the people in government would, at least in the medium term, act in their interest ; they did not seek to judge their performance in real time because the common ideological bond reassured them. when the ideologies weakened to the point of almost disappearing and the electorate morphed into the audience of a continuous and never - ending show, political marketing became the only language spoken to the masses by politicians operating in democratic systems, and the only language understood by those masses. today, the conversation between the electors and the elected must be unceasing, uninterrupted and take place through any means of communication, especially ‘ instantaneous ’ ones such as social media. it is worth noting that this does not apply only to economic matters in a narrow sense, but also to other domains of administrative and political action, for example foreign policy. if a country ’ s international relations are constantly exposed to changing public preferences and whims ; if, to give an account of the state of national interests and international relations, storytelling techniques − to be clear, the same as those employed in tv series – become widespread and are used to stir the public ’ s feelings ; if what counts is the short - term audience share, regardless of the actual medium to long term reality of the national interest ; then, a democratic country ’ s diplomatic apparatus will find it harder and harder to influence the action of a governing class interested only in the real - time advertising of its political stance for the benefit of current and potential voters. today ’ s united states of america is a textbook case. 2 does all of this mean that those with technical skills, the high priests of knowledge, are always right and people ’ s representatives always wrong? that overthrowing the synod of high priests and restoring to ordinary people the power to find simple solutions to their problems is always a revolutionary gesture that must be condemned? sadly, no. otherwise, one would not be able to explain the periodic emergence throughout history of vast shifts in opinion or political movements that revolt against the establishment. 3 it is necessary, i believe, to reflect on this point : science ( including economics ) is indeed democratic, 4 but only within its own confines. all those who stand outside of it, that is, the body of citizens as a whole, have to trust the fact that the scientific community has strict rules designed to ensure that it can work to the best of its ability in the interests of humanity. if citizens ’ overall trust is undermined − as can happen in

italian economy is that, when something is produced ( industrial equipment, a legal opinion, a history lesson ), it is not done efficiently enough. in other words, resources are wasted and it costs more to achieve a given level of quality. 5 on average, of course. the differences between one firm and another, between one lawyer and another, between one professor and another, are enormous, but overall the italian economy suffers from a competitive disadvantage and growth gap when compared with other economies. and it has done so for at least the past 20 years. italy knows how to do all manner of things, but it does them, overall, less frequently and less well than it could. 6 this is another reason for the growing and widespread concern about inequality in italy. an economy that grows little over such a long period, economics calls it ‘ productivity ’, but that is jargon i will not use here. giunta, anna and rossi, salvatore, che cosa sa fare l ’ italia ( bari - roma : laterza, 2017 ). where household income in per capita terms is stuck at late 1980s levels, is an economy that offers few opportunities to its citizens, and especially to the young. 7 it is not surprising that two thirds of young people aged between 18 and 34 believe that those who are today setting out to study or work will never attain the same social or financial level as previous generations. 8 there are a variety of reasons for this situation and we will not discuss them here. one thing is certain : the problem cannot be solved by encouraging the state to borrow more. the state can do a great deal in this area by spending better and establishing regulations that promote efficiency. if we wanted to tackle the issue from a social equity standpoint ( and we would be making a mistake if we were to separate this from production efficiency – you have to bake the pie before you think about how to slice it ), once again more debt will not resolve the problem. what we have to do instead is to redistribute taxes between those who have more and those who have less and improve the equalization capacity of many public transfers. today, europe and the markets are first and foremost worried about italy ’ s public debt which, as everyone knows by now, has risen to more than €2, 300 billion, or 130 per cent of one year ’ s gdp. so let ’ s ask ourselves : what does europe mean? what do the markets mean? europe means all the