75459506/?ref=HREC1-1
4) See the critique of Gutgeld’s bood in http://www.la-commune-paraclet.com/Book%20ReviewsFrame1Source1.htm . See also: « S’inspirer de la Bible pour repenser le social. » (Getting inspiration from the Bible to rethink social policies.) Richard Sitbon (DR. Caroline Haddad) economist, director in the Israeli ministry of the Treasury . http://www.latribune.fr/opinions/tribunes/20140129trib000812521/s-inspirer-de-la-bible-pour-repenser-le-social.html. This guy wants to subordinate the economy to the Jewish bible; he defends the preeminence of speculative finance which should dominate everything else, in every countries over the Planet. He does not hesitate to marshal some gematria , or cabalistic numerology, in order to « deduce » the minimal social system acceptable according to this very demented and archaic foolishness. He does not even recall in the process that the Jewish bible calls for a tabula rasa conducive to a new start every 50 years: A principle which should also apply to the private banks thus sparing us the ruinous recurrent public bailouts. Be it as it may, it is not without interest to note the strong similitude with the program proposed by Gutgeld and Renzi. It is not a coincidence. It would be urgent to recall Goethe’s Faust when Mephistopheles explains that the best way to destroy the World is to control and make use of money. Here is the reasoning of this character – Spinoza would fittingly call it a « delirium » -, which after all is not too different from that of Milton Friedman, of Yoland Bresson or of Casaleggio-Grillo relative to the so-called « basic minimum revenue », namely the generalizing of precariousness for the less well-elected tribes in this true new « Animal Farm » (Orwell) : « In the original biblical text in Hebrew the name of a tree « echel » corresponds to the initials of three terms that translate in food, drink and shelter. These terms express the minimum which a society should offer to any one. Implementing this idea in our modern societies would mean that every adult would get « the minimal survival revenue.» (Translation mine.) There is no need to add anything, except to emphasize the plain fact that these principles are diametrically opposed to those enshrined in our Republican Constitution!
5) http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2014/01/29/news/electrolux_crisi_zanonato-77183571/?ref=HREC1-10
7) See the Conto trimestrale delle amministrazioni, www.istat.it/it/archivio/72103 p 2 (Summary: In the II Quarter 2012 in million euros : direct income tax : 56 691; indirect – very regressive – taxes :57 996; total capital taxes : 1 524 (- 0,2 with respect to the I Quarter.)
8) Note that the USA already changed its way to calculate the Marginalist GDP increasing the weight of the so-called immaterial economy in particular that of the speculative sectors. France is following suit as of May 15, 2014 and other European countries in September 2014. See: «La crescita che non c’è e i trucchi statistici » 18 sabato Gennaio 2014 08:34 http://www.contropiano.org/economia/item/21602-la-crescita-che-non-c-e-e-i-trucchi-statistici . See also: http://www.latribune.fr/actualites/economie/france/20140117trib000810219/le-15-mai-prochain-la-france-sera-plus-riche-.html
9) La signora delle venti poltrone, Lady Mastrapasqua imita il marito Maria Giovanna Basile, consorte di Mastrapasqua, ha molti incarichi, dalla Rai all’Aci, con una forte presenza nella sanità. I rapporti con Forza Italia hanno origine dall’amicizia con il figlio di Gianni Letta; di ALDO FONTANAROSA e ROBERTO MANIAhttp://www.repubblica.it/politica/2014/01/29/news/moglie_mastrapasqua-77176169/?ref=HREC1-3 See also the Note 14 below with respect to the systematic emptying of Inps.
10) Italian public servants earn almost three times more than the average in the OECD. This applies across the board. See Stipendi d’oro ai dirigenti pubblici «Sono il triplo della media Ue»
« MILANO After the Greeks, Portuguese and Spanish we are the European country with the lowest salary. Yet, our public leaders have the highest pays in Europe equivalent to almost three times the OECD average. According to a report by this Organization comprising the 34 richest countries on the Planet, … (Translation mine) http://qn.quotidiano.net/primo_piano/2013/11/15/982414-stipendi_dirigenti_pubblici.shtml
See also: Paperoni di Stato: redditi, nomi e cariche nel rapporto del Governo Nel rapporto annuale di Palazzo Chigi, nomi, redditi, beni immobili e immobili, cariche dei manager più pagati dallo StatoPubblicato il 31/01/2014 in Soldi http://www.quifinanza.it/8381/soldi/carriere-di-stato-nomi-cognomi-redditi-nel-rapporto-governo.html
11)Cig, nel 2013 superato il miliardo di ore. Volano domande disoccupazione: +32%
Il calo delle ore in cassa integrazione (-1,36% sul 2012) è dovuto interamente alla riduzione della cassa in deroga (-22,93%). All’Inps oltre 1,9 milioni di richieste di sussidio nei primi undici mesi dello scorso anno http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2014/01/08/news/inps_cassa_integrazione-75402881/?ref=search
Cgil: “La Cig 2013 è costata 4,1 mld”. Ogni lavoratore ha perso 8mila euro
http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2014/01/18/news/lavoro_cassa_integrazione-76259739/?ref=HREC1-25
12) http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoland_Bresson
14)Chômage des seniors : l’avis explosif de l’OCDEhttp://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2014/01/30/chomage-des-seniors-l-avis-explosif-de-l-ocde_4356779_823448.html. Added note February 6, 2014: Inps has already been emptied. Concerning the deficit for 2014, 2015, 2016, see the article: Inps, patrimonio azzerato in quattro anni Per il 2014 un buco da quasi cinque miliardi.
http://inchieste.repubblica.it/it/repubblica/rep-it/2014/02/04/news/pensioni_in_rosso-77656551/
15) See the chapter « The « struttura di v » : Individual capitalist salary, differed salary and global net revenue of the household »in « To save the Eurozone we must terminate the so-called universal bank. » In Download Now in http://www.la-commune-paraclet.com/livresFrame1Source1.htm#livresbookmark
16) Crisi, al 12% degli italiani non basta lo stipendio: peggio solo Romania e Grecia
http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2014/01/21/news/crisi_al_12_degli_italiani_non_basta_lo_stipendio_peggio_solo_romania_e_grecia-76541971/?ref=HREC1-14 See also La disoccupazione sale al 12,7% La novembre resta record dal 1977
http://www.repubblica.it/economia/2014/01/08/news/disoccupazione_novembre_2013-75384880/?ref=HREC1-2 . See also Eurispes: “Un italiano su tre non arriva a fine mese”. Ma una speranza c’è
Difficoltà, pessimismo e una speranza. Ecco l’Italia fotografata dal Rapporto Eurispes 2014http://www.quifinanza.it/8380/foto/eurispes-italiano-su-tre-non-arriva-a-fine-mese-ma-c-una-speranza.html#6 . Published on the 30-01-2014 in Economia. « Although the financial markets points to some growth perspective, as far as the real economy is concerned Italy remains in prey to grievous difficulties, in which one citizen over three does not earn enough to reach the end of the month, is obliged to recalibrate his consumption and to tap into his savings to make ends meet. This is the result of the Eurispes inquiry conducted from December to January.
17) Le rapport qui a imposé les politiques d’austérité est totalement faux http://www.humanite.fr/social-eco/le-rapport-qui-impose-les-politiques-dausterite-es-520573 .
18) Legge elettorale, ecco l’Italicum
On the fraudulent electoral law: It should be emphasized that in 2013 exactly 34 002 525 ballots were cast. 4,5% equal to 1 530 113 of these, while 8 % represent 2 720 202 voters. A party that would not reach 8 % would simply be canceled out from parliamentary representation unless it bows to the obligation to become a subaltern part of a coalition. It does not seem to be the proper way to respect the equality of all the citizens-voters – under 4,5 % those which are not into a coalition are simply canceled out. The principle of equal representation is not even respected in its effects when parties are forced to be part of a coalition without the power to negotiate their appurtenance in order to avoid being obliterated by the thresholds’ perverse logic. This amounts to nothing less than a coup against democracy and against the Constitution. Moreover, this system will not induce any programmatic stability given that party discipline does not constitutionally apply to Italian parliamentarians. Worse still, the anti-constitutional cancellation of the democratic representation of millions of citizens will inevitably lead to a dangerous switch of political and social conflicts outside parliamentarian arenas: In short, it amounts to a real coup against the stability and the serenity of the Country. Of course, the dominant elite has planned to resort to a more repressive use of the Nietzschean Hammer and preventively legislated all domestic and foreign serious rivals as « terrorists » (imitating in that the US illegal « preventive war doctrine » and its Patriot Act, including the wall-to-wall intrusive surveillance illustrated by Snowden and others …)
In reality, this ill-inspired law is fabricated with much after-thought, and what’s more illegally; its aim is to eliminate the M5s as well as the minor parties. It was said aloud without detour (the Italians sarcastically say: Roundly like the O of Giotto.) But it was equally fabricated on purpose to keep the besieged Berlusconi under control. Berlusconi is barred from the elections given that he was kicked out following Trichet’s letter placing Italy under the ECB’s trusteeship – it suddenly swept away all the obstacles facing the courts. However, Forza Italia, Berlusconi’s re-built party, still remains a destabilizing factor. It was verified for instance with the demagogy around the elimination of the property tax levied on the main residence, or IMU, as opposed to the Monti’s and others’ demagogy imposing an increase on the IMU equal to what was needed to bailout the Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Hence, the leader of FI is controlled by saving the electoral skin of Alfano, previously in Berlusconi’s former party the PDL (in effect, the lowering of the inferior threshold from 5% to 4,5 % was construed on the basis of the latest available opinion polls just to achieve this result). Meanwhile, the same operation construed to save the Lega Nord is calculated to block any victory by FI in the first electoral round. As we know, the nordist percentage of support for the Lega Nord is substantially greater than its national average; nonetheless, in the eventuality Forza Italia wins with the backing of Alfano and of the Lega, it will no longer represent any danger for the dominant financial capital in Europe. Yet, FI will always represent a grievous danger for the working class, as well as for the middle classes now sacrificed to the crisis and to the most obscure sections of the business classes in the Peninsula. It is said that Berlusconi’s stand on ballot preferences only serves to save mafia nominees as well as the less presentable candidates within FI and its associated minor parties. Thus, Gutgeld-Renzi have transformed the weakened and besieged Berlusconi and FI in unconscious agents working for the proverbial « King of Prussia ». This in a context where all these institutional players are in favor of burying the Constitution, especially its egalitarian founding principles.
As far as Grillo and Casaleggio are concerned, their project to « caress », that is to say to bury political parties and their public financing seems to have reached its goal. Logically, within the framework of the new fraudulent law, they will also need to bury their own M5s to avoid endangering their controllers among the powers-that-be, which now desire to impose a strict bipartisan system modeled on that of the USA, in which the two main parties share the very same « mind set » and are mostly and almost equitably financed by the very same big corporations. This would explain the incessant outraging extravagances and insults especially during prime time – Italians are a TV people – which seem to be intended to erode the legitimacy of their own party, keeping it under the ominous 8 %. The honest members of the M5s should take note.
The Law must be obeyed at least up until it is democratically changed; but this does not forbid criticisms. In my opinion, aside for the too wide interpretation of the principle of institutional continuity – the nomination of the Court itself being under question – the Constitutional Court erred seriously as far as electoral thresholds are concerned. Our Constitution does not recognize any such thresholds simply because this would run against the equality principle, including for its likely and foreseeable effects. Moreover, the Constitution conceives of the elections as a method to guarantee the most authentic representation of the citizens – this was intended to impede the re-edition of a golpe such as Mussolini’s. It does not aim at the artificial creation of a presumed government stability.
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to construct a reversed sophism: First, one starts with the principle of government stability, though it is not present in the text of the Constitution, this is done in order to subordinate the main constitutional principle of equality to it. In the secondary premise the electoral practices illegally used since 1994 are legitimized resorting to the simple artifice according to which they should only be marginally amended to become acceptable. In conclusion, an infallible method to measure the degree of equality tolerable to the dominant class is deduced: Exactly what it takes to insure stability within the framework of a bipartisan system, this is the standard to which republican equality now needs to be measured! At least Gutgeld in his book was admitting that his title was part of a marketing manipulation since what he really meant by equality in its front cover was merely neoliberal «equity », and nothing else.
Similarly, the Constitutional Court erred seriously in selectively unearthing preparatory texts used by the Constituent Assembly in order to legitimize the thresholds. Other texts with opposing views do exist too. But above all the working documents of the Assembly cannot be used to reverse the obvious meaning of the final constitutional text itself. Neither can one use the argument according to which electoral thresholds are the presumed norm in Europe: In Italy, the laws need to conform to the Italian Constitution, not to foreign presumed norms. And indeed even if rigor is uniformly absent in a country which seems to know the Manifesto of Spinelli more than the Constitution itself, European directives still need to be translated into Italian. This, of course, is not limited to a linguistic translation, but refers to their compatibility with the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, which remains the sole legal expression of the superior will of the sovereign people. One only needs to look at the Karlsruhe Court and to German practices to understand the proper role of a High Court within the framework of European integration.
Electoral laws should be decided by the citizens and by Parliament, they should never result from behind-the-scene agreements. In my opinion, an electoral law respectful of the Constitution would look like the following: It would be a proportional system with two electoral rounds. During the first turn, 50 % of the seats would be attributed through a pure proportional count. The attribution of the other 50 % seats would be done through a relative majority. The second round would take place two weeks after the first; this would favor the emergence of coalitions through programmatic negotiations which would guarantee both the transparency of the election results as well as the stability of the government. Minority governments could still happen but they are known to be more responsive to the political opinion of the electors rather than to that of parties’ caucuses. (Germany proves it.) The voting lists would strictly respect gender parity and allow the voters to chose. During the first round the voters can chose their party and candidates – thus the program and its implementation method. During the second round they can either vote for a coalition or vote to eliminate the players they do not like. In both cases, the decision is freely taken by the individual citizen with a clear expectation as to the result. Financing of political parties should be strictly public and their visibility on the media should at least be proportional to their weights. At most, one could chose to slightly favor coalitions through public financing. The Senate would be abolished as a now redundant and archaic organ, although this would demand a constitutional amendment. Meanwhile, it would be elected according to the same system without having to be illegally transformed into a House of Regions; this is because, aside for historically autonomous regions, the Italian Constitution declares the Republic to be « one and indivisible ». The abolition of the archaic Senate would be positively compensated thanks to the modification of the rules applying to the House of Representatives. First multi-bills or omnibus bills would be abolished and declared illegal, and the verification of the constitutional compatibility of draft bills would be mandatory – the last word before the draft is signed into law remaining with the President of the Republic. (Note that despite current practices the Constitution does not allow for amendments except in precise areas and according to specific procedures, but only article by article, never en bloc.) Furthermore, parliamentary committees would have to mandatorily consult the various civil society groups each time this is requested by at least 1/3 of the members, so as to benefit from the direct input of the citizens into the legislative processes of representative democracy. Moreover, the legislation of conflict of interest rules should forbid the exercise of any other employment for elected representatives and senators because otherwise they would de facto transform into lobbyists, a function strictly incompatible with their role as parliamentarians. The conflict of interest rules should be imposed by the European Council if need be, preferably with common and straightforward rules, and a European pool of judges empowered to deal with organized crime in the EU should equally be entitled to enforce them.
(Added note: February, 2014: Here is an sample of the polls which informed the writers of this fraudulent draft electoral law: http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2014/02/05/news/elezioni_europee_le_intenzioni_di_voto_secondo_ipr_pd_al_primo_posto_fiato_sul_collo_del_m5s-77713090/?ref=search . According to this poll the dynamics of the thresholds induces the aggregation of the Right and of the Lega Nord with FI in order to win in the second round. Aside from the self-destruction of the Grillini to serve their controllers with the powers-that-be, one alternative remains: Namely the anti-euro and anti-Italy alliance of the M5s and of the Lega. The anti-euro demagogy carried forth by such an alliance could even win a majority after the first round with a slogan like : « Anti-euro: Let’s rock the boat! ». In truth, this is a pitres’ logic in the sense of this word expounded in my theory of Marxist psychoanalysis available in the second part of my Book II entitled For Marx, against nihilism in the Book section of my site. The partial translation in Italian is available in the essay Contra pitre in the Italia section of the same site. Afterwards, the nomination of the leader of the Pd, Renzi, as President of the Council – equivalent to the Premiership – by the President of the Republic made things far worse. Renzi is not yet an elected representative nor a senator. The way to the Premiership hence to parliamentary immunity is thus opened to Berlusconi if FI and its allies win the next legislative elections. There is no more need to grant a presidential pardon which would have seemed too illegitimate. The whole thing become a cynical farce played against he Italian people and against the judiciary. )
(Added note: February 11, 2014. Gutgeld-Renzi’s anti-constitutional antics do not stop at their fraudulent electoral law – the Economist declared it « fiendishly complex » – or at the rewriting of Title V of the Constitution to allow overall privatization at the local level. Their anti-democratic and Censitarian bent reaches its apex with their Senate reform intended to destroy the bicameral parliamentary form proper to Italy. In short, their proposal would turn the Senate into a raggish nominated and unpaid upper-house of autonomous areas (despite the Constitution which speaks of a « Republic, one and indivisible » with two elected chambers …). As we know European federalists together with the speculative bankers wish for the demise of Nations-States, cradles of democracy founded on the sovereignty of the people. They have to be replaced by European regions subjected to the ECB, itself subjected to international and stateless finance and generally to « global private governance.» Thus, the proposal is not really surprising. Therefore, elections are not needed any longer! Paradoxically, this shows how scared of the people these putative «masters of the earth » – who apparently never read Suetonius …! – really are. In my opinion they are right to be. See http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21595054-new-centre-left-leader-reaches-accord-his-biggest-opponent-thatif-it-passescould-give In Italian see http://video.corriere.it/renzi-ecco-mio-senato-150-tutti-senza-stipendio/f3b16d92-8f22-11e3-8c4a-c355fa4079e9
See also Napolitano, l’annuncio dei 5 Stelle: “Presentato l’impeachment” http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2014/01/30/news/impeachment_napolitano-77264514/?ref=HREA-1
(The process is : Parliamentary committee; vote by the whole parliament (now a philosemite Nietzschean one, resulting from fraudulent electoral laws), the last word going to the Constitutional Court partly nominated by these same parliamentarians. Moreover, if the debate is conducted without the least regard for decency, the mass didactic aspect will be lost, and the process will then give the opportunity to the Court to exonerate everyone in a preventive way…)
19) See in Download Now in the Section Livres-Books « To save the eurozone we must terminate the regime of the so-called universal bank. »www.la-commune-paraclet.com
20) Tutti i rischi dell’operazione Banca d’Italia 26.11.13 Marcello Espositohttp://www.lavoce.info/rivalutazione-patrimonio-banca-ditalia/
« Let us suppose that the ”private” Bank of Italy gets 7 billion in capital. With a dividend-yield of 6 % the study expects the flow of dividends to the shareholders to be equal to 420 millions. Even in the hypothesis of a high tax levy (1,5 billion) the shareholders would recoup their cost, without having to sell a single block of shares; they would thus benefit fully from the positive impact of the capital increase. Not a bad deal considering that in 2012 some 70 billions were distributed to the historical members of Bankitalia.» Similarly, this is what we can read in an article written by Xavier Ragot « Les banques centrales dans la tempête : pour un nouveau mandat de stabilité financière »; accessible in the site of Alternatives Economiques http://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/video—les-banques-centrales-dans-la-tempete–par-xavier-ragot_fr_art_633_59808.html . « Even adopting a realistic growth rate, W. Buiter arrives at an actualized value for the profits accruing to the European system of central banks equivalent to more than 3000 billions euros. To give an order of the scale, lets one remember that the Italian debt equal 1 840 billions euros and that of Greece to 320 billions euros in 2010. The Central banks’ system can therefore absorb a substantial loss without inducing any inflation and thus without a inflationary cost. (p53) …) (Translations mine)
21) See « To save the eurozone, we must terminate the regime of the so-called universal bank » , in Download Now inhttp://www.la-commune-paraclet.com/livresFrame1Source1.htm#livresbookmark