What is happening in Italy? Old stereotypes have been common in recent reporting of the worsening crisis in the eurozone. These Mediterranean countries with their big state debts, "problems" with criminality and established black economies have frequently been lumped together as the "sick men of Europe": lazy, unproductive, with trade unions who go on strike and people who protest in the streets.
How outdated they are! Yet this kind of analysis is almost useless in helping us understand what is happening in Italy, and why is it taking place now. It also gives us no insight into the deep human costs produced by Italy's current problems.
There is no doubt that the Italian economy is in deep trouble. The huge state debt has been in place for decades. Savage cuts have hit the education and the university sector. Many young people find it almost impossible to find stable work, thanks to a massive increase in the flexible nature of the labour market, something that has been pushed by governments of both the left and right in the 1990s and 2000s.
As a result, a whole generation is being systematically excluded from professional work and state institutions. The brightest minds have left, but many highly talented Italians still work for nothing in the vain hope of a future post. I know many brilliant historians who have published books and articles of the highest quality, but who are effectively unemployed right into their 40s and 50s, and are forced to humiliate themselves by hanging on to their patron's coat tails for years. Italy has always been something of a gerontocracy, but this tendency has worsened considerable in recent times.
For more: Silvio Berlusconi may have screwed Europe – not just Italy | John Foot | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
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