A research study analyses the meeting minutes of production organisations experiencing difficult times

A sensible corporate culture needs to be applied even during difficult periods. In fact, in most cases, this is especially true when a production organisation hits a crisis point and grinds to a halt – circumstances that also end up affecting the company’s sphere of activity, as well as all related institutions. As such, we are in need of new industrial policies not merely to generate growth, but also to contain crises.

The study undertaken by Matteo Gaddi and Nadia Garbellini, published in the latest issue of the Giornale di diritto del lavoro e di relazioni industriali (Journal of labour legislation and industrial relations) revolves around these issues.

Entitled “Crisi d’impresa: la necessità di nuove politiche industriali” (“Corporate crises: a need for new industrial policies”), it addresses the theme of corporate crises and their resolution through a particular approach: the analysis of the minutes of meetings instituted by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development. A peculiar and unusual approach that, nonetheless, allows to both better comprehend the tangible dynamics surrounding each occurrence and to acquire new information concerning the civil and corporate culture applied to the management of such events.

“The analysis of the minutes of the meetings instituted by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development,” explain the two researchers at the beginning of their study, “highlights how most of the crises can be attributable to structured aspects of the Italian economic and productive system”. This gives rise to one of the paper’s most significant conclusions: “As such, we need appropriate industrial policies that can tackle these phenomena in order to safeguard employment and strengthen the manufacturing fabric through public intervention tools”. In other words, crises need to be looked at with fresh eyes, though the tools available until now have nonetheless been effective – something that Gaddi and Garbellini do acknowledge, especially in relation to the Fondo Salvaguardia (Italian Company Protection Fund) and the Fondo Grandi Imprese (Large Companies Fund), their inherent issues and constraints notwithstanding. What, however, seems to be missing is an analytical and decisional method shared by all the main actors involved in each individual corporate crisis, a method generating realistic solutions that can be adopted and accepted by all. Thus, we return to the two researcher’s key point: even in a corporate crisis, the application of a sensible production culture that takes into consideration entrepreneurial, employment and territorial needs, remains a crucial and irreplaceable tool.

Crisi d’impresa: la necessità di nuove politiche industriali (“Corporate crises: a need for new industrial policies”)

Matteo Gaddi, Nadia Garbellini

Giornale di diritto del lavoro e di relazioni industriali, 2022/175

“Money can’t buy happiness”, proclaims a popular folk saying, but then again, neither does the absolute lack of it. Rather, we should consider the significance of the so-called “economics of happiness”, measured by the World Happiness Report, published by the United Nations and focused on quantifying “quality of life” as an economic, political and social goal. Money, well-being and happiness can indeed work well together.

The World Happiness Report is usually published every year on 20 March, the International Day of Happiness, as per an agreement reached on 28 June 2012 by the 193 member countries belonging to the United Nations General Assembly. This year, the ranking sees Finland, Denmark and Iceland in the lead, followed by Israel, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg and New Zealand. Italy is in 33rd place, less happy than Germany (16th place) and France (21st place), while Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Afghanistan bring up the rear.

The World Happiness Index is based on six factors: social support, income, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and the absence of corruption in a country. As with all such rankings, it’s of course debatable – it’s largely based on the perceptions of the interviewees (Italian people are notorious for moaning and denigrating themselves) and it’s strongly influenced by emotional factors linked to current events. Yet, after the necessary clarifications and reality check, it remains nonetheless a considerably illustrative index, not only useful in gauging a country’s sense of self and general mood but also, and above all, in measuring not only, and not so much, a country’s wealth but rather its well-being. A key indicator that can be used to steer public policies (healthcare, education and welfare costs, the overcoming of inequalities and discriminations), as well as to lead enterprises to invest in sustainable manufacturing in environmental and social terms and pay heed to the needs of consumers and stakeholders.

These themes will be discussed in the next few days (from 24 to 26 March) at the World Happiness Summit, held in Como, which will count amongst its attendees Karen Guggenheim, founder of the initiative, and Daniel Kahneman, 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. “The overall goal must be that of a happier society. But we only get there if people make each other happy (and not just themselves)”, explains Jeffrey Sachs, president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, one of most attentive economists with regards to sustainability (La Stampa, 20 March).

John Helliwell, who together with Sachs and Richard Layard has interviewed a large sample of the population of over 150 countries in order to draft the World Happiness Report, adds that: “A deep change is affecting the whole world: people are acknowledging that progress should not merely and forcibly generate economic growth but also well-being and happiness”.

Thus, we actually need to transcend GDP parameters and make way for the quality – not just the quantity – of wealth produced. “Measuring what counts”, i.e. well-being, to quote the title of a key work by Joseph Stiglitz, Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Martine Durand (Einaudi, 2021), following indications from the BES (the Italian report on equitable and sustainable well-being devised by Istat to assess the strategies for public investment related to every Italian financial law). Basically, we should make sure to actualise the decisions taken in order to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals identified by the UN in the Paris Agreement.

Italy, though not officially featured at the top of the Happiness Index, has nonetheless been developing a growing sensitivity to these topics for a long time, a sensitivity that’s been steering the strategies and behaviours of the most responsible enterprises, firmly persuaded that a genuine and transparent commitment to sustainability is a key factor for productivity and competitiveness.

Confirmation of this can also be found in a recent report by the Symbola Foundation and Ipsos (Corriere della Sera, 20 March): low-impact products are preferred, in terms of quality, by 56% of consumers. “We are increasingly and decisively heading towards an economy on a human scale,” states Ermete Realacci, president of Symbola, as “a new era of sustainability has begun, which affects every sector and the whole of society, across the board” and this is a notion “no longer perceived like a diktat imposed from above, but has become a socially desirable goal and, as such, a more easily attainable one”.

After all, Symbola reports have been showing that the most “cohesive” enterprises are also the most competitive ones – on the international markets, too – for a long time, and, further, that in Europe Italian companies are at the forefront in terms of circular economy and recycling, with a positive impact on the environment in general terms and their own income statements in more individual terms. An increase of consumer sensitivity has helped consolidating this process, which has also led to enhanced widespread political awareness.

Nando Pagnoncelli, president of Ipsos, states that: “Environmentalism no longer triggers blind rejection and has become an opportunity for economic growth that benefits both individuals and society. And it is now clear that enterprises that are credible in environmental and social terms benefit from greater consumer loyalty and a faster growth”.

The economics of happiness, in other words, are not just beneficial but also engender strong ethical values, the same ones epitomised in the motto ‘Do, do well and do good”.

(photo Getty Images)

Giovanni Battista Pirelli, from Varenna to the creation of a great international company

The exhibition Pirelli, a History of Enterprise: Industry, People, Culture and Innovation. Giovanni Battista Pirelli, from Varenna to the creation of a great international company opens in the church of Santa Marta in Varenna (Lecco) on 1 April. The exhibition, which is curated by the Pirelli Foundation in collaboration with the Municipality of Varenna, is devoted to Giovanni Battista Pirelli, an illustrious son of the town and founder of the first Italian industry for the processing of elastic rubber, and to the rise of the company he created.

The exhibition, with materials from the company’s Historical Archive, will be open to the public from Saturday 1 April to Tuesday 25 April 2023. Admission is free. The documents, photographs, drawings in the display retrace more than 150 years of industrial history, from the founder’s origins in Varenna to the opening of the first factory in Milan in 1872, all the way through to the present day. It illustrates the passion for racing, cutting-edge technological research and a never-ending revolution in visual communication. Pirelli, a company is both Italian and international, and now operates in 12 countries with 18 production plants. It upholds the same strong values that have been a distinguishing feature of its operations for over a century and a half: passion, care for people, innovation, and the sustainability of its products and production processes.

Together with the items on display, extra digital content published here will also be available via QR code.

A commemorative plaque will be unveiled on the house in Contrada Giovanni Battista Pirelli, where the illustrious citizen was born.

Exhibition opening hours
Pirelli, a History of Enterprise: Industry, People, Culture and Innovation. Giovanni Battista Pirelli, from Varenna to the creation of a great international company
1–25 April 2023
Open every day from 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission free.
Chiesa di Santa Marta, Piazza San Giorgio 25, Varenna (Lecco)

A collection of studies on the topic provides a kind of useful manual to better understand it

Corporate networks as efficient tools to identify new and significant development possibilities and to effectively counteract circumstances that are not conducive to growth. This is certainly not a new topic, yet it nonetheless deserves continuous exploration, as well as an objective examination of its theory.

The studies collected in Le reti d’impresa nell’economia locale (Corporate networks in the local economy), curated by Rosa Lombardi and Michele Onorato, and recently published by Sapienza, serves precisely this purpose.

The work begins with an initial investigation focused on the corporate profiles (both emerging and established ones) that best fit the corporate network model, and then explores more in depth the systems of post-pandemic corporate networks, before looking at the aspects related to the administration of such networks in terms of self-organisation and new regulations, as well as the indications to be followed concerning fiscal matters and tax issues. The collected works are made even more interesting and easily accessible by the inclusion of a number of examples (case studies), as well as by the extensive use of diagrams and summaries.

The significance of network contracts within local and national spheres is particularly scrutinised, and a dedicated section explains how such contracts “allow to overcome the dimensional constraints inherent in the nature of SMEs and generate a virtuous circle that allows the enterprises involved to benefit from learning new knowledge via the sharing of good practice between the parties. Moreover, network contracts can be appreciated as flexible tools that can adapt to different collaboration schemes, from sharing know-how and resources to common activities.” Thus, corporate networks as features and action tools of a particular corporate culture that can enhance territorial characteristics.

The research studies collected and curated by Lombardi and Onorato end up constituting a kind of handbook presenting all the different facets of the topic – an important tool to understand this particular corporate model better and further.

Le reti d’impresa nell’economia locale (Corporate networks in the local economy)

Rosa Lombardi, Michele Onorato (curated by)

Sapienza University Press, 2023

The recently published complete critical edition of a work on economics from 200 years ago can help us better understand the contemporary world

Knowing what merit is, looking out for it, identify and reward it, in order to develop and disseminate it – an economy based on virtues, then, or, a virtuous economy dedicated to development, not merely growth. The kind of economy that, nowadays, we are seeking as the solution to the many circumstances that companies and enterprises have to tackle, yet a kind of economy that on closer inspection has been in existence since centuries and that we find narrated and explained in Del merito e delle ricompense (On merit and rewards), a book published between 1818 and 1819 by Melchiorre Gioia, published today as a critical edition.

Gioia’s book is rather dense, and has one goal: that of providing a scientific method to measure quantitative and qualitative variants such as virtues – especially relational virtues – that are truly essential to the good functioning of economy and society, while also identifying ways to engender them. How to promote the development of virtuous behaviours in modern societies? How to reward merit without affecting the interplay of deepest human motivations that monetary rewards would only displace and discourage? These are just a few of the questions guiding an investigation whose nature is still very contemporary.
Indeed, our current market society appeals to meritocracy believing merit to be one-dimensional, an easily identifiable criterion when making good choices. As such, the kind of merit to be rewarded takes the form of an increase in returns and turnover – something more relatable to men than women and to individuals than teams, something linked to position rather than relations. In fact, relational and qualitative merit is rather difficult to be objectively determined, can easily be abused, has a more vulnerable nature and is often ignored by a society that suffers from relational and emotional illiteracy. Gioia’s book explains how important intangible features really are and how relational and spiritual capital actually determined the economic and human development of those societies that first learned to identify, acknowledge and reward it.

Hence, reading Gioia’s work today means finding words (and meanings) anew, in order to recreate a vocabulary that can express and recognise merit outside the easy praise that characterises meritocratic ideology and beyond the absurd desire of having all factors perfectly measured. Indeed, one of Gioia’s passages reads, “Individual claiming to find exact measures for moral matters, just as it happens with physical matters, only show how scant their understanding is.”

Del merito e delle ricompense (On merit and rewards)

Gioia Melchiorre

Vita e Pensiero, 2023

“A city is not planned, it creates itself. We just need to listen to it, as a city is the mirror image of countless stories”. Wise and forward-thinking words by Renzo Piano featured on the cover of the latest biannual issue of the Humanitarian Society of Milan’s journal, dedicated to “La città ideale 2.0” (“The ideal city 2.0”) and offering plenty of analyses and documentation concerning contemporary urban evolution from a humanist and technical perspective.

Let’s listen to the city, then. sophisticated and sensitive artist Alberto Savinio was already on to this: when, in 1944, he wrote I listen to your heart, city, narrating Milan and its pleasant elegant and discreet beauty (the book was first published by Bompiani, now by Adelphi). Let’s listen to it, not merely to catch moods and hopes, but also to take some wise planning decisions relating to development, direction, governance and good administration – because “the city is not an abstract form, a hybrid, a monolith, but a living creature in continuous evolution and with which we must compromise, balancing territorial dynamics with its manifold development opportunities”, as argued in the editorial of the Humanitarian Society’s journal. According to architect Stefano Boeri, accomplished interpreter of urban biodiversity, this is something that requires self-awareness: “The future belongs to today’s builders and planners. But good urban-planning needs good governance in order to make good decisions, which anticipate what we will have become in 30-50 years”.

Piano and Savinio’s opinions, as well as Boeri’s vision, come to mind because Milan is currently experiencing some significant issues – some connected to the “frailties” typical of other metropolises, too, (as mentioned in our blog of 28 February) and others more specific to a city that more than others, in Italy, continues to grow and attract people and innovative ideas, intellectual and financial resources, investments and projects.

What should we listen to, then? First of all, to that social and economic creaking noise that sounds like a warning about impending adversities and deterioration – the warning sign of forthcoming fractures in the intricate balance that’s always been keeping Milan together: an equilibrium between productivity and social inclusion, increasing wealth and widespread prosperity, openness to the most innovative cultural and economic concepts and a strong sense of social responsibility. Basically, we need to revive those complex, yet nonetheless crucial, metropolitan patterns of employment, quality of life as well as the faculty to write “a future-oriented story”.

Indeed, that creaking noise is evidence enough of this and scanning the daily newspapers, whether in print or online, it’s enough to find confirmation of it: shops are shutting down, even in central and semi-central areas (Via Mazzini, Via Lazzaretto), due to excessively high rents and an increasing lack of staff; house prices are becoming progressively unaffordable for young singles and middle-class families; the cost of life is rising in suburban neighbourhoods, too, due to their staggering gentrification; a growing anxiety for individual and social safety that, though not corroborated by objective data on petty crime, is nonetheless causing apprehension and uneasiness – a whole list of things that led to Milan dropping from second to eighth place in the Il Sole24Ore‘s annual ranking on the quality of life.

The issue is the widespread notion that Milan is increasingly turning into an insufferable “city for the rich”, beset by a transient elite bent on speculation, the New Economy and luxury consumption. A notion in stark contrast with the history, traditions and culture of an open and inclusive city that always possessed the selfless spirit of a metropolis “close to Europe” while also deeply welcoming of anyone showing progressive thinking, entrepreneurship, work skills and civic sense.

“A showcase window displaying successful modernity for those investing in luxury goods… a global city loved by tycoons but not by its citizens, who are disappointed by the reduction in services, security, the cost of housing and life”, summarises Giangiacomo Schiavi in the Corriere della Sera (12 March), who, at the end of an in-depth investigation concerning “cities under trial: should we flee the metropolis”, nonetheless invites “change but without shooting the piano player.”

Escape is not the answer, of course. Rather, we need to go for proper local governance in terms of urban-planning developments, housing legislation and investments in services that take into account the middle and more vulnerable classes, which are, after all, the cornerstones of communities and the pillars of good democracy, as Milanese tradition teaches.

Indeed, for many years now, the most perceptive noir literary authors (such as Alessandro Robecchi, Gianni Biondillo, Piero Colaprico, Sandrone Dazieri, Dario Crapanzano, Gian Andrea Cerone – just to mention a few name amongst many of Giorgio Scerbanenco’s original heirs) have been warning against a surrender to the ephemeral lure of the skyscrapers’ “thousand lights” and the many themed ‘weeks’ engendered by a widespread tendency to translate social relations into “special events”.

And, for many years too – from the Expo onwards – economic forces still showing a strong propensity for quality manufacturing have been keeping things down to earth, combining productivity, competitiveness and solidarity (as mentioned above), maintaining a virtuous relationship between the city as “a capital of knowledge and an industrial earldom” – as epitomised by Dario Di Vico (Il Foglio, 11 March), who also notes how “today Milan is facing the need to close two gaps – one that is taking it farther away from the regions and one that sees widening, at its core, polarisation and risks of social rifts. To address them both, we need a systemic vision, which is currently struggling to come to life.”

A difficult challenge, no doubt, yet an achievable one, which should be tackled and conquered by leveraging Milan’s propensity for dialogue, debate, labour, social and economic innovation – the virtuous relationships between industry, services, corporate finance and education (with its world-class universities) are just some of its mainstays.

Other ones include the gravitational pull between the north-west of Italy, looking for a new and better future (with the unanimous support of employers’ association Unione Industriali Torino, entrepreneurial institution Assolombarda and territorial entrepreneurial association Confindustria Genova), the productive Emilia region and the north-east with its “pocket-sized multinationals” – and the geopolitical background to this is the axis running from Europe to the Mediterranean. Plenty to do then, also with the involvement of the public sector, enterprises, culture and social structures.

Hence, here we are: this is what it means to listen, mindfully, to the beating heart of Milan, rather than to the pounding of instant emotional thrills.

(photo Getty Images)

Billy Bologna accidentally destroys the biggest domino in the world. Arte, a black cat, and Carmen, a wild little girl, are persecuted by the Inquisition. Poems in which the words are like the steps of a walk. Tullio, a boy with a vivid imagination and all the fantastical creatures that live in his mind. Lilith, who tells the story of her childhood among chickens that look like T-Rex, cats with the names of painters, and other strange characters. And more poems, recreating the world with curiosity and a desire to explore.

The six finalist books in the second edition of Campiello Junior, in the words of their authors. A series of interviews by the Pirelli Foundation are on their way, so you can get to know them better before the winner is announced on Thursday 11 May 2023 at 11 a.m. at the Teatro Franco Parenti in Milan. The event will be presented by Massimo Polidoro (journalist, writer and science communicator).

The interviews will be published every Wednesday here on this page, starting from 15 March:

Nicola Cinquetti, L’incredibile notte di Billy Bologna, Lapis Edizioni; 7-10 years – Wednesday 15 March 2023

Lilith Moscon, Bestiario familiare, Topipittori; 11-14 years – Wednesday 22 March 2023

Carlo Marconi, Poesie del camminare, Lapis Edizioni; 7-10 years – Wednesday 29 March 2023

Davide Rigiani, Il Tullio e l’eolao più stranissimo di tutto il Canton Ticino, minimumfax; 11-14 years – Wednesday 5 April 2023

Nadia Terranova, Il cortile delle sette fate, Guanda; 7-10 years – Wednesday 19 April 2023

Ilaria Rigoli, A rifare il mondo, Bompiani; 11-14 years – Wednesday 26 April 2023

You can find out about all the Premio Campiello Junior events at Libraries – Fondazione Pirelli and www.premiocampiello.org.

A recently published research study attempts to outline a path towards different and more inclusive economic outlooks

A change of pace and standard models – very urgent requirements, when facing the complexity that pervades all forms of social and production aggregation, and when, therefore, maps to guide us and tools to help us better understand are needed. This is, overall, the goal of Maria Mirabelli, Vincenzo Fortunato and Antonio Martin Artiles’s contribution recently published on SOCIETÀ MUTAMENTO POLITICA. Rivista italiana di sociologia (POLITICAL CHANGE SOCIETY. Italian Journal of Sociology),

entitled “Globalizzazione, disuguaglianze e nuovi approcci verso un modello di capitalismo sostenibile” (“Globalisation, inequalities and new approaches towards a sustainable capitalist model”), a work based on an underlying consideration: the current variety of capitalist systems and their evolutions. The paper focuses on “the Italian experience, within a context of growing uncertainty and inequalities” as well as the “main socio-economic changes and their impact on economy and society.” Hence, change, or transformation, are the key words permeating this research study, which first investigates the relationships between globalisation and transformation in the workplace, and then interlinked themes pertaining social risks and possible governance methods before looking at the issue of inequalities. The general approach is the consideration of “possible paths”, underline the authors, “as well as complementary or even alternative practices that hold economy and society together, in order to introduce a more sustainable and social era and inclusive capitalism.” For Mirabelli, Fortunato and Artiles, the “key concept is that the workings of self-regulated markets are not perfect; their flaws – not only affecting their internal mechanisms but also impacting less advantaged people – are so great that a state’s intervention becomes necessary and as such the pace of change is of the utmost importance in determining their consequences.”

We are in urgent need of a change of pace, then, assert the three authors, who nonetheless acknowledge how difficult it is to achieve such a goal and the necessity to involve more actors from the economic and social spheres. Mirabelli, Fortunato and Artiles’s study is not a ready-made guide, nor should be necessarily read unreservedly, yet it offers everyone significant food for thought.

Globalizzazione, disuguaglianze e nuovi approcci verso un modello di capitalismo sostenibile (“Globalisation, inequalities and new approaches towards a sustainable capitalist model”)

Maria Mirabelli, Vincenzo Fortunato, Antonio Martin Artiles

SOCIETÀ MUTAMENTO POLITICA. Rivista italiana di sociologia, 13(25): 23-35, 2022

Employment, immigration, training and education, development – let’s have look at and discuss the clear and accurate figures we have in our possession. In the last few days, ISTAT has announced a growth of up to 459,000 units in job numbers in January, as compared to last year, leading to a total of 23.3 million employed people: a record, at least since 2004, when monthly historical data series were introduced. The trend remains positive even when considered on a month-by-month basis: an increase of 35,000 employed people in January 2023, as compared to December 2022. “The job market continues to show positive signs, in line with a slowly recovering economic trend”, comments Il Sole24Ore (3 March). “The best job market in Italy of the past 30 years”, celebrates Il Foglio (3 March).

Indeed, a more in-depth review of the data reveals further positive elements: out of the 23.3 million employed people, 15.3 million are on a permanent contract, with a rise of 464,000 units as compared to January 2022 – an improvement with regards to job security, basically: while the number of fixed-term roles is currently under the psychological threshold of 3 million ( 2.994 million, to be precise).

The women’s employment rate is also positive: 9.87 million employed women, 264,000 more than in January 2022. Still, the employment gender gap remains wide – with an average increase of 60.8% overall, the men’s employment rate stands at 69.7% while the women’s employment rate is at an unsatisfactory 51.9%, and there are continued marked differences with other European countries (77% in Germany, 68% in France, 70% EU average). Yet, in spite of this, things are actually starting to shift, though more slowly then we’d like.

The economic recovery – particularly thriving in 2021 and 2022 (the GDP rose by almost 11% over this two-year period, at a pace unknown since the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s) – is still flourishing at the beginning of 2023 and has quelled, for now, fears of a recession, as well as proving to have strong foundations both in terms of industrial manufacturing and export growth (a record figure of 625 billion). The impact of the Superbonus 110 construction scheme was trivial (the GDP grew by just 0.5% in 2021 and 0.9% in 2022, according to the analysis of the Italian public finances watchdog Osservatorio sui Conti Pubblici, undertaken by the Università Cattolica of Milan and led by Giampaolo Galli), thus invalidating the related propaganda spread by supporters of the Conte government and the Five Star Movement, who really wanted that bonus introduced despite all the issues its implementation would bring.

ISTAT employment data, however, also highlights an issue related to the younger generations that can’t be ignored: the employment rate, both for those under 25 and those aged 25 to 34 has dropped by 0.3%, while unemployment and inactivity have increased, and the unemployment rate has risen to 22.9% – one of the highest at international level, as having decreased to 5.7% in Germany, only Spain and Greece are now worse off than Italy.

Could things be better? Of course – if only enterprises could actually find the right people they’d like to employ then production, competitiveness, and social and economic growth would improve as a whole.

Indeed, the Unioncamere-ANPAL Excelsior surveys have always shown that almost half of vacant roles are not easy to fill, with peaks of 60-70% for technical and scientific ones. Economic news bear witness to this, too: “Companies are hunting for workers, but 41% is nowhere to be found” (Il Sole24Ore, 27 December 2022); “Manufacturers are looking for 43,000 workers in Milan, Monza and Brianza” (Corriere della Sera, 18 February); “Employment – companies are hunting for 4 million of young workers” (Il Sole24Ore, 11 February) – and so on, also in the fashion, mechatronics, chemistry and agri-food industries.

The Bank of Italy is also warning that in order to promptly and effectively implement the PNRR (the Italian recovery and resilience plan), 375,00 new workers are needed, from labourers to specialised technicians, as well as public administrators – it’s a real shame that they can’t be found (la Repubblica, 7 February).

Hence, we have a paradox: our productive drive is turning Italy into the second European manufacturing country, with increasing presence in high-value niches on the global markets, but we lack the necessary human capital to keep on growing, while hundreds of thousands of young people go abroad, looking for better work and life conditions (as we already mentioned several times in these blog posts).

In this respect, we can see that there are still various matters to be addressed concerning university education (with still too few students on STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – degrees), proper social conditions for a radical increase of women workers, salaries and wages, quality work and satisfying prospects within a landscape filled with enterprises that are too small and often run in an old-fashioned way.

Obviously, the double issue pertaining the interconnection between training and employment up to the relationships between education and business should be a top concern and priority effort for both the government and politicians more in general, but unfortunately that’s still not the case.

On the background, there’s also the serious matter of demographics: Italy is getting old and its population drop is getting steeper. In 30 years’ time, 35% of Italian people will be aged 65 years and over – today they’re fewer than 25% – something that will greatly skew the public budget, due to the increase in social security, health and welfare costs. The job market will also radically change: nowadays, people of working age (15-64 years) and non- (0-15 years and 65 years and over) stand at a three-to-two ratio, which in 2050 will become a one-to-one ratio – a whole different world, a different social balance, a different public finance structure.

As we all know, demographic change is dictated by long-term trends, which means that policies aimed at fostering a birth rate increase need to be put in place now for them to have an impact in 20 years’ time.

In the meantime, in order to offset the Italian demographic drop and enhance, with new resources, the job market – and thus the production of collective wealth and well-being – the only available path is that of implementing wise and forward-looking immigration policies, that is, see “immigrants as wealth” (Linda Laura Sabbadini in la Repubblica, 3 March). In other words, we should combine welcoming humanitarian and civilised attitudes – typical, by the by, of Italian history and the traditionally inclusive Mediterranean culture – with a reasoned consideration of future interests, within a framework of opportunities and rules, training and acknowledgement of entrepreneurship. Essentially, Italy should become an attractive place for young people from all over the world to come and study, work and plan a better future in a country – the real ‘Bell’Italia’ – that has succeeded in overcoming a decline intrinsic to the current “pessimistic and dejected… frightened and sad” attitude (Berta Isla, Il Foglio, 5 March).

(photo: Getty Images)

Artificial Intelligence explained in accurate and clear fashion

Understanding Artificial Intelligence, in order to exploit it better and more profitably, also from a human viewpoint – this is one of the most important tasks we all face, including companies and their managers. Once more, we need to first understand it, so as to be able to manage it as best as possible. This is why reading, very carefully, La scorciatoia. Come le macchine sono diventate intelligenti senza pensare in modo umano (The shortcut. Why intelligent machines do not think like us) is very useful – the most recent literary effort by Nello Cristianini who, in a little over 200 pages, makes for a reliable guide on such a complex topic.

Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bath, the author combines the history of this scientific venture with his personal story, and with the many technical and philosophical questions that still remain open. The result is a book that is technically accurate and trustworthy, yet also readable and intriguing in literary terms. Readers are led through a narrative subdivided into ten stages, or chapters, each one addressing questions that are essential to the understanding of Artificial Intelligence, such as, ‘What is intelligence?’, ‘Can machine overtake people?’, ‘Is it true that algorithms can influence us?’, ‘What are the psychological and social consequences of using social media?’. Thus, ranging from scientific concepts that are at the basis of this technology to wider implications for society, the book develops a coherent description of this vast field, employing tools from different disciplines and deliberately avoiding pointless abstractions, jargon and technical terms.

The final message is clear: technology is not enough, we also need to build a dialogue between natural and human sciences, as this is the only way to achieve a safe coexistence with this new form of intelligence. The last chapter in Cristianini’s book – “Regolare, non spegnere” (“Regulating, not unplugging”) – is key, in which the author writes, “We cannot realistically go back to a world without Artificial Intelligence, so we need to find ways to live safely with it. Researchers are working on a list of principles that every agent will have to respect, but any such list will need to be enforceable and verifiable (…) being designed in a way that enables some form of inspection. It will then be possible to expect safety, fairness, privacy, transparency, and all the other important requirements that legal scholars are debating…”.

La scorciatoia. Come le macchine sono diventate intelligenti senza pensare in modo umano (The shortcut. Why intelligent machines do not think like us)

Nello Cristianini

Il Mulino, 2023