Hmmm....  Fifth largest economy in the world…

Per Capita income $45,000.00 ....

No Berlusconi (a member of the P2 Masonic Lodge which organized the “Reds and Blacks” terrorism campaign aimed at destroying Italian constitutional governance); no Mafia; yeah, some ‘ruin’…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy

Compare and contrast…

It must be strange, living in a country you know little or nothing about… >:-}

Regards,

Tony Hollick

One thing is that Italy’s economy has done very badly in the last decade, and (in terms of growth at least) Britain has done quite well. This might be about to change, but recent history would suggest that having become a rich country, Italy hit a wall or a limit as to how far it could grow, and that it is having an immensely hard time getting past this. The relative position of Italy and Britain has changed since Dalrymple wrote the article. And in truth I think it was written on the basis of past perceptions rather than what was really accurate when he wrote it.

The other side of corruption is that in Italy people will be nice to you on a personal basis, but fundamentally you cannot trust anyone. Last time I was there a toll collecctor shortchanged me at a toll booth. You cannot buy a summer home in much of Italy without paying protection money to prevent it from burning down when you are not there. And you cannot function in such a society without becoming morally compromised by doing so. This is a big price to pay.

I think Dalrymple is very clear eyed when diagnosing what ails Britain, but he is rather blind to what is good, and has a tendency to sometimes see other places through rose coloured glasses. Unfortunately, also, he is not very economically literate.

Last time I was there a toll collecctor shortchanged me at a toll booth.

All the Italian toll booths I’ve experienced have been automated. They even bit one a hearty if somewhat electronic “arrivederci” as you go.

Michael Jennings:

Sure, I think that Dalrymple is viewing life in Italy through rose-coloured glasses.  But The ‘take’ on life in Britain is wildly skewed.  Brian over-eggs the pudding, but to say that:

“ Britain has uncorrupt public officials promising, persuasively, to look after everything for anyone who is in any sort of trouble, and the consequent infantilisation and demoralisation of that vast lower tranche of the population supposedly in need of such help.  They don’t arrange anything for themselves, but just sit about waiting for the government to sort everything out for them.”

is exactly the sort of sentiment that wiser minds in the carriage-owning classes used to have in mind when they welcomed the jostling 0f carriages by passers-by registering protests at the foolish and dangerous ostentation of the rich.

Just about everyone in “that vast lower tranche” (shades of Untermenschen!) understands that waiting for the State to provide it is hardly the fastest way to get something.

The simple fact is that Thatcher and her crew set out as a matter of policy to sharpen the social pyramid, immiserating those at the base as part of the price for elevating the “upper echelons.”

When Blair took over, I asked Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute if “New Labour” was “Thatcherism with a human face.”

He replied: “No—just plain Thatcherism: our job is to liberalize it.”

Brian’s (and Dalrymple’s) snobby-sounding Social Darwinism is no way to achieve that objective.

Regards,

Tony Hollick

Michael Jennings is correct that forcing citizens to act illegally if they are to live like human beings inevitably corrupts them and makes them more tolerant of crime.  In italy, for example, you are committing a crime, i.e., abetting tax evasion, if you buy an article for cash at a shop and leave without a receipt because you are enabling the shopkeeper to evade taxes on the profit from the sale.  It is such an ordeal to do things legally in Italy that practically the entire population does some business on the black market, up to and including buying a house.  You can buy a house which was built without a building permit, pay half the cost secretly to the seller, pay the real estate agent in cash and save half his fee, thus saving yourself a large amount of taxes in the process. 

Once the corruption of the people takes hold, it is more difficult for the government to reverse it than to accede to it.  From 2000-05, Italians built 163,000 houses illegally, and why wouldn’t they?  Between 1997-2004, 207,000 illegally built houses had been given amnesty in return for a small fine because the government which had failed to collect the heavy legal taxes was strapped for cash.  The builders of new illegal houses confidently expect another amnesty as soon as the government needs more money, which a government incapable of preventing tax evasion will inevitably need.

The other side of corruption is that in Italy people will be nice to you on a personal basis, but fundamentally you cannot trust anyone. Last time I was there a toll collecctor shortchanged me at a toll booth. You cannot buy a summer home in much of Italy without paying protection money to prevent it from burning down when you are not there. And you cannot function in such a society without becoming morally compromised by doing so. This is a big price to pay.

The simple fact is that Thatcher and her crew set out as a matter of policy to sharpen the social pyramid, immiserating those at the base as part of the price for elevating the “upper echelons.”

Dalrymple’s basic idea is the changes to society brought about by progressive intellectuals has devastated the working classes leading to the social problems we have today - social dislocation, drug use, single mothers, social welfare dependency, etc, etc.

If there has been a decline in social standards in recent years, it is far more likely to have its roots in the eighties than the sixties. It was that decade that saw a blowtorch being taken to the industries providing the jobs that stabilised many working class communities.

What is EITG? (something tells me it’s a dumb question:D)

Very nice comments...thanks for sending such nice thoughts