The Free Market has corrupted the balance between public and private interests: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Lo Statuto dei Lavoratori
Nipawin - Tuesday, October 22, 2002 - by: Mario deSantis
missed strike	My wife Sharon and I came back last Friday night from our trip to Italy. Our British Airways flight left Rome on 8:10 AM of October 18, and we were lucky as an eight hour general strike was just starting 50 minutes later at 9:00 AM.
privatization	My trip to Italy was a very new surprise, as we experienced the social changes which have occurred in Italy and Europe in the last ten years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Le Ferrovie dello Stato (Railways of the State) have been privatized and this private and huge monopolistic business has been renamed "Ferrovie dello Stato S.p.A." that is "Railways of the State, Inc." Now I challenge anybody to make some sense of this manufactured business name "Railways of the State, Inc."!
public utilities	The privatization push has been the dominant public policy of the European Union and I know that the Italian postal service has been privatized as well. This privatization push of public utilities has caused an immediate appearance of creation of wealth, but the seeds for social unrest have been planted and so the regressive need for "Law and Order" kind of governments.
police state	I have watched Italian TV channels and they all portrait a permissive society, a telemarketing opportunity and a societal gambling casino. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a crook who is driving Italy to further become a police state. We have mentioned in the past how this media magnate and politician Berlusconi has been working to change Italian laws to bypass his own criminal charges, and now he is working along with President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, the three Bs of the Free Market, to set privatized regimes around the world and declare private wars against terrorism.
integrity	The business and political integrity of Berlusconi can be appreciated as he says one day
	"we have the duty to follow the United States in a war against Iraq"
	since Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and as the next day he tells Russian President Vladimir Putin that
	"Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction."
citizens become taxpayers right to work	The Free Market has turned into a privatized market for the rich and famous, and as a consequence governments have broken down the social contract to represent the interest of the citizens. Again we have another challenge as I question why the word 'citizen' has been deleted by the present political and economic vocabulary and replaced with the word 'taxpayer.' Today, the Italian government is breaking down the right of citizens to work as per lo 'Statuto dei Lavoratori' (articolo 18) and is pursuing a new labour legislation which facilitates the private abuse to fire employees and which weakens the right of citizens to work. There is no doubt that governments are abusing their power as they forget the meaning of public interest and as they continue to privatize everything in the interest of the rich and famous.
fairness	The private interest has definitely a fundamental role in our daily living, but so is the public interest of justice and fairness.
	Mario deSantis
References:
	Ferrovie dello Stato S.p.A. http://www.fs-on-line.it/gruppo/soc/index.htm
	"L'Iraq non ha armi devastanti"Berlusconi afferma e si smentisce. La Repubblica, 16 ottobre 2002 http://www.repubblica.it/online/politica/italiairaqdue/premier/premier.html
	IL CONTESTO (Articolo 18) Legge e Giustizia http://www.legge-e-giustizia.it/2002%20IL%20CONTESTO/03%20mar/articolo%2018%20St%20Lav.htm
	For Richer by Paul Krugman, The New York Times, October 20, 2002. An interesting article on the American concentration of wealth. http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ForRicher.html
	Upstairs/Downstairs, by Arianna Huffington, October 17, 2002. Another interesting article on the corruption of Corporate America. http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/101702.html
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