The absence of a significant left-wing formation in the country that had the strongest communist party in the West remains one of the Italian political mysteries, as well as an anomaly compared to the rest of southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Greece) . Today this real or presumed electoral space has become the hunting ground of the 5-star Movement, which presented Mario Draghi with an account entirely on the field of social rights and the defense of the weaker classes.
However, it would be a misunderstanding to think, as some have done, of a new “Labor Party”. That model was based on a homogeneous productive bloc (the working class) at the center of which was precisely work. On the contrary, the 5-star Movement can only try to network different social disadvantages that are not in contact with each other: precarious workers, poor workers, unemployed, neet, minimum VAT numbers, impoverished middle class. Nor does it have a chain of transmission with the union, despite the recent bank game with the CGIL. Nor is it rooted in the territorial intermediate bodies, as Arci, the houses of the people and others were for the old left. Finally, the social demands of the cinquestelle have always been not Labor but, if anything, profitable: that is, based on the idea that robotics and artificial intelligence will eliminate work and therefore wages, therefore the only possibility of saving the production mechanism- consumption lies in an income unhooked from work, taken from the taxation on the profits of digital “over the top”.
Having said that, it remains very uncertain whether that of the cinquestelle is a true identity transformation or just a tactic to avoid disappearing in the next elections. In the first case, a serious and tiring construction would be needed to root a new socio-economic culture and generate a management group that becomes the bearer of that culture in politics. And a daily intertwining with the universe of associative bodies that the movement has so far snubbed in their history, inspired by the opposite principle, that of digital and individualistic disintermediation, would be needed.
The second scenario therefore risks being more likely, that is a short-term social and socialist “turning point”, a marketing campaign in view of the elections. If so, it would be yet another mockery for the base of the social pyramid, for years orphaned of political representation and therefore swaying between populism, abstentionism and ephemeral falls in love with right-wing charismatic leaders.