The process of economic growth, begun in the 50s reached its peak at the beginning of the 60s, characterized, besides, by a strong internal migration from the poor areas of the south to the industrialized areas of the north and by the mass tourism .Especially in July and August when factories are closed, lots of cars move from north to south and from south to north .In addition to these, a stream of foreign cars then (from Sweden, Germany, Austria and France) go to the Adriatic coast(Cattolica, Gabicce, Rimini and Riccione, known also abroad). The foreigners find in Italy a friendly atmosphere, and their arrival favours the national economy.
The young people feel a new desire of liberty. They dream of Amsterdam and London they consider the cities of tolerance and liberty. The new generation is desirous and anxious of its independence and, really in the 60s begins the fashion of "Balere" and of discos, places in which this expresse their desire to be out in the night.
These years are defined as the years of the economic miracle because they are marked by the economic revival of the country, after the war destructions and Italy’s entrance in Europe as an industrialized country, with a growth of the gross domestic product to a rate of 6.5% in the quinquennium 1958-1963. The manufacturing industry tripled its production. A meaningful increase was reached particularly in the iron , mechanic and chemical sectors which were in the van in the renewal of technologies and fittings, and in the sector of the exports, especially appliances and clothing. A generalized climate of trust and of optimism contributed to the image, also abroad, of Italy as a country set off for comfort and economic stability.
Which were the factors of the miracle? Many, of varied nature, either properly economic or social. A favourable international conjuncture, favoured by the adhesion to the EEC and by the free exchange that characterized by then the European economy :at home a notable availability, in the productive sectors, of money for investments due to a low fiscal withdrawal and to an overabundance of handwork at low cost, result of the postwar unemployment and the heavy migration towards the north. Agriculture, in the beginning of the sixties had freed 30% of its workers who flowed in the industrial sector and in that service. The increase in the productivity, the low cost of workers, the adfirmation of the "made in Italy" and therefore the high profits, made Italy a competitive industrial country on the international level and a more liveable country on the social level.Salaries increased, consumptions increased, unemployment decreased, the home market was stimulated and, if we don’t consider a parenthesis of arrest in the two years 1963-1965, the economic growth of the country continued for the whole decade.
What characterized politically the sixties was the entrance of the socialist power in the area of government.
The ideology of center-right, supported by the Vatican and by the American diplomatic environments in the years of the postwar period, that, during the cold war saw the left parties like a dangerous enemy , had built barrier against the hypothesis of widening the democratic base of the country. The economic transformations, the greater political weight of the mass of workers in the factories and greater strength, also political, acquired by the trade unions, laid the or foundations for a government held by ministers from the socialist area.
In ten years the socialist ideology of an intervention of the state in the economic and social sphere that guaranteed fundamental rights in the field of school, of health and of pensions, conquered ample areas of consent in the country and questioned the social, economic and cultural schemes in the country.
The contradictions rising from the transformation of a typically agricultural society into an industrial society, its consequent great articulation,a greater schooling and the growth, not only economic, but also ideological of the population which had previously been excluded from the political debate for historical and cultural reason inflamed ’68 the United States ,Europe and China, with its "cultural revolution" of Mao Tse Tung.
The end of the decade was characterized by a generational political clash that saw the opposition of the students in the universities, then of the factory workers.
The student movement was opposed to the academic authoritarianism and the principle of selection. It assumed a more and more hostile position towards capitalistic ideology and the bourgeois culture and it was opposed to the traditional forms of political representativeness.
The movement preached the principles of "basic democracy "of "egalitarianism"", of "spontaneity" and it also provoked a revolution in the social behaviours that interested the interpersonal relationships, the role of the family and the relationships between sexes.
The movement of workers became the privileged interlocutor, almost natural, of the student movement. Both movements will lead ,in the following decade, to a series of reforms and, in political field, toan idea that which took gradual root..
If we consider the following decade globally, the seventies,we see clearly how these have been characterized by political measures that have their origin in the reforming impulse of the 68
In the seventies the workers movement supported and, often englobed in the action of the trade unions, brought to a sensitive amelioration of the conditions of job and salaries.
In 1970 the institution of the regions was completed. In 1970 the approval from the Parliament of the Statute of the workers that rule and grant he relationships and the conditions of job. was given.
In the December of the same was approved the law that introduced divorce. In 1974 this law was submitted to abrogative referendum from Catholic groups supported also by the democratic political party Against the abrogative referendum also the feminist movement took side to keep law that finally questioned the relationship between man and woman inside family. The negative result of the referendum showed a sign of changein the Italian society, that didn't appear subject to the determinant influence of the Catholic Church. any more.
In 1975 was approved the law that reformed the family laws and that enacted juridical parity between husband and wife and another law that lowered the age for the voting right from 21 years to 18 .
In 1978 the parity of treatment is enacted between men and women, a new conquest of the feminist movement that promoted the new figure of the independent woman. In the same year, after a debate also in the country, Parliament approved the law that allowed the women to abort.
According to the feminist movement this law made women aware of being mothers and prevented them from being victims of clandestine abortions.
In 1978 a law founded a national sanitary system that guaranteed sanitary assistance for everybody.
On the ideological and political level, perhaps the most interesting idea was advanced by Enrico Berlinguer , the secretary of the Communist Party. Berlinguer proposed a historical compromise between communist strengths, socialist and Catholic ones "To give the nation the way to the economic development, to the social renewal and economic progress–he wrote on"Rinascita" the communist magazine in the autumn of 1963 - it is necessary that the communist and the socialist powers meet with the Catholic one giving life to a new big historical compromise." Berlinguer’s proposal ,even if it didn't allow the communist party to be accepted as a government party, because of the ideological opposition of a lot of components from the center and the left, however legitimated the idea of a representative left and the necessity of its presence in the government of the country.
The seventies see therefore in Italy the use ,on the political level, even if in indirect manner, of one of two strengths, extreme right and extreme left, that in the previous decade had remained marginalized. As concerns the right, the extreme right, that represented the party that had picked up the inheritance of the old fascist party it is necessary to say something Such strength, constituted by members of strong fascist belief, will remain "frozen", but compact, up to present times, when the disappearance of the heirs of the fascist ideology and the wind of novelty will allow its transformation in a democratic party of liberal area.
The seventies will be characterized by numerous episodes of bloody violence, that will leave traces and deep lacerations in the Country. This violence will be due partly to Mafia organizations and partly to the terroristic structure (espression used for right and left extremists) that will reach its top in the phenomenon of the Red Brigades.
The dissatisfaction, purely cultural, fed by the unanswered appeals of ‘68 and by a certain corruption in a lot of the government organizations ,gives birth , in Italy, as in France and in Germany, to an armed party, the red Brigades, that enter in clandestinity and ,in the central period of the decade,lead an ideological struggle against the state and its institutions. Even though the decade has also seen a right terrorism that attacked public places with the probable purpose to spread the panic in the country and directing it towards authoritarian solutions, extreme left, more politicized and more organized will affirm itself as a subversive phenomenon. Also for the suggestion from the models of the Latin-American guerrilla and from Palestinian terrorism organized groups were formed, ready to put in practice what had only been a theoretical perspective . At first the phenomenon was judged as an episodic fact and substantially extraneous to most of the Country, but it was to be, instead,for many years, a permanent and destroying element in the Italian political life.
The Red Brigades were in substance a terroristic clandestine organization of extreme left made by intellectual young people who had attended the faculty of Sociology near Trento, young people deriving from the students' movement, from the parliamentary extra groups and from the same parties of the left.
These young people believed that the system could not be modified from the inside and therefore they userd an armed struggle against the State The terrorists considered the armed struggle as an instrument to mobilize the working class in order to overthrow the capiltalistic system and the bourgeois state
"Bite And Run away! Nothing will be umpunished. Kill one to educate one hundred! Power To the Armed People!" these were their slogans. The central years of the decade were so characterized by physical attacks to journalists, policemen, magistrates,members from the enterpreneurial and trade union world politicians in general, who were hit in the legs, in a first time, and killed in a long chain of homicides in a second phase.
The phenomenon, that never succeeded in conquering vast areas of consent in the population, culminated ,in1978 ,with the murder of the most representative politician of the state institutions: Aldo Moro, the secretary of the Christian democratic party and an outstanding figure in the politics of those years. The kidnapping lasted 55 days, also because of the decision not to negotiate Moro’s release in exchange for the liberation of terrorists in jail. In fact the State didn’t want to give in to the Red Brigades’blackmail. The case also required the Pope's intervention. In any case quite a few young people sympathized with the phenomenon. Moro’s murder marked the political end of the red Brigades, whose members were discovered and halted by the police when the country was governed by a socialist prime minister. There began a long chain of arrests favoured by the revelations of the accused who repented and collaborated with the justice in exchange for strong reductions in punishment.
In the economic field it is important to remember the birth of the monetary European System (SME) and the economic crisis characterized by a productive stagnation and by the growth of the public expense which got worse because of the Arabian Israeli war of the Kippur, that provokes the increase of of the oil ‘s priceand therefore a decrease of the industrial production and the start of an inflationary process that will also influence the following decade.
In the eighties Italy underwent a socio-economic transformation which was no less spectacular than the economic miracle of the fifties and the early sixties but enormously different from it, both in the content and in the consequences. The "miracle", with its imposing first migratory flows from the North - East to the North - West, then from the South to the North, with its dramatic pouring from the country to the city, saw the definitive triumph of new urban Italy on the agricultural Italy of the past. The industrial working class, which was maintained as well as oppressed by the mass-produced machinery, emerged like a political subject of primary importance. The Italian capitalism was changing in line with the prevailing tendencies in the economic world . The research big progress in the field of the electronics and their application to the world of the communications marked the beginning of a new cycle of the world economy.No jobs ,no entrepreneurs could ignore the new technological paradigm. Contemporarily, the tertiary sector strengthened its dominion on the structure of the occupation and the gross internal product of the advanced economies. The supply of any services became The ' usual activity of the big majority of the active population. On one side, the advent of the economy of the services involved a meaningful increase in the number qualified and well remunerated jobs; on the other one it offered a big number of precarious and underpaid jobs in working contexts that left a little space to collective solidarity. There followed an inevitable ; the perspective of the full occupation decreased. The economy and the job market were not the only circles of radical transformation. In the same years Italian democracy always faced this challenge burdened by some structural lacks. The most important consisted in the substantial degradation and in the relative poverty of varied regions of the south, and in the adfirmation, in some of them,of powerful people and fierce criminal organizations In an era dominated by the tertiary sector, the existence of public services that mainly worked in an inefficient way. openly meant to jeopardize the performance of the Country. Furthermore there was a diffused corruption: the contribution of the political system to the growth of a culture of the citizen was limited externally. Also The emergency of an educated middle class and criticism, much more numerous and influential than in the preceding decades. At the same time the flowering of a wide and pluralistic associationism, in the South as well as in the North, among women as well as among men introduced its dynamics in the contemporary Italian society. As for the republican State, both the historical formalities of its formation, that had seen the birth of a democratic constitution, and the modern complexity, that made it refractory to the centralizing command, had determined a deep weakness but also autonomies of great importance. None of them would prove more important than magistracy. A minority of examining magistrates would show determination and unusual courage in opposing old habits and traditional compromises, complicity with the mafia and the corruption of the partitocracy. Italy conditioned by Europe has become a better Italy.
Also, perhaps, as a reaction to the revolutionary attempts of the seventies, the eighties have been characterized by a conservative reflux. On the political level it is the decade of the socialist government of the country. From 1983 to 1987 Italy is governed by a government presided by the secretary of the socialist party Bettino Craxi, who will try to affirm a more incisive presence of Italy in the international affairs and to strengthen the role of the executive.On the economic level the country is characterized by a notable vitality contrasting with the official data. The phenomenon of the so-called "submerged economy" grows in these years. The phenomenon consists in a myriad of small enterprises characterized by the absence of trade union controls, mobility of workers, elevated fiscal evasion, but, also by high productivity, by low costs and by a great ability to adapt to the market.demands. The eighties see a notable stability in the political guide of the country and the amplification of the areas of economic wellfare, but also degenerative moral phenomena. An example is given by the political corruption and by the organized gangsterism. The mafia phenomenon , particularly increases its power in this period, above all thanks to the control of the drug market, in open challenge to the powers of the state.
A crisis of ideologies and of the traditional values grows together with the separation between the political class and the society, the distrust towards the parties, the mistrust in the effectiveness of the system. At the end of the decade, new political formations like the Greens and the autonomists of the regional Leagues are born, who found their action on a propaganda against the government centralism, the fiscal system and the political corruption.
In the beginning of the new decade, the nineties, in Italy we see a process of political transformation of remarkable importance. The high level of inflation, the elevated rate of fiscal evasion ,the spreading of corruption at the highest levels, the cooling of the process of economic development, question again the traditional organization of the state.
The 90s open with the demolition of the wall in Berlin and the collapse of the USSR . This involves great consequences on all the world equilibriums.
In Italy we see the collapse of the ideologies that have characterized the politics up to this moment and a slow change within two strong parties: the Christian democratic party and the communist party.
With the passing of time and the abolition of the proportional system we see a tendency to a bipolarism: coalitions of left and right, constituted by a party of reference with about 20-30% of the electors and other parties that share the same objectives and ideologies. Actually the politics of the 90’s appears to be confused: the two poles , left and right,are sided by the center, that, though fragmented, picks up the exponents from the former christian democratic party ; the parties are often melt, they reform the alliances, they change and the governments suffer from this instability.
Around half the decade emerges the phenomenon of the corruption (tangentopolis), that is overcome by investigations and trials.
In the last period of the 90s the European union is achieved also in the economic field.
Italy succeeds brightly in overcoming the problems of debts and inflation, even if the unemployment rate is still serious.
In the nineties Silvio Berlusconi, owner of the Fininvest, an entrepreneur in the field of the media, founded a movement, the pole of freedoms, mobilizing the resources of his organization in the fields of advertising and market research. On November 25th the national association "Forza Italia" was officially born and, before the new anticipated political elections by the end of March 1994, Berlusconi made the decisive footstep, picking up around himself widespread support, thanks also to the so many possibilities of commercial exploitation.
Berlusconi was fundamentally the leader of a neoliberal economic program: fewer taxes, great possibility of choice for the citizens, competition and efficiency in public life, etc.
The coalition of the right wing, was potentially stronger than the left. The means of mass communication and the other resources made the competition quite unbalanced. It promised freedom from the state, from the communists, from the excessive fiscal load. At the end of the elections Berlusconi got a non total victory, enough, however, to gain the majority in the parliament . In fact Forza Italia had become the party of relative majority, and it had triumphed in the North of Italy.
Once in charge of the power, Berlusconi tried to become a strong presidential figure in a deeply reformed Italian political system. But after a thrilling beginning, the experience of government appeared both brief and bitter. The action of Berlusconi was characterized by notable uncertainties, above all the attitude of the government towards the project "the future of Italy in Europe". Strictly connected to this question was the "concertazione", the agreement, between the social parts. Berlusconi's government seemed to ask for too many sacrifices to only one part of the country. On November 4 th 1994 the initiatives of the government provoked the greatest demonstration of the Trade Unions in the history of the Republic. On December 1 st 1994, with the Italian lira falling , Berlusconi abandoned the idea of reforming the worker's pensions, signing an agreement with the Trade unions which underlined the victory of these last ones. Berlusconi met with difficulties also with the courts of law. Notwithstanding the oppositions and the protests against the Government, this passed a bill that set an end to the request of "tangentopoli". the Milanese magistrates declared their total opposition, the allies of Berlusconi hesitated, on July 19 the government withdrew the bill.
Behind these defeats, most of the activity of the government of Berlusconi seemed a failure.
The end came on November 22, unexpectedly, when the prime minister was investigated for corruption. He rejected all charges, accusing the Milanese magistrates of political conspiracy , but without a majority in both the branches of Parliament, Berlusconi delivered his resignations on December 22nd.
After the fall of Berlusconi, the President of the Republic asked Lamberto Dini to form a new executive. This lasted for about a year, and managed to have areform of the worker's pension passed.
The new secretary of the PDS Massimo D'Alema decided then to support Romano Prodi as Prime Minister, a leader not belonging to the left, , who announced his intention to form a new political group, the "ulivo" (olive tree) to challenge the right wing party in the following general elections.
This was made and the new political coalition of center-wing won the new general elections of 1996.
The rest is chronicle and not history. Prodi became the new Prime minister. Today,(end of 1999), the coalition is still in charge of the power, Massimo D'Alema, President of the left-wing party being the head of the Government.
