Episode 193 – The Rise of Giorgia Meloni with Ivan Invernizzi

Macro N Cheese – Episode 193
The Rise of Giorgia Meloni with Ivan Invernizzi
October 8, 2022

 

[00:00:05.490] – Ivan Invernizzi [intro/music]

Many people inside this party that now is called Fratelli d’Italia, because they separated from the party of Berlusconi in 2012. There are a percentage of people that truly have, let’s say, an identity or cultural connection with the fascist experience.

[00:00:27.070] – Ivan Invernizzi [intro/music]

Something that I can tell you that is outstanding from the political program of Giorgia Meloni, her party of coalition, is that there is actually the absence of any regard, any concern for poverty.

[00:01:35.110] – Geoff Ginter [intro/music]

Now, let’s see if we can avoid the apocalypse altogether. Here’s another episode of Macro N Cheese with your host, Steve Grumbine.

[00:01:43.090] – Steve Grumbine

All right. This is Steve with Macro N Cheese. Today’s guest is none other than Ivan Invernizzi. And Ivan is a friend of mine. I met him at the Second Modern Monetary Theory Conference at the New School in New York City. And Daniella Corda and Gianluca Campo. It was so nice. I became fast friends with them immediately. Probably the nicest people I have ever met in my life. They’re very kind.

And, Ivan, you are amazing. Just so everybody’s aware, Ivan is the co-founder of both Rete MMT Italia and France. Ivan is a go-getter. He has been on the show previously talking about MMT’s theory of exchange rates, check it out a few years back. So it’s with great joy and honor that I bring Ivan back on the show. Given all the changes that are happening in Italy, the world stage is saying one thing. I want to hear what the Italians have to say. So with that, I bring on my friend Ivan. Ivan, welcome to the show, sir.

[00:02:47.440] – Ivan Invernizzi

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure to participate in your program.

[00:02:52.840] – Grumbine

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Ivan. So you guys had an election, and you have Giorgia Meloni elected. I guess she’s replacing Draghi, and the world is basically calling her the second coming of Mussolini. There’s a lot of other talk, and it’s hyperbolic at some level, but the world has been seeing a shift. You see in Brazil with Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson in the UK, and now Truss.

Right wing leaders popping up all over the world. And so here we are in Italy now with someone from the right coalition taking her place. So why don’t you let us know a little bit about what this means?

[00:03:39.310] – Invernizzi

Yes, a little bit of background. First of all, so Italy is a parliamentarian republic. So the parliament is really in the center of everything in Italy. It’s not like in France, where people directly elect the president of the republic, or in the United States, where people directly elect the president. Actually we vote for the parliament and then it’s the parliament that will elect the prime minister to say we call it “Presidente del Consiglio”.

But that means that the government always needs to have the support of the parliament. In Italy, you cannot have a government that doesn’t have support from parliament. What we did here is to vote for the parliament. And what emerged is that the right wing coalition won with the party of Berlusconi, Georgia Meloni, and [Matteo] Salvini – Lega Nordo.

And Giorgia Meloni, her party has been the one with the most votes in this coalition. So it’s very likely that she will be the prime minister. But actually, for this to be official, the parliament has to vote. And in any case, she will not be straightforward the prime minister for five years. She needs to keep adding the support of the parliament for five years.

If she loses the support, then another government will be voted. So basically this first of all tells you that in Italy it’s harder to have very, very straightforward political shift as it may be in other countries because the parliament is always at the center. So also if you have a political victory of a party which has never been a government, maybe, or that is pretty new, actually there is always a system of mitigation, of dialectic.

You cannot have in Italy basically somebody like Trump that is elected and it doesn’t need to have support of the parliament. Just for first things. Then this being said, it’s true that she has a very long political history, Giorgia Meloni, she gets inscribed in a party which was Movimento Sociale Italiano [MSI] when she was a teenager.

She’s involved in politics since very young age and she got into the parliament at 29, she became minister. And it’s true that her first party was neo-fascist in the sense that you had their people – it was founded by people that were in, for example, Nazi puppet republic that we had in North of Italy. When the Nazi invaded the North of Italy, they put a puppet state there.

And Almirante, which was the leader of this movement, was working in this state. And he also had the chance to talk to Mussolini, Mussolini called him, because he was basically the guy at the radio that bring communication. And just to tell you, it’s true that there is an environment of neo-fascist. And when I’m saying neo-fascist, I’m not saying generically speaking right wing authoritarian that you can have also in America.

Fascism is actually something more specific than that. Fascism is something that was born in Italy. It’s an Italian invention, specifically Italian invention. And it’s more than just authoritarian right wing. There is also an overview of the society and there is also the effort in order to build a cultural hegemony that includes the popular, basically social class.

There is basically also a social discourse within an effort to include everybody who could be anti-union, to say. In fact, historically speaking, fascism was something that has a base the middle class or the people which were working in the office. I’m talking about the ’30s and ’20s. Nowadays is a little bit evolved.

But the party of Giorgia Meloni that now is called Fratelli d’Italia has pretty much a similar social base, which for the most part is not fascist. But we can say that 2 or 3 percent of her social base could be to some extent still sympathetic with the historical experience of fascism because, well, still fascism in Italy had a lot of support until 1936.

So it was not just something imposed by the establishment or by the state or the authority. There was actually a popular ground to a very big extent. And yes, long story short, we had this Movimento Sociale d’Italiano in which she was in that in the ’90s transformed in order to be more acceptable for the big public and not keep being very small.

Transforming to Alleanza Nazionale and then became Il Popolo della Libertà when they had fusion with the party of Berlusconi. So basically those people have been at the government already all the time Berlusconi was at the government. It’s not exactly news. And to be fair, in all this time they pretty much normalize themselves.

Also, many people inside this party that now is called Fratelli d’Italia because they separate from the party of Berlusconi in 2012, there are a percentage of people that truly had, let’s say, an identity or cultural connection with the fascist experience, not just of the old Italy but also with the one of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, this puppet state until 1945.

And in fact you can see that in the symbol of Giorgia Meloni there is a flame and MSI [Movimento Sociale d’Italia] written small, and this is the flame of this neofascist party. So there is an historic connection and some flavor of sensibility in terms of symbology to some extent. But in real terms of politics or economic policy, you don’t have to think that there will be any significant change.

I think actually Italy right now from historical path will be mainly large extent driven by external forces, by EU. What is going on with EU and Russia, the war, United States, the economic tension that are created, for example, in Germany and EU policy. There will be a consequence of the political environment, let’s say the leading democracy in EU.

So I don’t think that there will be such a great shift in our internal politics. Something that I can tell you that is outstanding from the political program of Giorgia Meloni, her party, her coalition, is that there is actually the absence of any regard, any concern for poverty. In the sense that the party of Giorgia Meloni, she’s very much against the UBI, but she’s not proposing any kind of job guarantee or any program that is really looking to full employment.

So there is not much regard for very low income people… classes. And what you can expect is that some restriction on immigration, maybe some family support for new couple in order for a baby, and also this is actually a flavor that comes from fascism because also in fascism there were many social policies in order to increase the population and increase the number of births so this is something that you can see in the programs sometime, emerging as connection.

And unfortunately she’s very much against the deficit spending. Way more than Salvini which is the leader of the other right wing party that we have in Italy, Lega Nord. But for the rest the only so to say positive things that I can see in this is interesting to have a woman as possible leader of the government, which to me is still interesting.

And very close to her you have Crosetto which is a person which to some extent I’m sympathetic to because he was one of the few people that voted against the balanced budget in the constitution. Also from a right wing perspective, but this is something that I respect – he voted against the balance budget. This is to give you an overview and don’t think that this will be a political shift as large as it could be, for example Marine Le Pen in France. Because Marine Le Pen in France will be president of the Republic, she on the other side, will not be as powerful as a French president of the Republic. This is my overview.

[00:14:01.200] – Grumbine

So that’s in the parliamentary process versus selection of a premier if you will. Okay I understand. The talk out of all the publications constantly points back to this Brothers of Italy. Can you tell us about that a little bit more in depth?

[00:14:20.950] – Invernizzi

Yes. Well basically after the second World War still you had many people who had feelings very close to the fascist experience. And those people in 1949 they organized a party, and this is Movimento Sociale Italiano and this nucleus of people basically keep going with very very low percentage until the ’90s. In the 90s they change the day they shifted their name and they started to be more a little bit less extreme and they create Alleanza Nazionale which started to get in the government.

Before that they have been excluded completely from any coalition that could go in the government until the 90s. And to the point in which the fusion of their party is the one of Berlusconi, and in 2012 they separate from the party of Berlusconi and they create Fratelli d’Italia. Why in 2012? Because in 2012 there’s been technical government – Mario Monti – austerity.

Then there was lots of social tension and rage in Italy and there was, so to say, maybe the space for a new political force to emerge. And they were a party of very little part – 3% – but the nucleus, so to say, the main people they came from the original MSC, Movimento Sociale Italiano. People like Giorgia Meloni, also people like La Russa, for example.

And you have that, let’s say, from 2012 they have always been at the opposition, and this is the reason why now they are so strong because basically they have been the only party that has not been supporting Draghi. So everybody who was not satisfied with Draghi to some extent could have some sympathy for Fratelli d’Italia. It was the only party of the opposition and at the end it paid off.

This is one of the reasons. So I think that now they have 27% of the vote. Let’s say 3% of these 27% is connected with people which have some sympathy to the fascist experience. The rest is actually standard right wing people, not that right wing. And this is basically the history of Fratelli d’Italia. And now the bond with the fascism is more sentimental for some of them than real, because nobody wants to overthrow the republic or this kind of thing.

But it’s true that you have now in Fratelli d’Italia people where, for example, you have Rauti, Isabella Rauti, which is the daughter of an ex-MP of MSI, which were connected with fascist terrorism, black terrorism [Ordine Nero]. By the way, that terrorism in the 70s was financed by the Americans, and this is a historical truth. Also Movimento Sociale Italiano has been financed – and this is also something which is an historical truth – financed from the US in an anti-communist logic, basically.

[00:17:48.310] – Grumbine

It probably will come as no surprise to you that many of the big oligarchs in the United States also helped bankroll Nazi Germany. So it’s not like it’s a far reach for US to bankroll any terrorist outfit throughout the world. We engage in proxy wars constantly and we’re engaged in a proxy war right now with Ukraine and Russia. I do have a question for you there before we get into economics.

There is a huge rift and I know that everybody has different beliefs. But as a leftist I always stand for people and I want them to have freedom no matter what. I want them to be able to express themselves and live their truth without government telling them that who they are is invalid. What they want is invalid.

And one of the things I’d taken special note of is Meloni previously had spoken to the Vox Party, which is Spain’s far right wing party, and I believe her quotes – and you don’t necessarily have to weigh in on this, but this is terrifying to a lot of leftists and this demonization of, quote unquote woke politics. The way I define woke politics is I didn’t know these people were oppressed.

Now I do know they’re oppressed and now I’m trying to help them lead their best life and not be squashed by people’s bigotry. The opposite to that is what she said to the Vox Party in Spain. She says “yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration, no to big international finance, no to bureaucrats of Brussels.”

What do you take from that? Because this bureaucrats of Brussels and no to big international finance – those two things I’m on board with. But the rest of it is pretty terrible in my opinion. I just am curious what exactly makes up the social political space in Italy that she’s speaking to? What is that divide like in Italy? Why is she concerning herself with that? Is there a major social war going on in Italy?

[00:20:02.230] – Invernizzi

Yeah, well, to be fair, personally speaking, I don’t support Meloni and I don’t support the coalition. This has been said to be fair, me, myself, I’m not as preoccupied as maybe the foreign press is, because I see her being very much normalized and I don’t see her truly making any authoritarian shift or being able to or willing to.

Because when you get actually to the government and when you get a big number at the election, and this is true both for right wing and left wing, generally speaking, you always have the tendency to move to the center, to not be very radicalized. You can say the same, for example, in Spain. So basically she’s not anti EU, she doesn’t have any plan or she doesn’t explicitly say anything about leaving the EU.

She doesn’t explicitly say anything about leaving the Eurozone. The contrary. She says we stay in EU, we stay in the Eurozone and we stay in the NATO. So basically the true framework, political international framework, doesn’t change. And within this framework, in terms of policy, you don’t have enormous space.

This being said, what are in her programs, the things that could be to say anti LGBT, for example, the fact that she said that she wants to provide help to new married couples that are looking for a first ownership of first house. So implicitly those are heterosexual couple or that she will provide support to new married couple that want to have a baby.

But also her implicitly, since we don’t have homosexual marriage in Italy, she’s talking about heterosexual couple, but I don’t see her truly making step in order to limit the freedom of somebody. For example, they tend to be against abortion. Fine. What are they suggesting? They are suggesting to create basically a fund of money, a finance mechanism in order to provide to help the women who want to make an abortion to keep the baby.

So basically the idea is to tell them look, we are going to help you financially if you want to keep the baby. But you see, they never said that they are going to forbid an abortion. Or another thing is that there has been law suggestions some time ago which were basically in a region of Italy, north of Rome, which were basically opposing to bury dead fetus.

So basically that was something in an antiabortion logic, but they don’t get to the point in which they actually suggest to making abortion illegal. And so at the end of the day, I don’t think that in a parliamentary republic, in terms of civil rights, you can make so reactionary a shift so quickly. Maybe I’m wrong.

[00:23:39.130] – Grumbine

Well, it seems like there’s some built in buffers to make sure that that kind of thing does not happen, which is good if you’re looking to keep things as they are. And it can be bad if you’re looking to make change. I guess that brings us to economics.

[00:23:55.450] – Invernizzi

Yeah.

[00:23:56.140] – Grumbine

I’ve spoken to several Italian MMTers over the course of the last couple of years. Warren Mosler has been instrumental in a lot of the discussions from the MMT community within Italy. However, as you stated, Miss Meloni is not pro deficit spending. And as a result of that, we as MMTers understand that there’s some very serious consequences that come from that.

Tell me a little bit about what you envision the economic space looking like in Italy, given what it was like under Draghi and his government and the new coalition government.

[00:24:36.670] – Invernizzi

Yes. Well, first of all, what I’m going to say is very much personal in the sense which is my own opinion, and it’s very likely that other people in MMT France or MMT Italy have different opinions. So take it as a very much personal opinion. So basically now, in this historical moment, Italian economic policy is very much dependent on EU. EU does constrain the policy space and the policy to cover.

Why? Because we don’t have our own currency. Currency is a Euro currency at the level of Eurozone and it has enormous policy implications. So if the European government is in a moment in which they want to push on the austerity, they will do basically everything in order to oblige you to get austerity. And you saw it with Greece.

They elected a pretty left-wing government, they voted against austerity and then they obliged them to do even more austerity than what they refused to do. So, incredible. And the same thing is for Italy pretty much. So what’s the economic policy moment in EU now? In EU with the Covid 19, there has been the cancellation, the suspension of the Maastricht Treaty, so of the 3% deficit limitation.

So basically in a couple days in EU, austerity was not the priority anymore. The ECB started to back the debt of the government. There has not been any interest rate issue because they understood that imposing austerity in the context of the Covid 19 pandemic would have been very dangerous for the European Union Project.

Because I think that if they would have imposed austerity to Italy, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, italy would have left the Union. And it was very clear because one day the ECB – it was a day in which in Bergamo there had been so many deaths that the army were taking all the corpses and carrying them to the cemetery and there were the queue of military trucks full of dead people.

And in this moment, in those days, there’s been Lagarde, the president, the government head of the European Central Bank who said well, it’s not our problem. Our mandate is about price stability. We don’t have anything to do with pandemics. And this was very badly received in Italy by everybody – by rightwing, neocon, and neoliberal people. It was something just unacceptable.

So after two days they completely shifted this course and she said sorry and basically the European government decide to suspend 3% deficit limit. I think that it will be very, very unlikely that austerity would come back in, let’s say, within a very brief period of time. Why? Because the war – after Covid-19 – in Ukraine has been a pressure, it creates a political pressure in order to not impose austerity again.

One, because there are some countries which are making crazy investments in defense, first of all France. And the other reason is that Germany itself, which is basically the core of the European governance dynamics, basically is under tension because it’s very much dependent on Russian gas. On Russia. And this has been so since the times in which East Germany was under the influence of the Soviet Union.

They really have an infrastructure, gas infrastructure, that relies heavily on gas. So basically I think that the German establishment… I would be surprised to see that the German establishment in such a scenario will be willing to impose austerity because I think it could create tension – but tension within their democracy, not elsewhere – within their country.

From this point of view, for example, Italy and France are way less dependent on the Russian gas than Germany. They are still dependent, but not to the same extent. So basically I think that it’s very unlikely that in the short term we will see austerity again or very hard austerity in the EU. And the paradox is that you have the worst things ever, like pandemic or war, which actually are preventing a bad economic policy to occur. Which is austerity.

So it’s very cynical to recognize that because, let’s say, bad policy should be avoided for other reasons. But that’s what I see and there are other events, other things that are pushing in the same direction. For example, this summer has been in Italy very, very dry. It was like, never been so dry. The agriculture was in crisis and the environment was in crisis and everybody could see that.

And also this is something that is calling for state investment, for state spending. So those are all things which are actually I think educating to some extent the public opinion and the establishment to the fact that the state needs to spend in order to maintain and reproduce economic and social structure. And my hope is that years after years practice of not austerity and deficit spending and the fact that there are results – because despite the pandemic and everything the economy is not going bad actually it’s going pretty good.

So I hope that we recognize and see that and that the austerity will not come back as badly as it has been in 2012, 2013. So yes this is a little bit how I see the economic policy scenario.

[00:31:43.310] – Intermission

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[00:32:34.690] – Grumbine

Interesting, in the United States we still are living from the 70s with Volcker and Friedman. They’re cranking interest rates through the roof and that’s having a major worldwide impact on finance, or I should say the state of the economy around the world given the oversized footprint of the US and the lack of understanding most governments have in terms of their fiscal ability to handle and offset things that happen from externalities.

So given the United States pushing for raising interest rates significantly which Warren Mosler says is a core cause of inflation… And then also the United States is waging this proxy war with Ukraine and Russia. I am curious as to what the impacts of the United States actions have been on Italy well.

[00:33:30.700] – Invernizzi

I think that the impact of the United States action has been on all the EU. In the sense that first of all in terms of interest rate the translation is on exchange rate but I don’t think still the interest rate has such a big role in terms of real economic variable. The impact of the United States has been I think mainly with the pushing or creation of the scenario that led to the war in Ukraine because of course the war in Ukraine is not disconnected with the choices that NATO and EU did in the last 20 years.

So I see distress on the real nature of the EU, which is austerity and neoliberalism – that comes from outside the pandemic and war – are connected with the US, to the extent that this war is connected to the US. So yeah. I see it this way. Not in terms of interest rate to be fair. I don’t see this as essential. It would be interesting also to see how the situation with China evolves, in the sense that also a tension between China and the US is a call for investment in defense and investment in defense are in contradiction with austerity.

So I’m not saying that is a good thing but it’s still a push in terms of spending in that area. Then let’s see what happens in Ukraine because also all the call in order to basically include Ukraine into the West that are made, not just by the US but also by European countries, will translate – if the war stops and there is all Ukraine or part of Ukraine that, let’s say, is not taken by Russia – it’s very likely that basically there will be some kind of Marshall Plan or financial plan in order to impose an influence on Ukraine.

And also this is spending… I don’t know if it’s still there, but for example, the Italian Industrial Association, the main industrial association, now, they had until few times ago, they made official quarters in Kiev to be connected with all the spending that the West is likely to do in Ukraine in order to impose some economic hegemony. Then let’s see.

Let’s see how it goes because those historical dynamics are not things that you can actually forecast in the sense that we cannot say how it will end up. And it’s something that creates some instability from a political standpoint. The point is that when you have some level of political instability. For instance, that you are in a situation in which the establishment cannot do whatever it wants without taking into account the cost, because there are tensions.

There are unbalances because you don’t have exactly a straightforward pyramid structure where who is at the top can control everything because there are actually many forces that are in contradiction to one another. In this situation, I think that policy that repress people from an economic standpoint cannot be pushed too hard and this prevents you from creating an extra pressure, the same political pressure that created social tension – that were created some years ago with austerity.

So basically, in order to cope with those external pressures, they are obliged to not reproduce austerity and neoliberalism to the same extent, because it will be too much for the social issue, I think, to keep it will fragilize the socioeconomic structure and create too much instability which they don’t want. I see basically the scenario being like this. And the US has a role in this, because the conflict with Russia is not something that is alien or is completely disconnected with the US at all.

[00:38:21.390] – Grumbine

So as we look at the changing world, climate crisis is a big deal. In my work, which is usually talking to folks like yourself, the vast majority have told me that we have a very massive divide between the global North and the global South in terms of not only energy extraction but also the ability to produce their own goods and services because they’ve been picked apart by the global North to satisfy the global North’s energy needs and production needs.

What is Italy’s position in fighting climate crisis? Does it see it as a problem? Does it not recognize it? And how do you foresee the Meloni government addressing climate crisis?

[00:39:11.850] – Invernizzi

Yeah, well, the environmental sensibility, in general? So the environmental speech, the greenwash dynamic has actually touched pretty much all the political actors that you have in Italy. So you can see an environmental sensibility in all political programs of the parties. Somewhere you will find that there are some phrases, some points which are connected.

So let’s say in terms of generic sensibility, I think that a change has been made since, I don’t know, the 70s, where actually pretty much nobody was caring about environment, just very much a minority which were very much environmental friends. This being said, you can do with a state policy as much as you can spend.

There is a connection between those two things, between the ability of spending and the ability of intervening. And I think that Italy has a pretty limited freedom in this scenario. But it’s true that you have an interconnection between an energy dependency issue and the environmental friendly policy or sensibility there in the sense that something that is underlined very much by the situation with Russia and Ukraine is the importance of not being energy dependent, or too much energy dependent.

So this understanding has been here actually in Italy or so before that, but now it’s even stronger. So the importance of having houses built in order to not consume too much in terms of energy, the importance of adding cars that are less and less demanding in terms of fuel cost, well, this is something that I see is recognized. And there are policies also in this moment, those last years already that took this direction.

And I don’t see this government to make a shift on that. And it’s not just straightforward environmental sensibility, but there is also a very strong connection with the recognition of the importance of the energy dependency issue. So now in Italy, the cost of energy increased a lot, especially for productive firms that use lots of energy.

They really saw the cost of energy increasing two, three, four times then, depending on the mix of energy that they are using, of course. So I see investment in that area, in the area of energy savings, let’s say. And of course indirectly this translates also on CO2 emissions and fossil fuel dependency. Then again, there is a policy of the EU that said that it’s forbidden to produce, basically, combustion means of transport, combustion car that uses gasoline, after 2035.

So basically they made this strong statement. And so this of course had a huge impact on the industry, car industry, because, still, United Europe is close to one half billion people. It’s something about 400 million people now. Okay, UK left, but still, if you take the EU, it’s a huge market. Yes. It’s definitely a huge market, I guess.

So as a market then – it depends from moment to moment, but it’s close to bigger than the US. I think that, yes, it’s very likely that still, with a right wing environment and establishment, there will be improvement in those areas. Again, maybe partially for the wrong reason, but still.

[00:43:44.730] – Grumbine

Accidentally ‘broke clock right twice a day’ kind of thing. With the Eurozone being such a massive market, the US proxy war has tried to say we’ll come help you. And I’ve seen it hurting Germany. What does the long term outlook for the EU look like to you? I know that from an MMT perspective, many, including Bill Mitchell, see it as a neoliberal project that needs to be done away with.

But dropping the deficit issues and providing that policy space, have you seen the necessary changes to make this long term successful or do you feel like the EU presents more problems than solutions?

[00:44:33.400] – Invernizzi

I think EU is not in danger, in the sense that I see the establishment of EU being smart enough, mature enough to make the necessary shift in order to preserve the project. So it’s not as rigid as we may think and as fragile, because of rigidity, as we may think in the past – but is by design an antidemocratic and regressive reactionary project in the sense that EU is neocon, neoliberal in nature.

There’s nothing progressive, pretty much, in the EU. There’s not just an economic issue, there’s a political and democratic issue in a sense that EU is not a democratic institution. What I mean is that truly the decisions are not made in the parliament. The parliament of the EU is a theater. It doesn’t have a role.

In the sense that if the EU parliament is for some reason not willing to vote for a law that the European Commission presented, European Commission can have another way to make it approved without the parliament. So the EU parliament basically is a theater and the true center of power is something that is called Eurogroup. The point is that Eurogroup is not an official institution. It’s something not formal.

So it’s basically like if you have a republic with all the institutions, but then the decision are made at the bar between a group of people which are the head of state and in which the power and weight of one person is connected with the weight of the country is not something which is [inaudible] or which is formalized.

It’s very much arbitrary and it led to the fact that the central and the stronger countries are the ones which are making the policy for everybody. So we can see EU as an extension of the central democracy, an extension of the German democracy and to some extent the French. And then the more you are periphery, the less actually you count.

So yes, to some extent that’s why you can see that Greece to some extent became a colony of Germany because the policies that have been made in Greece are actually more dependent, more reliant on the German politics than on the Greek, at least in terms of economic policy. I see it very much as something regressive and I’m very much against it, but I don’t see it going away soon, at all.

And the only reason why there will be some progress to some extent or there will be no regression, social regression, too much, in EU is not because of EU itself, it’s because of external factors that are making pressure on EU. So yes, that’s very, very sad, a very dark scenario.

[00:47:59.770] – Grumbine

Well, it used to be we gave up our monetary sovereignty. Now it sounds like in many ways you’ve given up control of your own country at some level. That’s got to be a pretty depressing thought.

[00:48:15.010] – Invernizzi

Yeah, well, anyway, you always are influenced by what happened out of your country. So it’s not that it’s fully new in the sense that also before the EU, before the pressure, the constraint of the European Union still, and of course constrained from more generic west area, the US. The NATO, and nobody is truly completely, 100% free and autonomous for what you have outside.

But yes, the point is that here we have a political and monetary constraint. So basically the EU is something that repress, really neutralize, if you wish, the democratic institution in the national space. And I think that’s one of the reasons why it has been made to shift the balance of power within the EU, the balance of power also between classes and between interest.

With you, basically everything became more right wing or more called neoliberal. They have been very successful in creating pro EU culture identity. Many people really identify themselves as European and progressive, for example, which is a complete contradiction. It’s a complete contradiction in the sense that EU in nature is not economically, socially progressive.

Maybe it’s progressive in terms of social right, I agree with that. But it’s this kind of progressive. They sell economic right, economic social policy with some freedom, with work policy. And the left in Italy, actually the left is identified just with civil rights and not anymore in any extent with economic right or economic point issue. Basically they change the scenario.

Basically you have two right wing or a battle between right wing parties and actually the economic policy standard is right wing. There’s no more true discussion. And basically the EU is something that is pushing for that and is pushing for impulse. And again, that it’s neocon in nature. The only thing which basically is I’m seeing, as I told you, is that I live in the richest part of Italy.

I live now in Monte, which is very close by Milan. And this is a part, let’s say it’s still a part, which is very much core in the EU. And what I see is that maybe EU is creating a polarization between the periphery and the core, if you wish, because it’s basically a way for the core to exploit the periphery even more. And I’m in a situation in which I’m a little bit in the middle.

So from a democratic standpoint, it’s very bad. From an economic standpoint, it’s still bad, but maybe not as bad as is it for other parts of my country, of all of the EU, for example, it’s not as bad as for some region in Spain or Portugal where they basically get depopulated.

[00:51:43.610] – Grumbine

Wow.

[00:51:44.400] – Invernizzi

They get depopulated to the point in which you have some infrastructure that are not any more sustainable. This is not the case where I live. The point is that some years ago I would think that the situation would have become worse than what it is now. Actually, my forecast has been different than what I see because I didn’t expect you to cancel deficit limit.

I didn’t expect all these deficit spending coming and also all these expansionary policy in the real estate in order to create less energy dependence building and urban structure. So, yeah, history is actually something that will always surprise us. And to be fair, I learned in those last year that everything can happen still, and the historical direction and path can actually shift pretty fast, way faster than what we expect.

[00:52:46.190] – Grumbine

Thank you so much for this, Ivan. First of all, we can’t wait this long between talks. We got to get it sooner. I love this talk. But second of all, tell us more about what kind of work we can find from you and where we can find more of your existing stuff.

[00:53:03.840] – Invernizzi

Yeah, so, of course, you can find well, the interview that I’ve been making for Macro N Cheese in the past, I think that there’s something very interesting in them. Then I wrote several articles for MMTItalia in Italia, but some are translated in English, and not just mine, but my comrade. And then I wrote an article in French with Robert basically partner in crime for MMT fans, some of which has been translated in English.

And I also wrote a dissertation which basically proposed a model for industrial policy design and implementation, which includes MMT in English. So you can find that online on MMT French website. Then you can find come video of mine here and there on YouTube. But MMT French and MMT Italy are the primary source if you want to read something.

[00:54:05.770] – Grumbine

Absolutely. Ivan, please tell all of our friends, John Luca, Daniela, that I said hello and that I missed them too, and hopefully I can talk to them at some point in the future.

[00:54:16.490] – Invernizzi

Yeah, I will tell them. I was talking with John Luca just few hours ago, and for sure, I will tell them to say hi and thank you again for having me here. It has been a very big pleasure. Something that warms my heart to exchange with you and to know that also very far away, there are people which are fighting for the cause. And sometimes being activists, being MMT is hard. Knowing that still there are other people who are fighting like you, is something that provide you hope.

[00:54:48.420] – Grumbine

Yes. You’re a wonderful man. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for the time. And with that, my friends, this is Steve Grumbine with my guest Ivan in Venice. And this is macro and cheese. And we are out of here.

[00:55:27.090] – End credits

Macro N Cheese is produced by Andy Kennedy, descriptive writing by Virginia Cotts, and promotional artwork by Andy Kennedy. Macro N Cheese is publicly funded by our Real Progressives Patreon account. If you would like to donate to Macro N Cheese, please visit patreon.com/realprogressives.