self-representation. Inter alia, it is sufficient to have a quick look at most ministers' careers within institutions that cannot be neutral about their policies, or at the measures of deregulation, privatisation, and reduction of the will and capacity of the state to intervene in reducing the inequalities produced by the market. Clearly this self-representation as technical government has caught on with the media and beyond. Not only the main national newspapers are critically praising 'Super Mario'. Even the academic institutions, that in the past have carefully cultivated an image of political neutrality, today often provide a political stage for a head of government that claims to be technical. This stage is then used for strictly political and ideologically neoliberal speeches. No doubt, this Italian anomaly contributes in explaining the difficulties to network the multiple streams of protest that exist. Anyhow, this diffuse resistance could contribute to an aggregation and politicisation of the mobilisations, not just through the challenge against specific policies, but also by underlining the political and neoliberal nature of this government. I am wondering what impact this had on the Italian workforce and the labour movement in the 2000s -- my feeling is that it became weaker and weaker, and casualization of labour skyrocketed already before 2008. Furthermore, the Left (but also the Italian intellighenzia) became increasingly obsessed with Berlusconi's persona (hence the Italian 'anomaly'), rather than his dreadful policies (which were certainly more 'corrupt', but not much different from an ideological point of view, than neoliberal policies