United in apathy

FOR a moment, it looked as if Spain's protests might spread to Italy. That would have been understandable. Italy too has an electoral system that gives party bosses absolute control over the selection of candidates. It too has a struggling economy and high rates of youth unemployment (29% nationally; in the poor south, it approaches Spanish levels). Unlike Spain, moreover, Italy is a gerontocracy where the young feel politically stymied.

As #spanishrevolution hashtags proliferated on Twitter, they were joined by #italianrevolution ones. But it soon became clear that many of these were written by Spaniards keen to export their protest. Demonstrations were called for May 21st in Rome, Milan and other cities. But the few people who turned up were mostly young Spaniards living in Italy.

Are their Italian peers less dynamic? Maybe. But other reasons explain the torpor. One is that, whereas Spaniards are angry (their economy has gone from prolonged boom to spectacular bust), Italians are simply numbed by a decade of negligible growth.

Another possible explanation is subtler. In both countries young people are victims of a labour system that produces cosseted insiders, who enjoy permanent employment, and bereft outsiders who, if they work at all, qualify only for an infinite series of short-term contracts. In Spain, at least some of the demonstrators seem to have understood that this system is sustained partly by the left and the trade unions; not so in Italy, where liberal economic ideas go almost unvoiced outside business schools. Until they are heard more widely, young Italians will continue to divide between those (mostly graduates) who flee to countries like Britain and America, and those who stay on in the hope of becoming pampered insiders themselves.

A recent survey found that the job most sought after by Italians between the ages of 26 and 50 was that of public employee. In Italy, it would seem, the revolution can wait.