Industry is knowledge. Competencies that are deeply rooted in the tradition of “well-made beauty” and a smart openness to innovation. And polytechnical culture that blends science, technology and humanistic knowledge. Its competitiveness, especially in Italy, leverages on the ability to respond promptly to change and adapt production and products accordingly, with “quality” as the distinguishing value. And, in the upheavals of more impetuous globalisation and the growth of social inequality and of serious environmental risks, it is precisely industry, innovative manufacturing, that can play a leading role in sustainability and social inclusion. Paolo Bricco is correct in writing that “Sustainability is the new wrench” (Il Sole24ORE, 16 February). The “wrench” was an essential tool for mechanics, for industry, for competent industriousness, so dear to the great writer Primo Levi (who in fact named one of his most successful books after it, all built around the engineer Tino Faussone, a skilled worker in the assembly of the pylons, bridges and cranes). Today, therefore, sustainability as the cornerstone of business, a development factor, equipment for building better social and economic balances.

“Le sostenibili carte dell’Italia” (Italy’s sustainability credentials) was, in fact, the title of the conference with which Confindustria’s Centro Studi (Study Centre) opened, on Thursday 15th, the two-day General meeting of the organisation of entrepreneurs in Verona, outlining the initiatives under way in a large number of companies and the strategic commitments to keep to  for the “inclusive development to reduce inequality” and protect the environment, considered precisely an essential factor for improving the quality of life and work and therefore as a cornerstone of good growth.

There is a ten-point “Manifesto on corporate social responsibility for Industry 4.0” (innovation, research, training, integrity and the fight against corruption, social inclusion and gender equality, new choices of corporate governance , initiatives to raise the awareness of the biggest environmental and social problems that have an impact on businesses and territories). And this will be discussed at length, involving all stakeholders and policy makers. “Working on a different development model,” sums up Rossana Revello, chair of Confindustria’s Technical Group on sustainability. The “moral of the lathe”, the idea of a better balanced, civil, inclusive economy, one that cares about people and about their values, founded on the sense of responsibility of companies, is a strategy on which it is worth insisting.

This perspective was insisted on specifically by the chairman of Confindustria Vincenzo Boccia, in the conclusions of the General Meeting, facing a genuine “population of entrepreneurs”, as the most acute commentators stated, to describe an audience that is neither a “good parlour” nor a circle of “strong powers” but an essential part of an Italy that wants to focus strongly on growth and responsibility.

The strategy is that of a “Plan for Italy”, a 250-billion investment in infrastructure and innovation, also financed with Eurobonds and capable of creating 1.8 million new jobs, bringing the country toward a 2% GDP growth. And in this plan, sustainability constitutes a fundamental chapter. Also in order to stimulate investment, both domestic and international.

Financial investments in sustainable sectors and businesses – documents Confindustria’s Centro Studi – are worth 23,000 billion (2015 data), a quarter of total investments, and they are growing: 25% more compared to the previous two years. 52.6% of these investments ends up in Europe, in top-level manufacturing,  a close relationship between industries and territories, a quality workforce, a widespread sensitivity to social and environmental issues, interest in building development paradigms in this direction. “Society and the market”, according to a great historian, Fernand Braudel, have always been the subject of a clear dichotomy in our history. Now, precisely, sustainability may remedy it.

Sustainability as a “wrench” of development also for the direct interests of businesses. There are 2,400 B-Corps, Benefit Corporations (businesses that focus on the values of sustainability and certify these), across the globe and their number is increasing. 54 are Italian. They benefit from greater attention on the part of investors, but also consumers (this is documented by the  Diversity Brand Index, created by the Diversity association and by the Focus management consultancy firm; Corriere della Sera, 9 February). They are growing more and better. They make a profit, also in the long term. “Working with integrity translates to better financial performance,” states the Ethisphere Institute, which each years publishes the World’s Most Ethical Company Reports and declares that the companies included in the ranking (the Italian brand, Illy, for example) have over the past five years recorded performance levels 10.7% above the index of American high capitalisation companies.

Ethical and sustainability choices are also good for the balance sheets. Italian companies, which have always been closely tied to the territory and with a strong sensitivity to social relations, are an exemplary testimony to this. Not only large businesses, which are listed on the Stock Exchange and internationalised. But also small and medium sized companies, where very innovative tools of corporate and territorial welfare abound, the focus lies on the size of the welcoming, “beautiful factory”, one that is bright, safe, low environmental impact, where people work according to cultures of “community” and “inclusion” with deep roots into the best corporate culture acquired over the course of the 20th Century, from Olivetti in Ivrea to the Marche region, from Milan the welcoming metropolis, to the areas of the Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Veneto regions where innovation and sociality coexist, amid conflicts and limits.

Sustainability as a long-term choice, therefore. Aware and open. Self-certification of their own behaviour on the part of analysts and independent certifiers is essential. Italian concerns are at the cutting edge, from this perspective too. This is documented by the Sustainability Yearbook 2018  by RobecoSAM, the company that each year draws up the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, analysing the economic-financial, environmental and social performance levels which determine corporate sustainability. 2,479 companies are examined, in sixty industrial sectors. This year, among the 70 best businesses, three Italian companies were awarded the Gold Class acknowledgement: Pirelli (at the top of the world among “car component” industry), Saipem and CNH. Sustainability has a great value. And it makes it possible to grow. In short, it is a challenging civil choice. And also a good deal.

Giuseppe Ungaretti’s archaic, primitive Brazil, Eugenio Montale’s gentle, cheerful Versilia, Salvatore Quasimodo’s Sicily drenched in pure white light: from 1949 to 1951, the classic threesome of Italian hermetic writers helped shape Pirelli magazine, which had been launched in 1948 as a company magazine open to the greatest names in contemporary literature.
Giuseppe Ungaretti was already at the height of his fame when he published “Vecchio Brasile”, a collection of sonnets, in the magazine’s first issue in 1949. A complex but brilliant composition, this was the Italian translation of the “chronicles” that the Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade had dreamt up in 1924 and ’25 as though they had been written by explorers and conquerors of an Amazon lost in the mists of time. The original work by Andrade was entitled Pau Brasil – the Tree of Brazil – and it is a perfect expression of the Modernist movement that brought to life the literary world in the South American country in the 1920s. In other words, this was the rediscovery of a golden age of Brazil. Ungaretti, who taught at the University of São Paulo from 1936 to 1942, added a further “chronicle” of his own to Andrade’s, which was published in the magazine under the title “Boschetti di cahusù”. “Those Indies use rubber / for bottles and water-skins… Seringa is the rubber / And he who extracts it the seringueiro / And the strange little wood is the seringal…”. The photos that accompanied the article had been taken forty years previously by Alberto Pirelli, son of the founder Giovanni Battista and the vice-chairman of Pirelli in 1949, during a study trip to the rubber plantations in Manaus, in the Amazon basin. “Ungaretti’s jest” was taken up years later – in Pirelli magazine no. 1, 1953 – by the literary critic Giansiro Ferrata as an example of living “inside” poetry.
Pirelli magazine no. 4, July 1949: “Vacanze in Versilia” bears the signature of Eugenio Montale. This minimal diary tells of a holiday in Forte dei Marmi and Marina di Pietrasanta: “a delightful hole hidden in the green”, with a pergola of unripe grapes “to see without being seen, the way I like it”. The result is a story of delicate and astonishing humour, filled with the amused frivolity that the poet dispensed bit by bit, sparingly, so as not to upset his restrained aloofness. And just as Montale described Versilia for the magazine, so the Lucca-born writer Ermanno Pea decided that he too would talk of “half a century of Versilia” in an article published in issue no. 4 of the same magazine in 1953. Salvatore Quasimodo had already put his name to the translation of the 23rd Book of the Iliad in 1949, with “Giochi funebri in onore di Patroclo”. But to remain with our hermetic landscapes, we cannot fail to go to the “Muri siciliani” in no. 5 of 1951. Just a few lines, not even half a page, but of extreme pithiness, describing a man who builds a house for himself by the sea in Trabia: a man who is worker and boss, architect and engineer, a man barefoot and with “sandpaper hands”, with “a purple nail crushed by a beam”. And his house is cut by the light, a house of foam that might easily slip like a sailing ship into the sea. A love letter that the Sicilian poet wrote to land that was Greek but also primitive, Norman, Saracen and Spanish. In search of a memory that evokes “clear, simple forms that are home to the man who has been my companion and friend for thousands of years”…

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Milan, a future which needs to be planned and agreed. Something we need to try to write about. And to discuss. Milan as a paradigm for the international trend towards the prevalence of ever-bigger cities and conurbations and as central venues for innovation and economic development. Facing all the challenges of opportunities and problems, amid smart economy, employment in crisis, old and new rights, sharp competition and social cohesion. Contradictions, conflicts, new challenges. There are some good books which can help us understand better. One example is: “Milano e il secolo delle città” (Milan and the century of the cities) written by Giuseppe Sala, published by La nave di Teseo and presented yesterday evening, to a wide public audience, at the Piccolo Theatre, in an interview with Ferruccio De Bortoli. A book for a mayor. And for anyone who truly understands how cities require an extraordinary amount of thought, of vision, and of sincere debate. And of government. In the dialectic confrontation between public administration and social citizens, ranging from the Assolombarda industrial association to other service providers and trades unions, and from the centres of culture, of science and of university education to the Ambrosian Catholic Church.

The Milan which we are discussing is an open city, which has always been aware that “Milanese means someone who works in Milan”, as in the culture of responsibility and of welcome which goes back to the times of Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan. And it is a city which is innovative and hard-working, attentive to markets and companies (the gates to Milan have always held an economic function: customs posts, places for the entry and exit of merchandise). But it is also socially responsible. Is Milan a role model? Without unpleasant arrogance, Milan represents a driving force at the crossroads of economic activities, between manufacturing, services, finance, the knowledge economy, the re-launch of its industrial roots and a stimulus for start-ups. A process which involves a “conurbation of the Lombardy plain” of twenty million inhabitants, from Turin to the via Emilia of Motor Valley, Food Valley and Packaging Valley with their industries, research centres and universities, from the valleys in the foothills of the Alps to the vast entrepreneurial developments of the North East beyond Brescia and Verona.  One of the strongest conurbations of Europe. The horizon is 2030, involving strategies and political choices for the long term.  Comparable to that of the current debate on the landscape and functions of the city on the part of the Advisory Board of the Assolombarda industrial association, in which the major entrepreneurs and managers of the top Italian and international companies are participating

“Milan is playing its part. Must it continue to do so by itself, whilst the rest of Italy sits back and reaps the benefits (of which there are a number) of Milan’s lead and of its image, or should this commitment form part of an overall political plan for the whole country?”, Sala asks himself. The answer is obvious. But its implementation is anything but. No doubt we shall see after the elections of 4th March.

Come what may, Milan will forge ahead. It will be weaker and more fragile, however, if it is not placed within an overall governmental plan (including for national public investments in infrastructure, training, and reforms for innovation, labour and the operating quality of public administration).

Sala describes a Milan which is efficient, that of the Expo and of international investment which it is attracting in ever greater amounts. And a city which is supportive, with commitments for its suburbs. It is attractive (the number of tourists is growing, split between exploratory breaks, cultural visits and business), the only innovative Italian city in the list complied by the World Economic Forum. It is able to rise to international challenges, such as the one for the head office of the EMA (Milan presented Brussels with a timely and high-quality project, including a location, the Pirelli skyscraper, which was already in a position to house the offices of the European Medicines Agency; Amsterdam, awarded the win by lottery, was not, including the woeful international impression left by unfinished works and postponements: a reversal of the usual cliché, us efficient, the arrogant Dutch bungling and non-compliant).

Milan a paradigm, then. With all the difficulties and contradictions which nobody is hiding. As is described, by the way, in the accounts of the “Viaggio in Italia” (Journey through Italy) published in a special edition of the magazine “Il Mulino” (the Mill) (the contributor from Milan is Gabriele Pasqui, a town planner from the Politecnico university, but there are many good and bad things, in Milan, leading him to describe Italy as “a multi-faceted country, difficult but very beautiful”). And from the essays published in “Brand Milan”, an “Atlante della nuova narrativa identitaria” (Atlantis with a new narrative identity) prepared by Stefano Rolando, promoted by the Scientific Committee of Milanese Universities and published by Mimesis. “Brand” not by way of a trade-mark or for publicity, but rather as the “development of a vast symbolic urban legacy”, as a true identity for the future, as a driver for the story of its growth.

This, then, is where we turn to the basic idea of the role of major cities. Political, economic and sociological literature is steadily growing more extensive and thicker with interesting analyses and suggestions. We can refer to the essential essay sent to the bookshops a few years ago, in 2013, by Benjamin R. Barber, a very influential American political commentator, entitled “If Mayors ruled the World”, Yale University Press, with its explicit sub-heading, “Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities”. And we can get up to date with “The New Urban Crisis” by Richard Florida, published by Basic Books: the man responsible for the theory of the ascent of the “new creative class” (an international publication success in 2003) now notes that “our cities are increasing inequality, deepening segregation, and failing the middle class” and he asks himself how we can react, how we can look for a way to mitigate inequalities, how to try to make cities grow in a way that makes them more inclusive, by improving their infrastructures, their services, their welcome, and how to try to manage the trends of the housing market, the increasing price disparities between the houses of the privileged areas where the “creatives” reside and those of the impoverished classes who are “in the service of” the creatives themselves. With one basic idea: creativity is fundamental (with all its corollaries of liberty, of individual dynamism, of rewards in a selective market and for merit), but nobody can countenance dispensing with political and town planning choices, for a social re-balancing. These are choices which are facing the “Mayors” close to Barber’s heart, but also nation States, and as far as we are concerned, the political organisations of the EU. How and with what dosage as between cities and Europe? The debate is open.

In this respect it is useful to refer to the analyses and observations of Parag Khanna, ex-advisor to Obama and an analyst for the Centre on Asia and Globalization in Singapore, in his “La rinascita delle Città-Stato” (The Re-birth of the City-State), just published in Italy by Fazi:  “the future is already here: within the next thirty years world politics will be dominated by macro-cities, influential conurbations which are so connected between each other that they will no longer need to lend themselves to the concept of a boundary. Efficient City-States modelled on those of ancient times, and thus not necessarily independent but with sufficient autonomy to be able to commit to global relationships for the benefit of the whole of the territory surrounding them”. Singapore and Dubai, Hamburg and Istanbul, New York and London, Barcelona and Milan are examples of these places. Indeed, the very Barcelona which constitutes the economic driving force of Spain, which is not dreaming of secession from Madrid but of a more dynamic Catalan autonomy in the context of Europe and of the Mediterranean.

The City-State is a form of government, which recalls the powerful cities of the Italian Renaissance, Genoa and Venice, Florence and indeed Milan, but also the rich Hanseatic cities with strengths in finance, trade, ports and naval dockyards, but which then ended in crisis during the centuries of the triumph of the nation States, between the 17th Century and the start of the 20th. But, leaving history aside, the City-State is an economic and social dimension to be reckoned with in a new way, in these times of global economies, and highly-developed interconnections, but also a rediscovery of the values of the genius loci as a competitive tool, of territories as distinctive and exclusive features for products, experiences and services. This is what Carlo Ratti and Matthew Claudel explain so well in “La città di domani” (The city of tomorrow), published by Einaudi: “Come le reti stanno cambiando il futuro urbano” (How networks are changing the urban future)

We are living through times of crisis. And of transformation. It is difficult for us, immersed as we are in the often contradictory everyday movements in economic and social ebbs and flows, to define the trends and key signs of this change.  But this is precisely the cultural and political challenge which we need to grasp: to provide a dynamic structure to the facts, to draw up plans, to try to define a “sense” for political and economic choices. A challenge for those who “govern” in its broadest sense, for the true ruling class, those who decide and apply the rules.  A challenge of civil responsibility.

Throughout history, from Saint Ambrose to the Enlightenment, from the Risorgimento of Cattaneo to the Fifties and Sixties of the economic boom animated by far-sighted entrepreneurs and visionary intellectuals (often in close association), this is precisely what Milan has done, despite it not being the capital: leaving key signs of progress, bringing together economic interests and social values, competitiveness and solidarity.  And producing interesting paradigms both for Italy and for Europe. These are ideas for today.

In its April 1952 issue, Pirelli magazine published an article on “Lombard houses”: a reflection on the vernacular architecture that dotted the Po Valley landscape with farmsteads and livestock buildings, creating a sort of “geography of the spirit”. The dry, evocative prose bears the signature of a poet from Luino, Vittorio Sereni: this was his first contribution to the magazine published by Pirelli and directed by Arturo Tofanelli and Leonardo Sinisgalli.

Not yet forty, Sereni was already a well-established author. In 1941, before being called up to the front, he published Frontiera, a collection of poems, and in 1947 came his Diario di Algeria, about his experience as a prisoner of war in northern Africa from 1943 to 1945. In 1952, Sereni was teaching Italian and Latin at the Liceo Classico Carducci in Milan, living with his wife Maria Luisa and his two daughters, Maria Teresa and Silvia. He was one of the “great names” of Pirelli magazine which, ever since it first came out in 1948, published works by great writers and contemporary intellectuals: Ungaretti-Quasimodo-Montale, the “hermetical threesome”, in 1949, Riccardo Bacchelli in 1950, and Piero Chiara and Michele Prisco in 1952. The director himself, Leonardo Sinisgalli, was nicknamed the “engineer poet”.
It was Sinisgalli’s name that Sereni wrote in the “references” section on the application form for a job at Pirelli SpA, which he submitted on 16 August 1952. The two of them had known each other since university: these “travelling-companion poets” were joined by Alfonso Gatto, Carlo Betocchi, Giancarlo Vigorelli and none other than the great Salvatore Quasimodo himself, who had already had the chance to praise the young Sereni on his thesis on Guido Gozzano. Pirelli and its magazine were destined to be the place where Sereni and Sinisgalli would meet again. The job application was successful and Sereni entered the “Servizio Propaganda”, now the Communication Department. Its undisputed head was Arrigo Castellani, who had the foresight to set up an office devoted to relations with the Press, and Sereni, who had already worked with magazines like Corrente and Rassegna d’Italia, was put in charge of it. It would be Castellani himself, just before his annual contract expired, who wrote to Human Resources: “We are absolutely satisfied with the work carried out by Dottor Sereni and, indeed, we believe he should in time be made an executive.” The contract was open-ended: the personal file of Dott. Prof. Vittorio Sereni, now in the Pirelli Historical Archive, bears registration number 4062, centralised accountancy office 0400, “Direzione Propaganda”.
During his six years as a Pirelli employee – he left in 1958 for Mondadori – Sereni gradually wrote less for Pirelli magazine. Just a few articles, but weighty ones. One of them, already in issue no. 6, signed V.S., is a “Secret assessment of a year of advertising” after “his” Servizio Propaganda had won the Palma d’Oro della Pubblicità award, thanks to Bruno Munari’s Coria soles, Ezio Bonini’s Stelvio tyre, and Bramante Buffoni’s hot water bottle.
Another of Sereni’s Pirelli articles, entitled “A fifty-year-long P”, became a milestone in the history of the magazine, with a legendary account of the birth of the Pirelli logo in New York. Sereni continued working with the magazine even after he left the company: in 1963 came his clearly autobiographical story “The capture”, which played on the moral conflict between victors and vanquished during the landing of the Allies in Sicily.
In 1964, Sereni went from being an external contributor to the magazine to running a literary section called “Nei libri e fuori”. This introduced the Italian public to Primo Levi’s La Tregua, and to Mary McCarthy and Massimo Bontempelli, to Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi and to the poems of Georgios Seferis, through to Hemingway’s posthumous A Moveable Feast, reviewed in the no. 4 issue of 1964.
Then came “The blue-black phantom” in no. 5-6 of 1964: “So here I’m supposed to be taking the side of Inter, or rather justifying the blue-black shade of part of my thoughts and feelings”. The intellectual gave way to the fan inside him, mourning the loss of the legendary footballer Giuseppe Meazza, called Peppino, the “blue-black phantom”.
And where there’s a phantom, there’s a mystery. The original article was published with an abstract drawing by Alberto Sughi. A drawing by Riccardo Manzi, which has recently been purchased by the Pirelli Foundation, dates from the same year, 1964. It shows a football player wearing a blue-black jersey with a note written by a Pirellian: “Nose too big!”. Might this have been an illustration for Sereni’s article? We cannot be sure, but we can date with absolute certainty Vittorio Sereni’s last contribution to Pirelli magazine: an article entitled “Two Venetian voices” in no. 5/6 of 1970.

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An article published in the Harvard Business Review insists on the need not to base everything only on calculation and planning

A business is about calculation but it must also be more. Risk, instinct, adventure, the ability to look further afield. The saying about the “art of producing” is not mere chance. Always – of course – with a particular focus on making ends meet in the balance sheet; which must now also include more than just columns of numbers. In this respect, it is good to read “Liberal Arts in Data Age” by Josh M. Olejarz which was published in the Harvard Business Review some time ago.

This short yet intense article written by Olejarz (who has for the last five years or so been the assistant editor of HBR), revolves around an observation: “What circumstances of great disadvantage could we end up in, us and the world, if we forced our minds to address all problems in the same way”. The author’s reasoning is based on risk and the risk of type-approval. Indicating that a world made up solely of calculations, of algorithms and big data  would soon become a one-way world, one therefore devoid of imagination and resources, Olejarz outlines a different path. For companies too. Indeed, Olejarz points the finger at what are referred to as Stem (acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). In other words, the world would be moving towards a horizon made up not only of type-approval but also of the lack of ability to respond adequately to unexpected events. Exactly the opposite to the circumstances a company should always be in.

So, what should be done? For Olejarz, the solution is simple: make room for philosophy, literature and poetry. So, not just coding, but also beauty, skill, innovativeness understood as the ability to be ground-breaking.

Quality and not just quantity – Olejarz seems to insist on -, must permeate businesses and companies as well. In other words, this means that quantitative rigour and focus on organisation should go hand in hand with qualities such as empathy, caution and wisdom true to humanistic disciplines.

The words of Olejarz have the great merit of opening up the reader’s eyes to a scene only partly known to this day which deserves to be explored further.

Liberal Arts in Data Age

Josh M. Olejarz

Harvard Business Review, July-August, 2017

“The way the justice system works represents one of the primary evaluation parameters used to asses the degree of civilisation of a country, and has important repercussions both for national investments and for the degree of attraction for investments from abroad”. This is how, after the institutional acknowledgements and customary salutations, the address begins with which Marina Tavassi, chair of the Court of Appeal of Milan, opened the Judicial Year on Saturday 27th January. Particular attention is paid to matters relating to the economy. A clear awareness of the close relationship between an efficient and effective justice system and economic and social development. A thorough appreciation of the challenges which need to be tackled: not just in relation to the other legal centres in Italy (Milan is at the forefront of these) but also in relation to international centres. And a stern judgement on everything which still needs to be done to achieve a correctly-functioning judicial apparatus. The exercise of the judicial process needs to be conceived as a service to the country’s citizens. And at a time when Italian life and its institutions are so complex and full of contrasts, the magistracy and indeed more generally the judicial world (including barristers) should do as much as they can to avoid being seen as a separate caste. An important relationship, then. An open one. With dialogue. Following the trail set some time ago by the Milan Palace of Justice when it led the way, during the years in which the Court of Appeal was presided by Giovanni Canzio (leading the ranks on Saturday, having reached the end of his mandate as First Chair of the Supreme Court).

Milan, the international city for the economy and for companies, is indeed privileged in possessing in its judicial activity one of the essential points of reference: this is rightly underlined by Carlo Bonomi, chair of Assolombarda, in commenting on the relationships with and appreciating the attention paid by the chair of the Court of Appeal to the requirements, by good companies and by the activities of Assolombarda, for legality.

It is worthwhile, therefore, re-reading the suggestions from chair Tavassi, which constitute a strategic reference for the balanced growth of Milan, that Europe-oriented metropolis where the institutions and public functions – Justice, precisely – contribute in a determined fashion to driving forward the machinery of the economy.

Legality and competitiveness evolve according to strict virtuous relationships:  “In order to re-establish trust in the economic cycle of the country it is necessary to create an environment which is favourable to investments, thus facilitating the growth of the market. Clearly-defined systems for the resolution of disputes and rapid time-frames for their determination play a fundamental role in companies’ investment decisions, as they evaluate the risk of being caught up in long labour or taxation litigation or insolvency procedures”: the so-called “country risk”.

The guidance is clear: “Wherever the judicial systems ensure a correct execution of contracts and a rapid satisfaction of rights, companies and individuals will be dissuaded from adopting opportunistic behaviours. The costs of operations are reduced and investments can be directed towards innovative sectors, thus contributing to creating new jobs and improving not just the economy and commercial interests but also the lifestyle of individuals and the well-being of society”. This is a strategic guidance note which, beyond the simple words of the address, confirms the progress made by the Palace of Justice in Milan over the course of recent years, with its operational choices and measures relating to either its jurisdiction (trials, sentences, etc.) or the administrative functioning of the judicial apparatus: the length of time taken to reach sentences, be they civil or criminal, is diminishing (Milan, the major centre, is at the forefront in Italy, but also governs competition with other European cities), the burden of the backlog of cases is being dealt with more quickly, the “Industrial Tribunal” is providing improved certainty for cases of litigation. And there is a growing awareness of the usefulness of finding alternative ways of resolving disputes other than judicial ones (arbitration, mediation) in such a way as to leave the intervention of the judges for the most serious and complex cases, without clogging up the chambers of the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal with litigation.

Certainly, there are still many problems: the time-frame for trials is still over-long (a question reiterated by the chair of the Order of barristers, Remo Danovi), the failures of the apparatus, the general limits of justice in Italy, from which Milan too, naturally, suffers. The address by chair Tavassi provides a full account of these. Without, however, hiding the progress already made, and looking to the future with a minimum of critical confidence.

These are all subjects dear to the hearts of Assolombarda, as it looks after the interests of the companies which are the fundamental drivers for the dissemination of wealth, of work, of inclusion and social advancement. And which are revisited through the continuation of the now solid cooperation between the Palace of Justice, the SDA Bocconi School of Management and, precisely, Assolombarda in the preparation, year after year, of the Summaries of social responsibility of the Court of Appeal, of the Tribunal and of the Public Prosecutor’s office.

There is a further subject, about which Justice and companies enjoy a significant communality of viewpoints: the battle against Mafias, and the commitment to challenge the polluting growth, in Milan itself, of organised crime. The address by the Prosecutor General Roberto Giordano re-emphasised what a peril the presence of the ‘Ndrangheta, Sicilian Cosa Nostra and camorra clans represents: a present danger for the economy, the market, and companies, as well as more generally for the civil community. A repeated alarm call. Which needs to be listened to and taken on board. The legal system and economic growth are convergent dimensions.

A piece of research investigates the reality and the role of these entities within the scope of social responsibility of companies as well as in welfare

Companies that are aware of their surrounding social system are now commonplace although not always that widespread. And yet, what is referred to as Corporate Social Responsibility is good for the territory and for the company itself. And foundations continue to be one of the most comprehensive tools of excellence that companies have at their disposal. However, we need to understand fully the nature, action and objectives of the various structures present within the Italian industrial system (and beyond it). To do so, we need, for example, the study by Chiara Lodi Rizzini and Eleonora Noia about “Le Fondazioni di impresa di fronte a un welfare state in transformazione” (Company foundations in the face of a changing welfare state) which was recently published as part of a broader collection on the second welfare in Italy.

The objective of the research, the authors explain, is to investigate “which space is currently occupied, and will be occupied in future, by Company foundations in a changing welfare state“. They then add: “These entities are able to contribute to the innovation of social tools and services. Considering the projects launched in recent years, moreover, Company foundations in many cases feature the distinctive elements of the second welfare: they adopt projects and intervention models that promote social innovation; they often focus their activities on theempowerment of the recipients; they implement governance models aimed at involving the communities in which they operate; they contribute to setting aside additional economic resources”. They are, in other words, important points of action on the territory for the companies that create them, but they are also opportunities to study innovative projects that tackle together businesses and social problems.

The first part of the article addresses the main characteristics, the limitations and the potential of Italian company foundations, also in the light of recent trends in the context of corporate social responsibility as well as business philanthropy. The second part of the analysis focuses on the role of Company foundations as actors in the second welfare, based on the concrete experiences of some of the main concerns that work in the country.

“Company foundations prove to be able to occupy a space of their own as part of the welfare state“, is the general conclusion of the research. One that does not however hide the risks and dangers of their actions.The study brings to the light the delicate balance between manufacturing culture and budget reasoning.

The work by Lodi Rizzini and Noia has the great merit of being written clearly and frankly and it is also comprehensible thanks to a series of diagrams and charts that sum up effectively the reality and the actions of Italian Company foundations over recent years. It provides a good base to understand and do better.

Le Fondazioni di impresa di fronte a un welfare state in trasformazione (Company foundations in the face of a changing welfare state)

Chiara Lodi Rizzini, Eleonora Noia

in Terzo Rapporto sul secondo welfare in Italia (Third Report on the second welfare in Italy) 2017, F. Maino and M. Ferrera (edited by), 2017

An article by the University of Tuscia investigates the virtuous bond between business networks and environmental innovation

 Company activities also involve the environment that surrounds them. This assumption now appears obvious, yet the bonds between production activities and the local territory (natural and human) which surrounds them still remain to be explored in an in-depth manner.

A contribution to this investigation is also made by Giulio Guarini, Giuseppe Garofalo, Arianna Moschetti (from the Department of Economics, Engineering, Society and Business at the University of Tuscia) as one of the topics of Argomenti – a magazine about economy, culture and social research.

“Reti d’impresa ambientali e innovazione: un’applicazione per l’Italia” (Environmental business networks and innovation: an application for Italy) is a correct and precise theoretical and operational analysis of the relations between companies, business networks and environmental innovation. The authors particularly write that the objective of the article is “to analyse the role of environmental business networks in innovation processes”.

The article then takes its cue from a theoretical analysis of innovation and of environmental innovation in particular. The role of networks emerges as fundamental. “The close bond between business networks and innovation – they explain -, emerges as a dynamic phenomenon: the interaction between different players with different skills and qualifications helps to create new knowledge and thus innovations, especially as a result of the complementarity between the various spheres of knowledge”.

After the theory, the article moves on to an operational analysis consisting of two parts. First of all a genuine mapping of the companies which in Italy participate in “environmental networks”, followed by an investigation into the organisational and structural characteristics of the companies involved.

The work by Guarini, Garofalo and Moschetti does not make for very easy reading, as there are many mathematical and analytical sections, but this is an article that – after analysis -, nevertheless manages to provide a clear summary of a complex issue.

Reti d’impresa ambientali e innovazione: un’applicazione per l’Italia (Environmental business networks and innovation: an application for Italy)

Giulio Guarini, Giuseppe Garofalo, Arianna Moschetti

Argomenti – a magazine about economy, culture and social research, third series, 8/2017

“The markets, representative democracy and globalisation are under accusation by the prosecution”. And “it is not the invasions of new barbarians that threaten the liberal citadel, but the very foundations of the citadel itself which are showing signs of crumbling”.  This is the opinion of Mattia Ferraresi, the brilliant journalist, who speaks from New York about the USA to the readers of the “Il Foglio” magazine. And it appears in the pages of “The heavy century”, a clear-sighted analysis, published by Marsilio, which goes “to the origins of the new global disorder”.  That “heavy” description, which marks our tiring and controversial 21st century, indicates weight, psychological oppression, pain and also vulgarity. It reflects the distinguishing mark of the times in which public pronouncements have been reduced to schematic partisan slogans, and the language of politics, even at the highest institutional levels, no longer corresponds to the criteria of dialectics, of rhetoric, or of the construction of a consensus, but serves only to incite the fans and insult their “enemies”.

The research by Ferraresi is thus political, social and cultural. It examines the current affairs of the United States, in this season of the Trump presidency, now one year into its term. It seeks out the reasons for a radical lack of tolerance for the cultures of the so-called “liberal order” (precisely that representative democracy, the markets, the international relationships for discussion and exchange, everything which a great liberal scientist, Karl Popper, had succinctly described as “the open society”).  And he warns: “The recrudescence of nationalism, the myth of the strongman, the roaring politics of identity are the fractured consequences of a malaise: underestimating it means facing the other way in the hope that the unpresentable populists are vanquished and the illness disappears by itself”.

Here is the key word. Malaise. A subject which is increasingly relevant today: “Left behind – How to help places hurt by globalisation”, is how the “The Economist” effectively described it in its issue of 21st October 2017 for an enquiry into social classes and countries “left behind” by the global dynamics of exchanges and of the new technologies, thereby giving food for the critical and self-critical thoughts which nowadays characterise wide areas of the economy, starting with the International Monetary Fund, which for years has been the temple of neoliberalism and of positive globalisation (we spoke about this in our blog of 7th November last).

An economic malaise (the middle classes have not gained any real economic benefit from globalisation and indeed have suffered the negative consequences of the radical changes in production methods, in terms of salary and jobs). And also a social and cultural malaise, which is hitting a significant portion of the new generations. That, for example, of thirty- and forty-year-olds, who have been duped by promises of a better future from the positive effects of liberalisation, flexibility and globalisation and who today, however, are living through the discomfort of dreams which have been curtailed, impoverished, and shattered, of uncertain work, and of weaker prospects for growth. These generations have been given a voice by, among others, Raffaele Alberto Ventura in his “Theory of the uneasiness of the middle classes”, minimum fax. By documenting the fissures of highly parochial individualism, the consequences of the break-down of the “generational pact”, and the limits of a culture “reduced to market forces”. He outlines another serious element of political and social crisis, of lack of trust in politics, in the institutions (Europe, amongst others), and in the possibilities for the future. This is giving rise to “bad blood” (as documented in the latest Censis Report) and to “resentment”: these are psychological drivers which are cynically exploited by those who, in politics, like to foment fear and foster revolt, not responsible reforms.

In times of such radical economic and social changes it can happen, indeed, that inequalities and injustices increase. The two phenomena are very different as between each other, as is explained by Angus Deaton, the Nobel prizewinner for Economics in 2015 (“IlSole24Ore” magazine, 27th December 2017): the former constitute part of the economic cycle and also have positive aspects (they stimulate competition, they demonstrate the effects of winning on merit), on condition that they are not excessive. The latter are rightly perceived negatively. The political problem to be reckoned with, in this “heavy century”, is the quality of the response.

The ancient lesson of Karl Marx comes to mind: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” (a phrase which has since become a reference for every piece of liberal, reformist and social democratic legislation). But also the challenge, which is still open, of how to marry liberty with social justice (“Justice and liberty” is a slogan which belongs to the best political culture, that of the liberals and democrats such as Piero Gobetti, the Rosselli brothers and then Norberto Bobbio and the original “radicals” brought together through the pages of “Il Mondo” (the World) by Mario Pannunzio, which can be found in contemporary public debate).

These are important subjects, worthy of further reflection, including by philosophers who are attentive to the subjects of public ethics and of responsibility. Such as Martha C. Nussbaum in “Anger and Forgiveness – resentment, generosity and justice”, from Il Mulino. In a society in which intolerance and resentment is growing and where people are now challenging the very reasons for living together in a civilised fashion, in the name of nationalism, racism and populistic ideals both ancient and modern, it is worthwhile looking into the roots of relational systems, in small and large communities. Ms. Nussbaum places a keen emphasis on the analysis of the “anger”, deemed “poisonous and popular”, linked to “the affirmation of personal respect, in the case of men, for their virility, and in the case of women, for their claim to equality”. Sound starting points, frequently. Which, however, are also distorted by the pervasiveness of the new media, and which feed the vicious circles of conflicts and opposition. It would be better, suggests Ms. Nussbaum, to have another look at the ideas of forgiveness, punishment and justice, and to call for “less vendetta and more reconciliation”: “Injustice should be countered by a courageous action but above all by a strategic one.  Building a world which is humanly “inhabitable” requires intelligence, self-control and generosity, a patient and tireless disposition of the soul to see and to search for the good rather than fixating obsessively on the bad”. This is a strong moral commitment. But also a far-sighted dialogue about the survival of democracy.

Alongside far-sightedness, there is urgency, to avoid any further aggravation of the deterioration and the malaise. And to avoid letting any more wasted time go by.

Some people had already seen clearly into the future, by examining the tendencies of crisis, more than twenty years ago. But nobody listened to them. Those such as Christopher Lasch, one of the major historians of ideas, and the author in 1994 of “The Revolt of the Elites”, published at the time in Italy by Feltrinelli: the loss of contact between the economic and intellectual aristocracies and “normal people”, snobbish multiculturalism, the well-off liberalism of the financiers, the managers, the successful artists and communicators, the smart people who were always travelling, always moving around, infused with a pervasive “touristic vision of the world”. It was the elites who chose to “rebel against” the masses, argued Lasch provocatively, criticising from the viewpoint of a left-winger a series of vices which were already at that time undermining the solid foundations of the very democracy of America (several of those “radical chic” attitudes had already been mocked, as early as in 1970, by the controversial arguments of Tom Wolfe, the conservative writer). Now the book has once more appeared on the scene, re-read and re-launched by right-wingers, such as Steve Bannon, a long-time supporter of the Trump presidency (the story has several strange twists and turns…). It is once again on the bookshelves in Italy too,  published by Neri Pozza, with a renewed title, “The Revolt of the Elites” and an explicit sub-title: “The Betrayal of Democracy”. With a suggestion which still remains valid, in order to avoid new fractures between the economic and cultural powers and the middle classes, which would further inflame serious populistic tendencies: we need to construct communities founded on shared values, open debate, social inclusion, equality of opportunities, responsible competencies, and mutual co-operation. To re-introduce, in fact, good democracy and a “civil economy” into the modern world.

A collection of studies focusing on the progress made so far by the Industry 4.0 project

The question of what impact industrial policy has on the real system of production is also essential for the growth of a conscious business culture, capable of a serious evaluation of the environment in which companies evolve.

To answer this question, we are able to turn to this collection of research and analysis, edited by Elena Prodi, Francesco Seghezzi and Michele Tiraboschi for Adapt, on the effects of the Industry 4.0 plan one year after its launch.

“Il piano Industria 4.0 un anno dopo. Analisi e prospettive future” (The Industry 4.0 plan one year on. Analysis and future prospects) features a body of research which aims at assessing the current state of the implementation of Industry 4.0 in Italy. It is a piece of work which, in the end, only partially supports what has been done so far.

The researchers write at the beginning of the collection: “Without skills and without new forms of organisation and work regulations, there is a risk that the investments made so far will be wasted, or used merely for a simple renovation of what we already have. At the same time, the combination of investments in technology and the skills capable of directing these technologies could be an excellent opportunity to reverse the path of stagnant productivity and lead us to a new resurgence in terms of work and industrial relations”.

The researchers coordinated their investigations based on this premise, starting with an analysis of Industry 4.0 in terms of employment (“not only machinery and technology”), before moving to an analysis of the links between industrial relations, the job market and Industry 4.0. This is followed by another important analysis on various factors related to research and innovation. The collection then concludes with a group of research on the experiences of Industry 4.0 in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

The researchers write: “Until now, the plan has assumed a vision focused primarily on the most technological aspects of technologies tied to the new productive model of Industry 4.0. As a result, much of the attention has been given to investments in new innovative machinery and accompanying software with a manufacturing logic which seems to be a model from the past.”They continue: “This is an environment characterised by a notable complexity, united to productive systems which, by increasingly personalising products and services in line with the central role given to the consumer, often present elements of unpredictability and non-linearity. For this reason, and considering the high level of the technologies used, it is essential the focus is moved towards the skills and instruments deployed to create them.”

“The Industry 4.0 plan one year on” may not be an easy read, but it is certainly worth the effort if you want to understand the context of a project which is important for Italian companies in terms of their organisational approach, their culture of production and their future growth.

Il piano Industria 4.0  un anno dopo. Analisi e prospettive future (The Industry 4.0 plan one year on. Analysis and future prospects)

Elena Prodi, Francesco Seghezzi, Michele Tiraboschi (edited by)

ADAPT University Press , 2017