Foreign media journalists debate with 5-Stars’ inspirer
The founders of the 5-Star Movement, winner of the recent elections in Italy, Beppe Grillo and Davide Casaleggio have time ago commissioned to professor Domenico De Masi, sociologist of the work, among the most esteemed Italian academic in labor issues, a research, entitled "Lavoro 2025"(Labor 2025), on the probable future and prospects of the working world in Italy. The result was a report of over 300 pages that 5-Stars’ Movement’s candidate Premier Mr. Luigi Di Maio described as "the perspective on which the Movement intends to develop its own employment program ". Recently, De Masi met the members of the Foreign Press in Rome, and in this circumstance an interesting debate took place on the most current issues in Italian political and social life, also connected to the interest deriving from the electoral success of a Movement that , in less than 10 years, has risen to the limelight and to the government levers of many Italian institutions.
In particular, many questions have been asked by journalists about the contents of the so-called 'citizenship income' which is one of the key points of the M5S political program. However, De Masi has clarified how his proposal differs substantially from that of the Movement, which would be more accurate to define 'inclusion income'. But this intervention to support income and to seek employment in Italy clashes with the obsolescence of infrastructures that should help in the search for work for which, given the criteria that should guide the measure proposed by the 5S, its realization would become extremely difficult, while the needy cannot wait for years for the employment centers and similar institutions to be reformed and made useful.
To remedy this problem, De Masi stresses that his hypothesis, this definable 'income of citizenship', is a benefit assigned to all those who need it immediately. For De Masi, then "So much so, at this point, to say that all the unemployed take the same amount, regardless of their economic condition. For some it would be an injustice, because the wealthiest would not deserve it. But it is more difficult for them to remain unemployed, and someone would not even ask for it. This, however, is the only way that you can do everything quickly: as long as, when the employer fires the worker, the office is informed so that he will receive income from that day. At least in a first phase, until we realize efficient employment centers, citizenship income is better. The misunderstanding stems from the fact that the proposed law of the M5S was defined as income of citizenship, while it is not ".
Domenico De Masi has elaborated his paradigm starting from the thought of masters such as Alexis de Tocqueville, Carlo Marx, Frederick W. Taylor, Daniel Bell, André Gorz, Alain Touraine, Agnes Heller and arriving at original contents based on research focused mainly on the world of work. He disseminated his ideas through books, essays, articles, university courses, seminars, conferences and radio and television broadcasts. Below are summarized the essential points of its paradigm: post-industrial society, socio-economic aspects, emerging needs, new social subjects, creativity, work, teleworking, creative idleness, leisure time, social and business paradoxes.
For a complete description of the paradigm elaborated and disseminated by De Masi, we refer to three of his texts The fantasy and concreteness, The future of work, Creative idleness, all published by Rizzoli.
During the chat with representatives of foreign media, De Masi also announced the imminent conclusion of his new essay, always on these issues, of considerable effort, being expected by not less than 800 pages!