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Technocracy - Is this the future?

That's what I was wondering - exactly how much power does this new government of technocrats have? Does everything still have to get majority approval in parliament? Is there anything for which they have full executive power?

And is this, at least in part, a way of pushing through austerity without totally discrediting the main Italian parties?

I know next to nothing about how the Italian system works, what legislative checks it has, etc. I'm assuming there haven't been any constitutional changes so they will still have to pass legislation in the same way an elected government would, but how does that work? Is it a straight majority for any and all bills or are there some areas where legislative approval isn't necessary?
 
To quote from wikipedia as they put it rather neatly:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Italy

The main prerogative of the Parliament is the exercise of legislative power, that is the power to enact laws. For a text to become law, it must receive the vote of both Houses independently in the same form. A bill is discussed in one of the Houses, amended, and approved or rejected: if approved, it is passed to the other House, which can amend it and approve or reject it. If approved without amendments, the text ispromulgated by the President of the Republic and becomes law. If approved with amendments, it is passed back to the originating House, which can approve the bill as amended, in which case the law is promulgated, or reject it.

The Parliament votes support to the Government, which is appointed by the President of the Republic and, since 1994, usually led by the leader of the coalition winning the elections, while during the so-calledFirst Republic it was chosen by the secretaries of major parties. The Government must receive a support vote by both Houses before being officially in power, and the Parliament can request a new vote of support at any moment if a quota of any House so requests. Should a Government fail to obtain a vote, it must resign; if it does, either a new Government is formed or the President of the Republic can dissolve the Houses and new elections are held.
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Bring back the technocrats:

29-1.jpg
:)
 
As Frank Zappa so perceptively noted some 30 or so years ago:
The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.

(We) like to talk about (or be told about) democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an inconvenience. We have opted instead for an authoritarian system disguised as a democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.
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I suspect that Italy has reached the point where the illusion is too expensive to maintain.
The rest of the world will follow.
 
chilango said:
Why isn't this absolutely fuckin' massive headline news?
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I suspect because the covert mainstream political/capital expectation is that this may become the normal elsewhere - probably under some EU-wide guidance program - and don'twish to make it appear as exceptional.
 
This is extraordinary.

Am I over-reacting in thinking that this is a really, really big deal?

I know we shouldn't have illusions in liberal democracy, but still...to see it so easily and quietly tossed aside disturbs me.
 
chilango said:
This is extraordinary.

Am I over-reacting in thinking that this is a really, really big deal?

I know we shouldn't have illusions in liberal democracy, but still...to see it so easily and quietly tossed aside disturbs me.
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can yo imagine the screams of outrage if a socialist force boyed democracy off so casually? Bring on the dictatorship of the accountants however and nobody fucking blinks
 
Marx on the 'technical govt' formed in this country in 1852:

In this millennium then we are promised the total disappearance of party warfare, nay even of parties themselves. What is the meaning of The Times? Because certain portions of the Aristocracy have hitherto enjoyed the privilege of assuming the appearance of national or parliamentary parties, and have now come to the conclusion that the farce cannot be continued for the future, because, on the ground of that conviction and in virtue of the hard experiences lately undergone, these aristocratic côteries mean now to give up their little quibbles and to combine into one compact mass for the preservation of their common privileges--is the existence of all parties to cease from this hour? Or is not the very fact of such a "coalition" the most explicit indication that the time has arrived when the actually grown-up and yet partially unrepresented fundamental classes of modern society, the industrial bourgeoisie and the working class, are about to vindicate to themselves the position of the only political parties in the nation?
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I agree with just about everyone's negative opinion on every aspect of this mess.

Italy is now effectively "in administration". The same way accountants move into a failing company and work out whether to strip and sell it, or tart it up and refloat it on the stock market. All the other countries are too terrified of a series of defaults to raise any objection.

But just to look at this side of it in isolation isn't enough. Italy has spent more than it earns. If you get a mortgage whose repayments outstrip your income, you are going to suffer.
 
Idaho said:
I agree with just about everyone's negative opinion on every aspect of this mess.

Italy is now effectively "in administration". The same way accountants move into a failing company and work out whether to strip and sell it, or tart it up and refloat it on the stock market. All the other countries are too terrified of a series of defaults to raise any objection.

But just to look at this side of it in isolation isn't enough. Italy has spent more than it earns. If you get a mortgage whose repayments outstrip your income, you are going to suffer.
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Italy hasn't suffered whilst having a roughly similar level of debt for the last 10 plus years. It is suffering because global capital and the institutions that it has constructed has decided that it must suffer now - for the good of that global capital community. How many of the people who are now going to suffer consented to or benefited from these debts that they now have to pay btw? Is that what you mean when you say Italy - that the poorest in the population now have to pay for the borrowing and political choices of the richest?
 
What do folk think the 'fallout' of this 'government' will be? I suspect that the Italian far-right, especially the likes of CasaPound and Forza Nuova could well make capital out of this. A 'defend Italy' from the bankers tied up with the peculiarities of Italian fascism and it's appeal to the Italian working class using slogans near identical to those used by the Italain Left in the 1970's.
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see those sort of formations attempt a 'defend italy' strategy on the basis of defence of the 1947 constitution, the explicitly anti-fascist constitution. Ideal way to make further inroads into mainstream anti-austerity thought and to separate themselves (in rhetoric at least) from the elite.
 
Fedayn said:
What do folk think the 'fallout' of this 'government' will be? I suspect that the Italian far-right, especially the likes of CasaPound and Forza Nuova could well make capital out of this. A 'defend Italy' from the bankers tied up with the peculiarities of Italian fascism and it's appeal to the Italian working class using slogans near identical to those used by the Italain Left in the 1970's.
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Yes, I think the Eurocrat takeover of mainstream politics will inevitably lead to a nationalist backlash. But the big nationalist parties, the conservatives, they've bought into this game as well, so only the fringe parties will really be able to go on the attack.
 
Forza Nuova have already been organising anti-bank demos here.

Notable that the Lega Nord have explicitly stated that they don't support the technocrats.

I've yet to see a response from the Left. I'm looking though...
 
Random said:
Yes, I think the Eurocrat takeover of mainstream politics will inevitably lead to a nationalist backlash. But the big nationalist parties, the conservatives, they've bought into this game as well, so only the fringe parties will really be able to go on the attack.
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think europe in general will be the new (and potentially more productive) islam for the far right across all of europe
 
Fedayn said:
What do folk think the 'fallout' of this 'government' will be? I suspect that the Italian far-right, especially the likes of CasaPound and Forza Nuova could well make capital out of this. A 'defend Italy' from the bankers tied up with the peculiarities of Italian fascism and it's appeal to the Italian working class using slogans near identical to those used by the Italain Left in the 1970's.
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Not just slogans, but tactics too - zines, occupations, community centres etc etc. Sadly I think you're spot on.
 
chilango said:
Forza Nuova have already been organising anti-bank demos here.
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Yeah, seen some footage of their anti bank 'demos' on youtube.... Interesting that they have to have obvious and visible security though, still that sense that they're not as popular as they claim....
 
They're not.

Posters for said demo didn't stay up long (or at least round our way).

Still pretty explicitly old school (well 70s/80s third positionish) fash. Same with Casa Pound.
 
love detective said:
think europe in general will be the new (and potentially more productive) islam for the far right across all of europe
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They've already prepared the ground for themselves with their theories about the cultural maxist multicultural state. They'll be able to paint a EU that's not only not democratic, but also enforcing cultural genocide against [insert ethnic group]. And the left and liberals will fall into thet rap of defending the EU, as a bulwark against xenophobia, etc.
 
chilango said:
They're not.

Posters for said demo didn't stay up long (or at least round our way).

Still pretty explicitly old school (well 70s/80s third positionish) fash. Same with Casa Pound.
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Pretty sure the youtube footage was in Milan.
 
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