Letter sent to il Corriere della Sera:

Dear editor,

I’m sending you my comments on the article “Structural Counter-reform” by Mario Monti published 22 April.
“In Italy in matters of the economy it is the status quo that rules. An immobility guarded assiduously by those who because of their positions or authority should be promoting reforms, laissez-faire capitalism, authentic market regulation, the strengthening of the controlling Authorities.
Instead they create obstacles for me, who wants to place the economy at the service of the citizens and claim that I want to interfere with a so-called ideal world that regulates itself by magic. People are writing about a Structural Counter-reform being put in place by the State, and about a dark danger.
A partisan evaluation is of itself impossible, because before the Counter-reform, there must be the Reform
I return to the sender, terms like “great mental confusion”, “absence of leadership in the government” and “unscrupulous plans”. The examples of Abertis and Telecom are cited as a deliberate attack on the market by the State, on the sacred rules of the economy. But what rules are they talking about?

Perhaps of the Chinese boxes, the stock options, the mega-salaries, the massive golden handshakes, of the blatant conflict of interests with Directors sitting on six or seven Boards of Directors, of the impossibility for small scale shareholders to have representation, of the investments that are not made even though motorway tolls are increased, of the buying of companies made by casting them into debt?
They forget to point out that in the case of Autostrade and Telecom, what is in the balance are two networks that are fundamental for our country: the motorways and the telephone backbone. Should the State not express an opinion? Well what is the State for?
The market that is so frequently talked about is the usual fig leaf of private interests. Autostrade and Telecom are in fact two monopolies, protected sectors for which the State grants concessions, the market is another thing.
Italy needs economic reforms, new rules protecting small scale shareholders and consumers, to enter true capitalism.

That capitalism that rewards risk capital and sends dishonest directors to prison, as has happened in the United States for Enron.
Recently the Financial Times has published a full page article about the chronic lack of foreign investment in Italy explaining that the main reason for this is the lack of firm regulations.
Italy is the country where false accounting is not punished, where administrators convicted of bankruptcy stay in post. This, dear editor, is the true dark danger.”

Antonio Di Pietro