Much of the media, and the analysts on which it relies, have provided a misleading narrative on the current political problems in Italy, following Sunday's "no" vote on a referendum on constitutional changes. It has been lumped together with Trump, Brexit, the upsurge of extreme right-wing, anti-European or racist political parties and "populism," ― which in much of the media seems to be code for demagogic politicians persuading ignorant masses to vote for stupid things. "Stupid things" here is defined as whatever the establishment media doesn't like.
Of course we do not have a detailed map of why various Italian voters rejected the proposed constitutional changes. The most obvious explanation is that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has been in power since February 2014, had promised to resign if the people voted no. This mobilized all of his political opponents, including those within his own party.
Those who wanted to defend Renzi had a hard sell. He was not offering a future for the country, and especially for the young people who most overwhelmingly voted "no." Unemployment is at 11.6 percent, and youth unemployment is more than 36 percent. Of the unemployed, most are long-term unemployed, having been out of work for more than a year. And there are big regional disparities, with parts of the generally less-well-off South having been harder hit since the world recession.
The IMF projects that the Italian economy will not return to its 2007 level of GDP ― what the country produced nine years ago ― until the mid-2020s. In other words, nearly two "lost decades," as the Fund itself noted. This is really bad, by any modern historical comparison.
This op-ed was originally published by The Hill on December 8, 2016. Read the rest here.
Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and the president of Just Foreign Policy. He is also the author of the new book "Failed: What the 'Experts' Got Wrong About the Global Economy" (2015, Oxford University Press). You can subscribe to his columns here.