“The education of children is a primary value of the Republic,” said Sergio Mattarella, the President of the Republic of Italy as he addressed an audience at the Parco della Musica in Rome during the celebration for the 150th anniversary of the Association of Publishers (AIE). Linking books to freedom, President Matarella stressed the civic value of reading and the fact that “culture forms the basis for growing civil society in this country”. The trouble is “we still read too little in Italy” and “we need to improve” because “reading is an intangible wealth that we cannot do without”. He explained that “school remains a vital place to cultivate this”.

“School, school, school,” reaffirmed Ricardo Franco Levi, President of AIE. Again this year, the I read because … initiative, one of the editors’ flagship programmes to stimulate widespread reading, is scheduled from 17 to 29 October. Supported by businesses, its slogan is “Donate a book to schools,” that is to say, let’s grow the extraordinarily effective tools that school libraries are. Libraries are a key channel for children, beginning from the early grades of elementary school, to help them become familiar with the written word, enjoy the pleasure of reading for fun, learn and get to know new dimensions and new worlds.

Some businesses and local authorities are planning to go a step further. They are creating a virtuous cycle that goes from school libraries, municipal libraries and corporate libraries (such as those at Pirelli in Bicocca and in the Bollate and Settimo Torinese factories, which are often frequented by company employees and are well-stocked with books for children and teenagers as well).

Books, schools and businesses: different universes, but in their own way, all inspired by the values ​​of knowledge, community and responsibility. These need to interact, especially in a time when “the knowledge economy” requires the aptitude for training and working. Reading needs to be developed as a “primary value for the Republic” (going back to the words of Mattarella), but also as a tool for increasing and improving the quality of economic and social development so that it becomes fairer and more balanced and sustainable.

In the 2019 Report, OECD statistics confirm what has been reported for some time: Italy spends little on education and what it does spend is spent badly. “Italy Miser” is the headline in Il Sole24Ore (11 September). 3.6% of GDP goes to schools and universities, compared to an OECD average of 5%. The gap gets worse as you advance in education: we spend the equivalent of 8 thousand dollars per student in elementary school (6% less than the OECD average), 9,200 dollars for secondary school students (8% less) and 11,600 dollars at university (26% less). This results in having too few graduates, especially in scientific subjects which are essential in the era of the Digital Economy.

Little money indeed, and 90% of this is destined for staff salaries (who are already considered poorly paid, starting with professors).

We need to bring schools to the centre of political attention and public opinion. It’s a gigantic, extremely difficult project, which needs to be faced on many levels: infrastructure and buildings (the majority of which were built during the twentieth century up to the 1970s and are inadequate from the point of view of safety and educational methods), digital tools, quality of teaching (including rebuilding and protecting teachers’ dignity) and IT equipment to keep up with new forms of culture and knowledge building.

From the standpoint of businesses, and therefore of the motors of economic and social development, school is key. Without effective schools (not only efficient ones), we can’t increase civic consciousness, awareness of citizens’ rights and duties, or knowledge that is useful for work and well-being, especially in times when jobs are changing radically.

Better schools can also help tackle some of the problems related to Italy’s failure to grow due to productivity that has been stagnant for twenty years and the lack of competitiveness of the country’s system.

To put it briefly: we need more books, more culture, more knowledge, more development.

The more attentive companies have been committed to schools for some time. Once again this year, the Pirelli Foundation provided training on science, materials, industry, technology and also literature and business history, with courses and workshops for elementary, middle and high schools (the Pirelli “education” project has involved over 13,000 children and young people since 2013). The Agnelli Foundation, which has been committed to the issues of education and training for a long time, has just concluded a project for the restructuring and modernisation of two schools in Turin, in collaboration with the Fondazione San Paolo. This covers hi-tech classrooms and new methods of teaching and learning, under the banner of sharing. The dialogue between technologies, architecture and teaching can act as a positive paradigm for other experiences.

“Revolutionise education to prepare young people for the professions of the future,” said Francesco Profumo in La Stampa (13 September). Profumo is a university professor (he was Dean of the Politecnico di Torino), former Minister of Public Education, former President of the National Research Council and now President of the Fondazione San Paolo. “The knowledge and skills necessary to develop, promote and innovate education must be put at the centre of the debate and school initiatives.”

It was 16 September 1957 when the Trasformabile, the base model of the Autobianchi Bianchina, was unveiled at the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica in Milan. Perhaps no one at the time suspected that the compact car was destined to enter the history of the automobile, even though many had already realised that it was an important achievement for Italian industry… The presence at the launch of such ambassadors as Giuseppe Bianchi, the owner of the Milanese company, together with his partners Vittorio Valletta, Gianni Agnelli and Alberto Pirelli was a sign of optimism with regard to the ever-expanding phenomenon of mass car ownership in Italy. But there was more, for there was also another aspect of modernity that was emerging in the 1950s: the rise of industrial design. “The great quality of the Bianchina is that it is a small, mass-produced custom-built vehicle, which is ultimately one of the key conditions of industrial design,” wrote Mario Miniaci in his article “La fuori serie di serie” (“The mass-produced custom car”) published in Pirelli magazine no. 5 of 1957. And, of course, the small car came out of the Desio factory fitted with Pirelli Rolle tyres in its most luxurious version with white sidewalls.

So, together with its contemporary, the Fiat 500, with which it shared the same engine, the Bianchina was preparing to become the symbol of an era and forever one of the icons of the Italian boom. Today, of course, we see the Bianchina as the car of Ugo Fantozzi in the Italian comedy films, and thus hardly “glamorous”. But in its day, the little Autobianchi inspired generations of Italians eager to drive up and down the peninsula. It was comfortable, more spacious than the Cinquecento, and more suitable for families. It was calm and unpretentious but with truly unique charm, as we see in the photo shoot by Ugo Mulas for the Pirelli Sempione in 1962. And, of course, it was quintessentially “Milanese”: the spirit of the modern, industrious city was also captured by the Publifoto picture of 1960: a smiling girl at the wheel of a Bianchina Cabriolet and, in the background, the iconic mass of the Pirelli Tower, which at the time was also home to the Autobianchi headquarters in offices provided by the tyre-manufacturing partner. It may be no coincidence that the Bianchina went out of production in 1969. The offspring of the golden years of the boom, and a symbol of an optimistic nation on its way to an unprecedented level of modernity, the Bianchina is the true icon of an era. And we remember it today: happy birthday Bianchina!

The year is 1922 and Pirelli is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Many events are being put on to celebrate this important achievement. These include Pirelli & C. nel suo cinquantenario, printed by Arti Grafiche Alfieri e Lacroix in Milan, with photographs and colour illustrations. The volume retraces the company’s first fifty years of business, illustrating its value in the world of Italian industry at the time and in relation to the rubber industry in other countries. It highlights the importance of rubber products, which by then had become an essential part of everyday life as well as in industry, and it points to the records achieved by Pirelli and the size of the Group in Italy and abroad. Even though it is a sort of in-house celebration, the book is still a precious source of information on the development of Pirelli in the years after the First World War, as well as the first history of the company. This book is now in the Pirelli Foundation Library together with other monographic works on the company.

In 1946, as the 75th anniversary approached, a new publication, called La Pirelli. Vita di un’azienda industriale came out with the history of the company. It was written by Alberto Pirelli, the managing director of the Group and the son of the founder Giovanni Battista. In the book, he goes back over the history of the company from its beginnings, focusing in particular on the rise of the Group abroad, on the raw materials and the rubber plantations, as well as on the company organisation.

A book promoted by Ires Lombardia on the history of the Pirelli Group from the First World War to the 1980s, came out in 1985 in two volumes, under the title Pirelli 1914-1980. Strategia aziendale e relazioni industriali nella storia di una multinazionale. The first volume examines the company’s strategies and the second its industrial relations. After this, we need to move forward to the present day to find a new monographic work on the Pirelli Group. Written by Carlo Bellavite Pellegrini, it goes back to the sources in the Historical Archive preserved by the Pirelli Foundation. Under the title Pirelli. Innovazione e passione, 1872-2017, the book looks at the history of the Group all the way to the most recent events.

Well worth mentioning among the other books on the history of Pirelli now in the Library of the Foundation are a number of studies of particular moments in the company’s history. These include the founder Giovanni Battista Pirelli’s educational journey abroad, and the origins of the company, analysed by Francesca Polese in two volumes published by Marsilio in 2003 and 2004 – one with an annotated version of Giovanni Battista’s travel diary, the other with the origins of Pirelli within the context of the economy of Lombardy in the late nineteenth century. Then there is the life of Alberto Pirelli in a biography by Nicola Tranfaglia, published by Einaudi in 2010, which also includes the story of his activities in the worlds of politics and finance in Italy and abroad. Industrial relations at Pirelli, one of the most interesting case studies of Italian capitalism, were investigated by Piero Bolchini in 1967 in La Pirelli: operai e padroni and, more recently, by Edmondo Montali in 1968: l’autunno caldo della Pirelli, published by Ediesse in 2009. Lastly, Voci del Lavoro (Laterza, 2012) a book edited by Roberta Garruccio, analyses the factory in Settimo Torinese from the 1970s to the present day, based on 30 interviews with workers, office staff, technicians, and plant managers. Pages of the history – and current events – of a great company.

The Green New Deal is meant to cut the tax wedge in order to benefit workers, minimum wage and measures for business innovation in association with collective bargaining. There are efforts to kick-start the Italian economy set out in Prime Minister Conte’s second government programme. With the aim of keeping public finances under control and ties close with the EU, it plans a review of the rules and restraints (as suggested by the Quirinale and shared by the Commission in Brussels, the latter chaired by Ursula von der Leyen and featuring Italian Paolo Gentiloni as head of Economic Affairs). During the previous yellow-green government (Conte was there too, but less of a leader), everything concentrated on welfare, early pensions and breaking up the EU rules for public spending, increasing deficits and debt. Even so, carefully reading the speeches, programmes and declarations of the leaders of the newly allied parties (PD, M5Stelle and LEU), there remain programmatic shortcomings and the absence of a real economic policy strategy to kick-start growth. It lacks a series of choices capable of tackling one of the essential crossroads in the economy: low productivity, both in the general system and hours worked.

The starting point is to acknowledge that the country is stagnant (ISTAT documented this on 6 September, registering “zero growth” in the first half of 2019 and “a weakness of production rates” as reflected in employment trends). We are behind other EU countries, even those (Spain, Portugal) that were once in crisis. The difficulties in the German economy and the problems in the automotive sector are effecting us strongly and we are paying a heavy price as an exporting country for the trade and currency tensions between the US and China. But we are also suffering from our own internal limitations, from the quality of our administrative and production system.

Italian productivity – this is the crossroad – has been flat for twenty years. Actually it has gotten worse and is receding. Using 100 in 2010 as a base, Eurostat documents that productivity per employee in the euro zone (19 countries) rose to 105.1 in 2018, while in Italy it fell to 98. We are losing competitiveness. The productive apparatus is ageing and getting worse, while international competitiveness is radically changing under pressure from transformations induced by the spread of all things digital and by the great leaps forward of the knowledge economy.

Without even addressing the issues of productivity and competitiveness, no growth is possible and there are no opportunities for creating either prosperity or jobs. The same stimuli for income and consumption, and the policies that lead to low taxes can’t have significant effects in terms of development. Experience from recent years proves this.

We therefore need a development-oriented economic policy. How? The possible directions have been known for a long time, but not applied, especially by those who preferred the propaganda of “easy” spending and welfare rather than far-sighted reforms. Intangible infrastructures (hi-tech, digital) and communication and service materials (high-speed railways, ports, airports, Genoa’s Gronda, motorways, etc:  precisely those hindered by one of the parties that was and still is in government). It requires efficient public administration (in any case not “emptied” and semi-paralysed from “quota 100” for pensions). Quality, widespread training for long courses beyond normal school cycles. Research. Tax incentives for companies that innovate and grow, in the wake of what had already been done by the Letta, Renzi and Gentiloni governments. An ambitious programme of public investment and a stimulus for private investments, “euro bonds” to renew and strengthen the Italian productive apparatus, in quantity and quality (is this, the “Green New Deal” announced by Conte?).

One point must be clear: there is no recovery without business. And there is no business growth except with a future based on trust, security and stability.

Over the years, many Italian companies have done their job well, investing to innovate, grow, conquer markets in the world and create prosperity and jobs. They are the key lever for economic policy that stimulates growth. In many industries, Italy continues to be a European avant-garde: mechatronics, pharmaceutical, chemical, rubber-plastic, but also the three bigs of the Made in Italy tradition: food, furniture and clothing. A competent economist like Marco Fortis is right when he speaks (Il Foglio, 16 July) of a “GDP1” (that of individuals and industries in the North) and of a “GDP2” (that of the state and the South), where dynamic and competitive productivity is flanked by an inability to produce wealth and continuous failures. Of course, it’s not a question of playing with geographical contrasts or claiming space for the “party of the North” against the South. Rather it is a serious conversation about development and setting policies that place businesses and manufacturing companies in the centre in order to restart the virtuous cycle of growth and new jobs.

To sum up, the reasons for low productivity lie in the public sector and in (small and very small) private companies that have not been able to innovate and grow, therefore they ask for protection, subsidies and aid. This, of course, is what a good economic development policy should not do.

A thesis defended at the Politecnico di Torino focuses on the 4.0 model and SMEs

It’s easy to say “digital transformation” and “Business 4.0” because the paradigm of new technologies seems quite clear now to many, at least in broad terms. Its operational implementation is by contrast, entirely characterised by a set of difficulties, obstacles and distortions that exemplify how great the distance is between the (near) future and the reality of today.
To understand how far we have progressed towards the full and conscious adoption of new technologies, it is important to understand the distance that is still to be covered, the degree to which 4.0 can truly penetrate and, above all, what needs to be done to be able to claim that new technologies are the present and not the future.
That’s why it is necessary to read Antonio Pellerino’s thesis “La trasformazione digitale nelle Piccole e Medie Imprese” (The digital transformation in small and medium enterprises), recently presented at the Politecnico di Torino, Department of Production Management Engineering.
The central theme of the research is in fact the digital transformation that has significantly changed the industry as a whole: all that is identified (even hastily) with the term Industry 4.0. In particular, Pellerino focuses on the situation of SMEs, which are seen as the “backbone” of Italian industry, but also as a weak link in the chain that starts with new technologies and ends in factories.
The investigation follows a linear path and is therefore effective. The first part is dedicated to an in-depth analysis of the literature concerning digitisation and the enabling technologies of Industry 4.0; in the second part, the author focuses on SMEs and in particular on the real difficulties of their digital transformation so as to understand how they are facing this evolutionary step and what is needed to manage it.
In his conclusions, the author writes about “the fundamental importance of not only planning a unique and coherent digital transformation strategy, but also assigning responsibility for the process to a person capable of engaging the entire company, acting as a bridge between the different possibilities offered by digitalisation and their effective application.”

La trasformazione digitale nelle Piccole e Medie Imprese
Antonio Pellerino
Thesis, Politecnico di Torino, Department of Production Management Engineering, 2019

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A philosopher looks at the latest frontiers of new technologies

Business 4.0, but not only. Digitalisation, but more. Network, not just one but many. Automation is increasingly complex, pervasive and important. These are some of the issues that come with the modern production system – and to those who live and work in it – from the complex, merging together of new technologies. It is something that is constantly changing and ever more present. It is something that exists and needs to be taken into account more and more. That’s why it is very important to read Il mondo ex machina. Cinque brevi lezioni di filosofia dell’automazione (The post-machine world. Five short lectures on the philosophy of automation) by Cosimo Accoto. The author is a business philosopher and a research associate at MIT in Boston with years of experience of analysing issues such as code philosophy, data science, artificial intelligence, the logic of platforms and blockchain technology.
Accoto’s book is a journey around some of the effects of new technologies that, from time to time, take shape as artificial intelligence and deep learning, but also as drones and robots, and then as blockchain and smart contract, or even as cybersecurity. It covers all aspects of working and non-working life that have to do with machines and the technologies that make them work.
Starting from the observation of how the world, and above all the future, is automated, the author reasons that these new technological frontiers are potentially bursting with opportunities for the construction of a more transparent, fair and secure system on the one hand, but are not without vulnerability on the other. Taking into account this dual aspect, Accoto’s idea is that automation is redesigning our conceptual ideas and categories, professional activities and human relations, cognitive and disciplinary practices, ethics and policy. A complex process, which involves both personal and production culture, with all the associated consequences.
It’s a complex perspective, so to help guide the reader, Accoto organises it as a journey through a series of clear stages of what new technologies enable: knowing, working, organising, destroying, governing.
Accoto’s book certainly can’t be read with a quick glance: each passage needs attention and a critically focused eye. It is not an easy book to take on but after reading it, one will certainly feel more capable of stepping out in front of the “automated world” that surrounds us.
In his conclusions, the author writes: “If we want to overcome a vision that aims to save machine-centricity and start a mature, constructive dialogue, we must read the technology both culturally and philosophically, pulling it in from the sidelines where it is usually relegated.”

Il mondo ex machina. Cinque brevi lezioni di filosofia dell’automazione
Cosimo Accoto
Egea, 2019

Four pictures of the Pirelli Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese: our tribute to Peter Lindbergh, the great German photographer who died today at the age of 74. Taken from our book Il canto della fabbrica (Mondadori 2018), the images illustrate Lindbergh’s work in the Settimo factory for the project that led to the creation of the 2017 Pirelli Calendar. The striking black-and-white shot was first shown in the exhibition Pirelli in 100 Pictures: Beauty, Innovation, Manufacturing, curated by the Foundation and opened in January 2017 at the Biblioteca Archimede in Settimo Torinese. The show told the story of more than 140 years of the history of Pirelli in many of its very diverse aspects.

On the cover:
One of the shots taken by the great German photographer at the factory in Settimo Torinese in 2016, the year when he also put his name to the Pirelli Calendar (photo by Peter Lindbergh)
In the gallery:
Peter Lindbergh during the photo shoot at the Industrial Centre in Settimo Torinese, 2016 (photos by Alessandro Scotti)

This current age of the world economy began under a double sign. The first is fear about a new global recession. The second is completely opposite in nature and filled with trust: growing attention to environmental issues by economists and G7 governments alike. Worried about the fires devastating Siberia, the Amazon and Africa, along with thawing glaciers, the leaders were thus inclined to think about ‘sustainable development’ in concrete terms.

This age can be viewed with irony, like the scathing wit of Altan (“The recession is a transitory event,” remarks one of his characters a bit grimly. “And then it gets worse,” the other replies), but there is room for a degree of optimism in light of what seems to be a corporate ethical turn. The statement by the Business Roundtable (a group of America’s 180 largest multinational corporations) has downgraded the principle of shareholder value to make way for the interests and values of stakeholders (a firm’s employees, consumers and people in the communities involved in its activities).

In short: we are entering an age in which the central topic is economic growth, however it is tinged with a quality and equilibrium that is a great improvement over the past.

The global economy is slowing down, say the world’s major bankers who met in late August in the USA, against the backdrop of Wyoming’s mountains. The ECB warns that the shadow of the recession could indeed be felt. Europe’s bank is well aware that Germany’s economic crisis (stymied primarily by difficulties in the automotive sector) and Italy’s stagnation ‒ persistent over the past five quarters ‒ are contributing factors. On Friday, ISTAT confirmed zero growth for Italy in 2019. These situations are compounded by the fragility of the whole EU area (with forecasts of a 1.1% growth). The tariff and currency wars against China and Europe, sparked by Trump’s irresponsible sovereignism, have only amplified the negative repercussions for international trade overall. Brexit makes the picture grow even darker. Political tensions in China (Hong Kong), India, Iran and Africa keep everyone on edge.

Thus, there is more than enough to be seriously worried about. Yet, those who pay close attention to economic phenomena cannot help but harbour some well-founded hopes for radical and positive changes. But where? Changes are under way that we can summarize under the heading of the ‘green economy’.

So, let’s take a look at the Business Roundtable statement. Signed mid-August by over 180 top CEOs (Amazon, Apple, Accenture, BlackRock, IBM, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Coca Cola, General Motors, AT&T) along with other large Corporate America firms employing over 15 million people, the statement overturns Milton Friedman’s shareholder theory (‘The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.’), which nourished and distorted economic thinking and action from the 1980s until our times. It is now sustained that, in addition to profit, a firm’s duty is to enrich the lives of its employees, consumers, suppliers and communities, respecting the rights and values of individuals and the environment. In short, this is a move from Friedman’s Chicago School neo-liberals to a new interpretation of Keynes, a liberal with a strong social sensitivity.

Let’s take a closer look. According to the most suspicious and disenchanted observers, this is an opportunistic turn, an attempt to wave the green banner to save the interests of businesses being faced with increasing ethical and social criticism. It is truly “a major philosophical shift for business,” as the Wall Street Journal proclaimed enthusiastically. The Economist was also favourable, writing of a corporate social commitment towards ‘civil’ capitalism ‒ or more precisely ‘collective’ ‒ that pays attention to the needs of society. Corriere della Sera entitled its article “La svolta etica del capitalismo” (The ethical shift of capitalism). Whether this shift is opportunistic or not, the documents’ formal statements hold a certain strength, a certain official note. The statements reflect the tendency of public opinion, especially among millennials (born between 1981 to 1996) as both managers and consumers, that displays a growing sensitivity for the environment and social equality (well described on 30 August in an article in IlSole24Ore written by Giorgio Barba Navaretti, an economist working at both the University of Milan and Paris SciencePo). They may have an important role to play in improving the economic climate and building a new and fairer growth paradigm. They will also help build a ‘civil’ and ‘circular’ economy that takes responsibility for ‘sustainable and inclusive’ development capable of blending competitiveness with environmental and social sustainability.

How? There is a growing volume of economic and social writings on this subject. Interesting pointers can be found in Responsabili (Leaders) published by Il Mulino, the latest book by Stefano Zamagni, a reputed economist who closely follows questions regarding society, and more precisely, the civil economy. Currently the President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, he has the ear of Pope Francis on topics in the realm of the ‘just economy’. This is also the realm of Keynes, along with his new interpretors Stiglitz, Krugman, Fitoussi and Crouch. This is a contemporary relaunch of the Church’s social doctrine, in an original dialogue, updated with the best thinking on the environment.

Furthermore, Corporate America’s green and sustainable turn was preceded by commitments taken by firms and business associations in France and Germany. Italy was involved as well with the choice of Confindustria back in 2018 to launch its manifesto on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility for Industry 4.0’, linking high-tech innovation with sustainability (a pathway Italy’s finest companies have been on for years, as we have often reported in this blog). Many associations and business foundations have supported the research and causes of Symbola, led by Ermete Realacci, one of the most authoritative figures in Italian environmentalism. Equally worth noting are the activities of ASVIS, the sustainable development association chaired by Enrico Giovannini, which endeavours to translate in practical terms the principles of the UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

This therefore is the key lever of the ‘green economy’. It can inspire the programmes and initiatives of the new EU Commission, led by Ursula von del Leyen (statements on commitments in this direction are already forthcoming). It can also influence activities in Italy driven by the new government, which can link competitiveness and sustainability to make a very positive power play.