ITALY: behind the compromise
The Plough1974Economy, the EEC and EuropeNo public scan is online for this item; the text below was read from a privately held copy.
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Major conflicts and confrontations over the past four years, between the ruling class and and is in the throes of attempts to cope with several huge problems. These are: A. Inflation; this is rising rapidly and is expected to be in the region of 22% — 25% within a short period.
B. The problem of acquiring Internatiqnal Aid is a huge task. Italy needs to become more fully integrated into the European Community, to exploit these markets more fully. In stark contrast. severe protection measures need to be established to workers, have added to an extremely anxious to get caught up in the obvious unstable climate in Italy. The Italian Ruling contradictions! class is extremely worried about the situation C. Industrial Restructuration is necessary in investment.
Class struggle maintain the economic viability of Italian industry. The European capitalist is not general of the key.manufacturing sectors many of which are stagnating. These need large amounts of capital investment. Again this is in stark contrast’ to the actual practice of the bourgeoisie who are narrowing both the areas and amounts of capital In this general framework the instability of the Italian ruling class’s social, political and economic position becomes much clearer. There have been huge social and economic upheavals taking place at an increasingly faster rate. Throughout Italy, there has been a new wave of unemployment with an enormous increase in the number of lay-offs. The official figures for the level of unemployment is 800,000 or 4% of the active population. We can assume, however that the figures are mugh higher. The key industry in crisis is the automobile industry which had deep implications for the rest of the economy. In certain areas, unemployment is highly concentrated; for example in Naples, some 400,000 are unemployed in a population of one million inhabitants.
Given this critical situation, there-are several alternatives open*to the ruling class. On the one hand they can attempt economic restructuration; particularly in the automobile and chemical industry, to develop the orientation of these industries towards production of consumer goods. This is quite a correct solution in the abstract but given the huge social weight of these industries this solution could not be carried oui without