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In July, Italy’s foremost daily, Corriere della Sera, published a short Op-Ed by the distinguished contributor, Sergio Romano, whose reputation comes from his historical essays rather than from having been an ambassador. The title was strong: “The rebirth of a great country. Ethical values of the Germans”. Romano emphasized that in 1870 the immense victory of Prussia in just two great battles of a war with France that Berlin exploited but did not start, launched a well-deserved primacy of Germany in Europe. The Reich which was born in the German space out of many kingdoms and principalities soon asserted itself as the Continent’s most important country, also its moral leader.

Italy for one took Germany as her model in several fields- industrial development, science, socio-political developments. Hitler and WW2, writes Romano, devastated the noble profile of that nation, “so for many years it was difficult to tell Italians about the vast patrimony of cultural excellence, industriousness, economic dynamism, scientific intelligence, philosophical depth, artistic and literary creativity, which Germany accumulated in less than two centuries. An extraordinary Renaissance”. This was so because the whole history of the German nation was marked by the specifically German virtues of seriousness, loyalty, and ethical strength.

Of course, Sergio Romano does not dodge the tragic questions raised by twelve years of Adolf Hitler -he rather underlines that the very moral and spiritual excellence of the national character saved Germany from her crimes, restoring her sanity.

One remark might be added, however: the qualities which make the endowment of the German race are not necessarily the positive ones. Germany is great because of her sins, too. Germans, while possessing the best of inheritances, also possess the worst ones. Luther’s rebellion to the papacy was the triumph of truth over expediency, the heroism of faith against evil. But Martin Luther was incapable of compassion when the German peasants tried to free themselves from subservience to their feudal masters.

The events of Hitler’s last years make it too clear that in specified conditions Germans could behave diabolically. Satan made deep inroads into the German soul. Germans have sinned more than other races, possibly because their minds and hearts were deeper. J.S.Bach concentrated more on higher religious thought in his music than all composers lumped together. Nietzsche, the prophet of new Gods, the last disciple of Dionysus, derided Christ but Tolstoj, the Christian socialist, described Nietzsche as his teacher. Schopenhauer too, even if the latter in his will donated a sum to the German soldiers who had put down the revolution in Berlin.

Germans nearer to our feelings taught us to penetrate the tragedies of modernity. Wrote Alfred Doeblin, born in Stettin 1878: “we must help God”. R.M.Rilke invoked the garden “wo Gott beginnt” (where God begins). Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the noble philosopher and patriot, claimed in 1808 that his people were “the interpreters of the world spirit, the only uncorrupted one”. For Thomas Carlyle, the English historian of the heroes, “pious Germany rose as Queen of Europe”.

Some of the virtues that Sergio Romano assigns to the Germans are shared by other nations. Swedes, for example, are serious, laborious, well organized: but lacking the greatness and the evil of Germans, they are  rather disregarded by history of man. In a way it might be said that Germans would be a humbler stock, if they had not generated mythical figures as opposed as Parsifal and Hitler, Wagner and Rilke.

There was a time when the intellectuals of France, Germany’s hereditary enemy, were deeply impressed, even fascinated, by the glory of the German thought. M.me de Stael had called Germany ‘the heart of Europe’. Notwithstanding the diplomatic crisis of 1840, the French philosopher and minister Victor Cousin kept praising everything spiritual of Goethe’s fatherland. For a period Ernest Renan believed that the real goal of his life had to be working to unite spiritually France and Germany. For Montesquieu  the spirit of freedom was born in the forests where the Germans, ‘our fathers’, lived in the distant past. Everything changed in France after 1870, when Germany triumphed. The French nationalism exploded, two world wars followed.

Nobody will ever be able to belittle the rational component of the German mind. But its irrational component is imposing. Romanticism, one of the greatest phases in the Western civilization, began in Heidelberg when Achim von Arnim launched the small review “Troest Einsamkeit”, “a journal for anchorites”.  Was a great reactionary thinker of France, Charles Maurras, wrong when he concluded “Nationalsocialism is the Islam of the North?

In conclusion, every single word that Sergio Romano wrote on Germany is right. In a very short article he could not possibly elaborate more. But the credits he assigns to such a nation are the bland, sedate ones. The German heritage is neither bland nor overly reasonable. Thomas Mann, before becoming in WW2  a propagandist of the Allied, plutodemocratic crusade, had meditated on the torment and tragedy of the German nature. He argued: “He who would like to transform Germany into a middle-class democracy, would deprive her of the best she is. Germany means abyss”.

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Like many pro-market economists, Prof. Paul Krugman has inveighed against the present attitude of the German political-economic school, which advocates austerity and fiscal sanity as the right way to confront the international crisis. Krugman too believes that budget cuts are  dangerous, that they can suffocate the infant recovery. In the United States, President Obama should do the opposite of what President Hoover did: when, at the beginnings of the Thirties, the Great Depression appeared on the verge of recovery, the White House and the leaders of the financial and banking community thought it wise to stop supporting the economy through federal incentives. The disastrous result, according to Krugman, was that in the U.S. the Depression went on for the whole of the Thirties. Only the Second World War, calling to arms 10 million Americans and requiring weapons on a giant scale, solved the problem of American unemployment. Facts went that way indeed. Pearl Harbor rather than F.D.Roosevelt’s New Deal ended the Great Depression.

If the economy is the science of wealth, the ill-boding of Prof. Krugman may possibly prove right. But is the perennial quest of wealth the supreme goal of the society of man? Growth is not the Absolute Good. In the West today we know much better than in the past. We have experienced a half century of affluence, and we have learned the misery of affluence: so many millions are very poor. We now understand the advantages of the simple life. We suffer the remorse and barbarous inhumanity of wealth. We know many achievements, beyond becoming richer, which would make us happier.

So we should not share the logic of the vast legion of market economists. We should refuse it. We should say no to perennial growth. Just one goal is mandatory -guaranteeing with heavier taxes on the rich a vital minimum to the deserving poor.  Globalization will multiply unemployment, so the market dogmas  must give way to social justice.

Richard Sennett is a renowned American sociologist who happens to be a leftist and the heir of a number of militant Communists. In 1936, his father went to Spain to fight the Francoist insurgents against the almost Communist Republic. Recently, Professor Sennett gave an Italian Communist paper an extended interview at the London School of Economics. The core was: the international crisis will worsen soon because the ‘financial capitalism’ which started it is as unwinnable as the medieval Black Death. When asked what would he do to fight modern day’s Black Death, Sennett answered “I would nationalize the whole banking sector.”

Now, nobody can doubt an LSE academic’s capacity to obey at least some logic. It’s therefore clear: Sennett implies that a true revolution would be necessary so that a strong government is able to nationalize the whole financial sector. Who will ever launch said revolution, after so many centuries of unsuccessful tries at the hegemony of money? Better, one and half centuries after Marx’s Manifesto and almost a century after the apparent victory of Lenin’s revolution?

Nowadays, when the typical compensation of a fair-size corporation is 500 times the one of a salaried person, and when in special cases said compensation can be many thousand times the one of the lowest-paid, the prospect of any serious mitigation of such iniquities are chimerical. Is all hope chimerical?

My answer- the calls to revolution, even to reasonable changes, come from the totally wrong persons. They come from the usual leftist intellectuals, politicians, journalists, film directors and actors. History has taken almost any credibility away from this sort of people. When they speak or write, they may look or sound right. They may even be right. But most people, i.e. entire societies or masses, do not set value on them.

So, a completely different race or breed of humans is needed so that a new tiding or faith is announced. Modern history forbids that a better conception of associated existence may be called socialism. A new name must be found. Let’s temporarily call it semisocialism.

A true anthropological mutation is mandatory so that a different social ideal is conceived, a mutation away from the traditional leftist-progressive type. The missionary of a better faith than capitalism will not be the professional and the ambitious; but the Idealist, the Operator of Good. Aiming at a less-capitalist society,  we must look at different purveyors of models, ideas, ends and means. If we don’t do this, we’ll die the victims of hypercapitalism. Leftists are on the payroll of conservation. A surgeon for the poor, a compassionate nurse, yes. Smart lawyers, committed literati, shrewd congressmen, no.

Many value The Odyssey, Homer’s epic recounting of the heroic adventures of Odysseus (or Ulysses) on his return home from the Trojan war, to be the best book ever written. And the best story of this epic is said to be the narration of the Proci, Latin name of 50 [another tradition says 108] local chieftains of Ithaca, the island kingdom of Ulysses, who were the insolent suitors of Penelope, the virtuous wife of the absent king. Of course, the Proci expected Ulysses never to return from the Trojan war and the subsequent vicissitudes. It was legitimate that each of them would aspire both to marry the beautiful queen and to sit in the royal throne.

The problem was that the Proci, in waiting for Penelope’s choice of a husband, had installed themselves in Ulysses’ palace and, while assiduously importuning the queen, were banqueting every day on the king’s larder. They were squandering the wealth of the king, attended by his serfs.

The story ends with Odysseus reappearing disguised as a beggar in the banquet hall and slaying each of the Fifty (or Onehundredeight) Proci with the tremendous royal bow, the same bow that none of the Proci had been strong enough to draw. Ulysses the Hero was so good at the immense bow as to kill all of them with lightning speed.

In narrating the misdeeds and fateful destiny of the Proci, Homer the greatest of the poets did unwittingly predict what happens today on the political scene of many countries including his own, Greece, and why not, even the United States. However, let’s take Italy. Her politicians are nothing less than Proci who occupied the palace of the King -the King being the People- 65 years ago when the Allies won WW2. Since then they incessantly dissipate  and steal the wealth of the kingdom.

The righteous end of the Italian story should be the King/People coming back and slaying them – i.e. throwing all of them out of power, and the worst ones into labor camps. Then the People should ‘reign’ -exercise the sovereignty himself though some form of selective direct democracy. No more professional robber politicians. No more Proci.

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In the decade before Pearl Harbor the political process of the Rising Sun was dominated both by the competition for influence of the great ‘zaibatsu’, the giant business conglomerates, and by the infighting among activist military groups. Most  men in the armed forces were demanding wars, especially against China, so that Japan, Asia’s most dynamic player, would acquire territories and resources. In 1931, the high command of the Japanese divisions in Manchuria acted on his own and conquered most of the Manchu region, belonging to China.

When, on May 15 1932, a group of officers killed the prime minister who had not approved the conquest, it became clear that the military were now dominant, that the upper echelons of the civil service supported the insubordinate officers, that the parliamentary parties had lost whatever clout they had slowly acquired. From that moment to the catastrophic end of the war against the United States, the military (not only generals, also forceful lieutenants who were willing to use their weapons against political adversaries) did control the government. A few additional killings confirmed the trend.

Today, some observers love to explain the unusual vulnerability of the Japanese cabinets with the aggressiveness of the press, the modern successor to the officer corps. Not many days ago prime minister Yukio Hatoyama resigned, eight months after an historic victory over the Liberals. Hatoyama’s Democratic party was expected to change the erratic ways of the national politics. Now Hatoyama is just another head of government who was ousted from office by press attacks. Exactly as several of his disgraced peers, he has been the target of allegations of financial misdeeds -accepting money from business people or groups. However, Hatoyama confessed an additional fault: he had won the general elections, in part, on the promise of getting back the air base of Okinawa from the US; he was unable to win the American assent. So, Hatoyama accepted the charge of having obtained votes on an empty promise. Possibly ethics still matters.

A number of observers conclude that Japan’s political scene is unduly perturbed by emotions on scandals. They argue, in particular, that corruption is so common in rich nations that the latter don’t usually topple presidents and ministers because of allegations concerning money. The Japanese opinion, they add, takes scandals too seriously. Top politicians should be judged on their management, not on their moral behaviours.

Possibly said observers have a point. But the opposite may be true -that a large enough section of the Japanese society do not accept unethical actions as a normal feature of public life. Once upon a time Japanese samurai took their life for not serving well enough their feudal masters, so violating their code of honor. How can we assert that the disgust at the venality of party politicians is excessive, when such venality is the malignant evil of most political systems of the world? Perhaps we should imitate Japan in not forgiving robber politicians.

Of course only one method is available to delete career politicians -putting an end to a representative democracy which perpetuates the prone-to-corruption professionals of politics.

We lack information on what happened to a certain Mr. Andrew J.Hall, who a year ago was the head of the Phibro energy-trading unit of Citigroup. Considering the importance of his compensation, we certainly hope for him that he keeps the job for an n number of decades. Last August, his contract entitled Mr. Hall to net $100 million for his 2009 exertions. The problem was that Citigroup, the banking colossus his Phibro company belonged to, was losing so much money that the federal government was forced to rescue it with taxpayer’s dollars.

Consequently, the US Treasury Secretary instructed Kenneth Feinberg, a high caliber lawyer, to study how to reduce the nonsensical emoluments of upper officers of  corporations which public money saved from extintion. It was not rational that the man in the street would pay the exhorbitant largesses that in better times the ‘market laws’ assigned to some managers. Said managers – Mr. Hall not included- resulted very good at sinking the balance sheets of their corporations.

As aboveadmitted, we don’t know the  developments that followed the appointment of lawyer Feinberg. Then it appeared that regulating the earnings of some top bankers had become a first priority. The US Congress discussed ad hoc legislation, meant to curtail too high corporate compensations, in given cases: when profits and capital gains are only apparent or openly negative, so public money must be called to rescue companies that are ‘too big to fail’. However, it must be recalled that previous efforts  had to be abandoned, so executive pay rose to offensive highs.

Opponents of  regulation are numerous and combative: the American heritage supports them.  Shareholders whose dividends or even capitals are damaged by the enormous pay packages, tend to excuse overcompensated executives. The lust for dollars is thought to be a sacred birthright, one not to be infringed upon even when the aim is legitimate -protecting the American taxpayer. In fact, slashing taxes in recent years (the top federal marginal rate on the highest earners was 70% in 1980, it is 35% today) has not antagonized the public opinion. Capitalism triumphed on enemies as formidable as communism. Why should hypercapitalism be obstructed by the grievances of the middle-to-lower classes?

Nobody can say when, if ever, the man in the street will perceive the wrongness of some capitalist practices. The religion of the market and of the free initiative is weaker in Europe than in America. But even in the Old Continent top incomes reach  astronomical levels nowadays. Simply put, the man in the street accepts subjection to the moneyed minority. He respects the vested interests of the few. That’s reality: although not a smart one.

The US Air Force’s most sophisticated fighter-bombers, F22 Raptors, cost $350 million each. They are so preposterously expensive (president G.W.Bush purchased 183 of them) that Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense, is seriously trying to stop the F22 program -while the Air Force would want to double it.

The US Navy’s battle fleet of approximately 280 ships is more powerful than the battle fleets of the 13 next largest navies of the world (but 11 out those 13 belong to allies of the US). The naval chiefs are trying to add 50 ships, at a cost of at least $100 billion. In sum, America’s peacetime war budget is larger than the whole of the other military budgets of the planet. This is pathological.

It seems that a serious contrast exists between the military-industrial complex and those circles, headed by Mr.Gates, the supreme boss at the Pentagon, that reject the concept of a perennial growth of defense spending. There is no need to emphasize that the latter circles are definitely not leftist. Loyal to America as they are, they simply advocate a more moderate and realistic vision of war prospects and needs.

The permanent defense burden of the US is so colossal that comparisons are legitimate with the Japanese investments on military power in the half century that ended in 1945. Or, on a tiny scale, to the inordinate defense effort of present-day Greece. These costs are a factor in the de facto bankruptcy of the Athens government. On the other hand, Greece did accompany an excessive defense spending with generous Welfare State payments -more generous than the American ones. Hitler’s Germany too did spend paroxysmally on the military build-up that in six years from 1933 created from scratch Europe’s most formidable army and air force.  However in those years Hitler improved the lot of the German workers so much that they, formerly dominated by Socialist and Communist parties, remained faithful to the Fuehrer to the very bitter end. It cannot be said that America is ameliorating the conditions of the lower class while incessantly building-up the armed forces.

While potential competitors of America do exist, the only true menace that today confronts her is terrorism and/or Islamist fundamentalism. It’s obvious that said adversary is not so powerful as to force, say, the US Navy to enlarge its present immense fleet,which include at least eleven aircraft carriers of the top class. Will the additional 100,000 ton leviathans that some (not all) admirals invoke, discourage suicide attacks by America-haters?

Secretary Gates and scores of top military officers seem to share such disbelief in brute size.  But they suffer the pressures of politicians. Many of the latter represent districts or States where weapons and leviathans are built. A lot of jobs are involved, and some of them are paid three or more times the local averages. Defense lobbyists even argue that the US and the Nato nations must not lose the opportunity of buying a lot of weapons at recession-influenced bargain prices.

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Judging by some appearances (also from some data), Asia’s third largest nation and Islam’s most populated country has settled down to an almost calm, improving reality. Just twenty years ago such a prospect looked impossible. Indonesia was wrestling with overpopulation, poverty, corruption, political turbulence, a too far-flung national geography (from Malacca to Australia) and an excessive ethnic diversity.

This was a land of pertinacious hunger- very big, almost 2 million sq.km., but too rich on mountains, active volcanoes, its agricultural area used to be 9%  of the total surface area. On the island of Jawa (7% of the republic) lives two thirds of the population. Its capital, Jakarta, the seat of central government, numbered around 5 million in 1980; the figure has more or less doubled. Indonesia’s scant plains, with a thousand people per sq.km. (1,200 in Jawa), are among the world’s most populated. When the country became independent its residents did not probably reach 70 million. They are 235 million today.

Present signs of hope are the relative scarcity of terrorism and political violence, a more balanced allottment of power between the central government and the provinces (the latter aggregate some 13,000 islands), plus economic indicators such as the growth of GNP, of foreign direct investments and of per capita income. The worst consequences of terrorism and of the 2004 tsunami have been forgotten. Some observers believe that Indonesia has become ‘a normal country’, while a few years ago she was facing furious separatist insurgence, Christian-Muslim violence, Islamic extremism.

Probably it’s safe waiting a couple of years before taking the above signs at their face value. The least modernized among the three hundred ethnic groups live just a few steps out of the Stone Age. In Iran Jaya, the primitive easternmost frontier, head hunting, cannibalism and tribal wars are recent memories among natives. They still do not need matches to ignite dry grass, also depend on skulls to repel evil spirits from villages. So the astonishing proliferation of skyscrapers in a few metropolises and the 9,5 million cars and motorcycles of Greater Jakarta must not be taken as absolute proof of progress of the whole nation.

Before 1949, Indonesia was a united country just in the Majapahit empire (14th century). From the early 1600s Dutch colonialists dominated an aggregation of kingdoms and principalities. In WW2, the Dutch East Indies were conquered by Japan. After 1945, the Dutch returned in arms, but the nationalists of Sukarno triumphed. A short try was  made at reconciling independence with membership in a sort of Dutch commonwealth; but the exploiting domination of Holland (long based on the so called ‘van der Bosch system’: forced labor) had generated too much resentment. In 1956 the Indonesian republic cut all residual links with the former colonial masters.

Indonesia is rich both in cultural and natural resources. The local capitalists in partnership with foreign corporations are making good business developing the material wealth. Corruption and ecological devastation are inevitable, poverty is still widespread. If political, social, religious strifes do not erupt again, a few of the optimistic prospects will perhaps come true.

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In order to escape bankruptcy, the Socialist governments of Greece, Spain and Portugal have announced harsh measures that will curtail mass salaries and pensions. In a way, they had to do this. The complementary measure required by logic, justice and political sense should be raising taxes on middle and high incomes, so that upper classes would suffer sacrifices equal to those of the lower paid. To a 10% cut on an income of, say, 1,000 euro per month, the cut on 100,000 euro per month should be around 70%, so the pain of the rich resembles the one of the poor. But it’s for sure: none of the above Socialist governments will so punish the rich. Why?

The answer is free market laws do not permit it. Unemployment would soar. The fall of investments and flight of funds would be followed by economic collapse. Higher taxes would discourage bright talents. And so forth. So the Socialist governments will face the emergency in the same way as the conservative ones in Berlin, London and Washington. The defence of modest salaries will protect the extreme bonuses and golden handshakes of Wall Street-like environments.

Such an umpteenth victory of hypercapitalism-cum-consumerism is clearly undeserved. In present circumstances it will unescapably happen. But sooner or later Western societies will have to stop, then turn back the conquests of excess capitalism.

Traditional leftism will not do. In the West true Socialism is a thing of the past. The thing of the future will probably be the further bending of middle of the road liberalism toward a Semisocialist, non-leftist approach which will convince the common people who today elect Cameron, Merkel, Berlusconi and Obama, or do not bother to vote. Such approach must accept some elements of a no-growth philosophy, and even the turning back of economic progress.

Unemployment will be acceptable when less affluent societies will guarantee the vital minimum to the deserving unemployed. The resources to do this will be abundantly found by slashing military, diplomatic and prestige spending; when the flight of investment capitals shall be encouraged rather than ineffectively forbidden -provided their owners and their families and associated are permanently exiled and their comfortable residences expropriated; when the suspension of codes and laws will permit the prompt, severe punishment in labor camps of corrupt politicians; when civil servants will be randomly decimated, i.e. fired one in ten, so the loyal ones will not be tempted to become disloyal, and the convicted felons will see their properties confiscated even when nominally owned by relatives and friends. The cleverness of their lawyers shall be made void. Last but not least, the huge costs of parliamentary democracy will be minimized through the cancellation of electoral representation.

A Semisocialist context will certainly know less affluence. But going back to simpler life will produce happiness. Rampant capitalism has already proved unable to assure opulence forever.

The world is being told that next January 9th a referendum will announce the birth of an additional sovereign State in the black Continent: South Sudan. Not a tiny one: the present, undivided Sudan is Africa’s largest country-2,5 million sq.km., somewhat more than eight times Italy (Sicily and Sardinia included). The Southern portion which is supposed to secede will roughly measure one third of giant Sudan.

South Sudan has got oil, in addition to scant other natural resources, but its capital, Juba, is little more than a large, poor village -a microscopic entity when compared with several African metropolises, Khartoum (the Sudanese capital) included: 1,5 million residents, one hundred times the Juba population.

Before instinctively denouncing as scandalous the appearance of a new ‘pre-failed country’ (the very cost of government, diplomatic representation and inevitable armed services will be such as to make most South Sudanese poorer), we must consider that two civil wars (1955-72 and 1983-2005) killed 2 million people. Even if the worst massacres happened in the Western region of Darfur rather than in the provinces destined to secede, separation is a much lesser evil than genocide.

Sudan’s modern history has often been perturbed by ethnic and racial strife, added to  invasions by expansionist or colonial powers. The Egyptian viceroy Mehemet Ali, born an Albanian subject of the Sultan, conquered Sudan early in the XIX century, built Khartoum in 1823. In 1885, the great revolt of the Faithfuls, headed by the Mahdi, defeated and killed the English conqueror of Khartoum, Gordon Pasha; but the final victory was Britain’s. From 1899 to 1951, Sudan was an Anglo-Egyptian  territory (but Egypt too was part of the British empire), until in 1956 colonel Nasser gave independence to Sudan. After two years a succession of military coups began. In 1991, the Arab rulers introduced the Islamic law, thus hardening the subjection of the Southern populations, non-Arab and non-Muslim.

Agriculture is potentially rich in several districts of Sudan, including the southern ones. Although the true farmland is presently less than 4% of the whole Sudanese territory, large state-owned plantations make the country the eighth cotton producer in the world. Peanuts, sugar cane and sesame production are significant too, the Nile’s water being a decisive factor. Only specialized experts know the size of hydrological reserves of the future Southern nation, but it’s likely that when solar energy will be adequately developed, the economic prospects will improve.

However, the menace of new conflicts still lingers.

Omar al-Bashir, the Islamist head of the Khartoum regime, has publicly promised to accept the secession if approved by referendum, but negative developments may disrupt plans and prospects. The credibility of president Bashir is not high: the Criminal Court in the Hague indicted him for war crimes and crimes against humanity. International observers are not unanimous on such an indictment: it might make Bashir an hero of resistance against Western interference, so another champion of combative Islam.

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