We’ve discovered that there are 62 ultra-rich Italians, with a combined wealth of 200 billion euros. That’s equivalent to ten years of financial budgets, more or less. In short, in the hands of a few — Ferrero, Del Vecchio, Armani, Miuccia Prada, just to name a few — there’s enough money to cover a large portion of the welfare system for the rest of Italy’s population: 58,997,201 people minus 62. Let’s congratulate those who have amassed such fortunes, assuming they’ve earned them, if only due to the mechanical workings of genetics.
However, one glaring fact stands out. Our country is not exempt from the global trend that continues to shrink the number of billionaires while widening the gap of inequality. This trend is becoming increasingly pronounced even in Western democracies, where the masses are growing poorer and are left with fewer and fewer rights.
French historian Emmanuel Todd, currently much in vogue, calls our systems “democratic oligarchies,” particularly when we consider the growing number of abstentions in elections. What can we say? We had dreamed of a different world. One wonders what the founders of the guillotine — those who beheaded the monarchy both materially and symbolically and coined the rallying cry Égalité, Fraternité, Liberté — would think of today. Fraternity isn’t doing too well either, freedom we defend tooth and nail, but as for truly being equal, we seem to have largely given up on that.
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