ABSTRACT: Eugenio Scalfari eulogises the conferences of the "Friends of Il Mondo" because they confront the problems of the relations between culture and political organisation; these relations have by now ceased to exist and this has created a rigid political class isolated from the country.

By means of these conferences, Scalfari maintains, various results have been attained, some of them legislative and others which have formed public opinion, which is something very important that should be the task of every modern party. These results have been obtained in the fight against monopolies, in the laws on hydrocarbons, in the school system (even if on this matter nothing definite has been achieved because the situation is very complex), on building zones, central food markets, and finally, energy sources (with the aid of famous experts).

(IL RADICAL No. 1, March 2, 1957)

----------------------------------

(The fight against monopolies, the question of hydrocarbons, schools, central food markets, building zones, and energy sources: these are the issues which the first Radical conferences immediately turned into political action.)

------------------

To explain why the "Friends of Il Mondo" conferences were created, what goals their promoters intend to reach in this way, what unexpected success they had with the public and what an effective tool of pressure on the political class they turned out to have, means to take up a very big problem: that of the relationship of culture and political organisation in our country.

These relations have always been very weak, but for at least eight years one can say that they have been entirely non-existent. Intellectuals, scientists, technicians, if they ever concerned themselves with politics in the first few months following the Resistance, they soon completely withdrew from it. Activism in the parties became more and more a professional matter with the effect of making the political class inflexible, isolating it from independent opinion, deprive it of experiences and contributions, making it hopelessly provincial. From the National Council (3) to the Constituent Assembly to today's legislative assemblies, the decline in quality is and competence is immediately visible. This situation, on the other hand, has nourished a general "qualunquismo" (4) which has spread among the public and led it to condemn with superficiality all political activity as such, thus helping to isolate the political class even more from the country, from the intellectuals and from the technicians. The e

ffects of this divorce have been extremely serious: the political professionals have gone ahead almost blindly during these years in dealing with the complex questions which Italian history has presented to them, without the benefit of a combined vision nor of a concrete and deep study of reality, but always just taking care of contingencies, always dominated by the needs of propaganda and election battles, always naturally inclined towards demagogic solutions. Thus the already far-too intricate knots of the Italian reality in many cases became impossible to untie; thus the established interests have managed to survive and prosper, profiting at the same time from collusion with a part of the political forces and the demagogic superficiality of their adversaries.

A Modern Party

The conferences of "The Friends of Il Mondo" were inspired by these objections, by the urgent need to defend them, to give independent opinion in the country a tribune above the suspicion of collusion and prejudiced aversions, to allow politicians, intellectuals, scientists and technicians in the most various fields to works as groups, overcoming party barriers, diffidence, and rigid political lines. I believe that an even more important aspect of each of these conferences than its concrete accomplishments (which have been anything but negligible) is the method and custom that it has introduced into our political life. Politicians had lost the habit of going deeply and concretely into the single problems, their technical aspects, their economic consequences. They had lost the taste for analyses, for free and rigorous research. In preparing the conferences, those of them who had collaborated were obliged by the working method that had been adopted to rediscover all these things and that they were indispe

nsable tools for serious and directed political work. On the other hand the intellectuals and technicians also learned something. During the preparations for the various conferences it often happened that there was first of all the need to find a common language for the technicians and the politicians. It often happened that the economists, jurists, scientists - all highly expert in their particular fields of endeavour - did not manage to put their particular problem and their specific interest into a scale of priorities, into a general vision of the Italian reality. But it has always happened that in the end these results were finally obtained even if after many months of working together and far from easy efforts.

The conferences, in short, offered on a small scale the model of what a modern party in a free society should be: a propelling organism which works out problems, politicizes them and organises public opinion around them. In so doing, the conferences have also shown up (and this has been their important political contribution) the inadequacies of the party labels, the weaknesses of the traditional political affiliations, the need for Italian democracy to find a new balance of forces, accredited by their attitude towards certain fundamental choices, which has very little to do with their worn-out ideologies and party mythologies.

Five Conferences

And finally there is another interesting aspect which it is worth mentioning: it is the relationship between the "Friends of Il Mondo" and the Radical Party. This is a most singular relationship which goes far beyond the membership in the Radical Party of many promoters of the conferences. The group of promoters (which is at the same time the group of "Il Mondo's" most constant contributors) numbers among itself also quite a few representatives of other parties and political groups. It would be enough to remember the precious and permanent contribution made by the Republican friends La Malfa, (5) Visentini, (6) and Battaglia to the review, and the truly irreplaceable work of Ascarelli (7) to show that the conferences can in now way be considered an extension of any one party's action on a cultural terrain.

But the important fact is this: that the Radical Party, because of the factors presiding over its birth, and even because of its internal structure and the goals it proposes, is the presently the party best equipped to take on the ideas debated and approved at the conferences and turn them into political initiatives, to get for them the commitment and solidarity of other lay and Socialist forces, and finally to bring them up for debate in the right places in Parliament.

Up until now, what have been the practical results of the five conferences held over a period of two years?

The first one was the fight against monopolies, and it had very great political effects. In Italy it was the first manifestation on a large scale of modern liberal thought on the great issue of the decadence of the freely competing regime, on the possibilities and methods for correcting it, on the dangers that the monopolistic development of capitalism presents for democratic institutions. Up until then official liberalism had not escaped from the most equivocal agnosticism. The epoch of the great battles of Viti de Marco, Pantaleoni, and Einaudi (8) was long past, and if a precious teaching still remained from them, nevertheless the problem had greatly changed in the meantime and it was impossible to confront it from the same positions of forty years earlier. The fight against the monopolies had thus entered into the propaganda machine of the Communists, but with a very different spirit and goals on which, however, the identity of the label conferred a forceful attraction for vast layers of non-Commun

ist public opinion.

Initiatives in Parliament

The conference of "The Friends of Il Mondo" marked a distinct victory for Radical liberalism in dissipating a misunderstanding and in vindicating the defence of the market, the consumers, and the operators against the aggressions of the monopolies for the political side which identified out of deep conviction and not for contingent propaganda advantages with those objectives as being the most effective tools for consolidating democracy and freedom.

But the conference also served to clarify the nature of the problem, to unmask several apparently anti-monopolistic initiatives and in substance promoted by those very concentrations of economic power that they said they wanted to combat: I am alluding to the anti-consortium bill presented by the Hon. Mr. Togni and the one of the Hon. Mr. Malagodi (9). It was made clear that legislation against industrial understandings which did not at the same time confront the reform of joint-stock companies was little other than an empty facade. And it was made clear that the policies of foreign trade too, fiscal policies and the control of credit were tools to be used simultaneously and in co-ordination in order to actuate a serious anti-monopoly policy.

These problems were very little known to the Italian public and for the most part treated in a purely propagandistic manner. For the first time they were studied methodically and in connection with a more general political struggle for the moralisation of public life. For the first time the public really seemed interested in the debate. Ever since then the vigilance and sensibility of the public in the face of the pressure of the great interests and their maneuverings have grown exceedingly and to the general advantage.

The consequences of the conference on the legislative level have been important: a bill prepared by the promoters for bringing under the control of IRI (10) the companies with the concessions for telephone services was presented in the Senate by a group of Republican, Social Democratic and independent senators. Another two bills of prime importance were recently presented in the Chamber by the Radical, Republican, Social Democratic and Socialist groups which regard the prohibition of agreements among consortiums and the reform of joint-stock companies. These are two projects which can really accredit a new Parliamentary alliance of which it is already a symptom in the list of parties that have officially decided to support them.

The second conference took up the much-debated problem of the law on hydrocarbons. The "Mondo" group took in this case what we could call a centrist position among the purely laissez-faire demands of the companies in the petroleum cartel and their Italian allies along with the programmes for total nationalisation of the Communists. The bill presented at the conference took into account - unlike all the programmes studied and presented in Parliament up to then by the government or through Parliamentary initiative - the legislation in foreign countries, in particular that of the United States and Canada. The discussion that followed profoundly influenced public opinion and the government itself. After the conference a mission of experts - two young scholars who had collaborated with Il Mondo's initiative - were sent to the United States by the president of the Council to report on the legislation and its practical functioning. The report of these experts as well as a deeper study made by the ministry led

to the famous Cortese amendments which in reality were a totally new project and in great part inspired by the ideas of the Il Mondo group. From these was born the law that was approved by the houses of Parliament and has come into effect.

The third conference discussed the problem of the schools. It had less practical results and this could not have been otherwise: Italian schools are in a very precarious situation where the problems of clerical pressures are joined by those of a seriously superannuated system and services. To improve this state of affairs single bills are certainly insufficient. An entire scholastic policy is needed and even a general policy that reaffirms the supremacy of state schools in education field, that allows for freedom of teaching within the framework of the public programmes, and will raise the financial resources to the level of the highly important task of creating worthy and modern schools in Italy. Unfortunately the field of education is one of the most jealously guarded by the present government majority, even when it might appear that they have given it over to ministers formally enrolled in "lay" parties, as everyone knows very well. But it could reawaken the consciences of teachers and students, stim

ulate the need for renewal, start off a lively and profitable discussion. And this was done to which testifies the great interest aroused by the initiative and the discussion that followed upon it.

Zones and Markets

The fourth conference concerned itself with two extremely topical problems, especially on the eve of the May 1956 municipal elections: building zones and the organising of central food markets. I believe it to be useless to dwell on the former subject: the denouncing of the scandal of the building zones truly is an integral part of all that has been done by the group heading »Il Mondo , by »l'Espresso (11), and by the Radical Party for many years with the result of mobilising national public opinion on this problem. It is legitimate to state that the law for taxing the zones, which is under debate in Parliament today, originates in the indignation that spread throughout the country after the denunciation which the conference emphasised most effectively.

The problem of the central markets and the cost of distribution was in fact something quite new for the public even though it is a very influential factor (and perhaps unsuspected by most people) in the cost of living and the food consumption of the population. In this sector too the conference had remarkable influence inasmuch as it was the starting point for that campaign of criticism which tended to modernise the commercial organisation and the distribution of foodstuffs which still is in effect and which for the most part was accepted by the minister of Industry and Commerce in his recommendations to the local agencies and prefects. There is still much to be done in the markets sector and a second conference on this question might not hurt some time in the future, because it is really a very big problem and entirely dominated by a few unjustified business interests which tyrannise an enormous mass of consumers.

Energy Sources

Finally, the last conference, held just a few days ago, took up the number one problem of modern industrial evolution: that of energy, nuclear energy in particular. This last conference directly connects up to the first one on the fight against monopolies: the adversaries are the same and the interests to be struck at are the same as are the interests to be defended. The group of promoters in preparing for the conference accomplished a very extensive piece of work: dozens of collective meetings were held during which jurists and nuclear physicists, economists and directors of electricity agencies, representatives of municipalised businesses and politicians made a very important contribution to defining the terms of the problem and preparing legislation suited to favouring the development of the nuclear energy industry for the benefit of the collectivity.

It is still too early to calculate the results of this last manifestation, but it has aroused wide debate and great interest. The ideas that the promoters supported there can be either shared or rejected. But one thing one must say since the press of the economic right wing found nothing better to speak of than incompetence and superficial preparation: no event can vaunt having had a more meticulous preparation which was conducted by teams and utilised the most various and authoritative contributions from that of a Giordani to that of an Amaldi (12) and an Ippolito (13), to keep strictly to the field of physics and science.

We claim that this conference, like the others that preceded it, was not a simple polemical initiative. For us polemics are above all else a means of interesting the public in serious and decisive problems for the country's development. Polemics are also a way of counting one's friends on a clear and courageous terrain. And we have the feeling that, having arrived at the fifth of our conferences, the number of our friends has already grown greatly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) »Il Mondo - Weekly review of politics and culture founded in Rome in 1949 by Mario Pannunzio. For seventeen years it was the expression and symbol of hte best lay, liberal, Radical and democratic Italian tradition. A large number of its journalists were among the founders of the Radical Party. It ceased publication in 1966 and started up again by Arrigo Benedetti in 1969. Later it was turned into a weekly economic review.

2) Scalfari, Eugenio - (Civitavecchia 1924) - Journalist, managing editor of the weekly »L'Espresso from 1966 to 1968. Founder and managing editor of the Rome daily »La Repubblica since 1976.

3) National Council - An assembly established in 1945 for the purpose of giving council to the government's legislative activities. It functioned up until the election of the Constituent Assembly on June 2, 1946.

4) Qualunquismo - A very common pejorative term in Italian political parlance, along with its adjective form "qualunquista", to indicate a rejection of the primacy of politics and its values together with an attitude of diffidence towards parties and the party system. The word comes from the name of a journal »L'Uomo Qualunque (The Man In The Street) founded by the writer Guglielmo Giannini in 1944, expression of a movement, primarily in Southern Italy, of the discontent and under-developed masses who identified their problems with the political parties that arose after the war. As a movement it quickly fizzled out, only its name remaining as described above.

5) La Malfa, Ugo - (Palermo 1903 - Rome 1979) Italian statesman, one of the founders of the Partito d'azione (Action Party) in 1942, he later joined the Republican Party (1948) and changed its physiognomy in the attempt to make of it the modern liberal party connected to the forces of production. He was the party secretary from 1965 to 1975 and then its president. He has held several ministerial posts and has been vice prime minister (1974 - 1976). He was one of the fathers of commercial liberalisation after the war.

6) Visentini, Bruno - (Treviso 1914) - An economist, ex president of Olivetti, and a prominent member of the Republican Party whose president he has been since 1979. He was Minister of Industry from 1974-76.

7) Ascarelli, Tullio - (Rome 1903 - 1959) - Jurist and innovator in commercial law studies with his books »Problemi giuridici and »Saggi di diritto commerciale .

8) Einaudi, Luigi - (Carru 1874 - Rome 1961) Statesman and economist, exiled under Fascism, president of the Bank of Italy from 1945, Budget Minister under the fourth De Gasperi government, he held down inflation with a restrictive monetary policy while encouraging reconstruction with a liberal policy. President of the Republic from 1948 - 1955.

9) Malagodi, Giovanni - (London 1904 - Rome 1991) Secretary of the Italian Liberal Party (PLI) from 1954 to 1972. A moderate.

10) IRI - Istituto per la Riconversione Industriale (Institute for Industrial Reconversion) established in 1933 for the reorganisation of Italian industry which was in difficulties. After the war it became the corner-stone of the Italian state-owned industrial system with its financing companies, banks and various agencies.

11) »L'Espresso - A popular weekly review of politics, culture and economy founded in Rome in 1955.

12) Amaldi, Edoardo - (Carpaneto Piacentino 1908) - Nuclear physicist, friend and collaborator of Enrico Fermi during the time of the so-called "Rome school" and one of the principle supporters of European scientific collaboration. Made important contributions to the establishment of the European Council for Nuclear Research.

13) Ippolito, Felice - (Naples 1915) - Geologists, secretary general of the CNEN (Centro nazionale di energia nucleare) from 1955 - 1963, contributed to the realisation of the first Italian nuclear energy plants.