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The market serves consistency and equality

of Pietro Ichino

In many discussions I feel renewed the question posed by Piero Ostellino Michele Salvati, Francesco Giavazzi, Nicola Rossi on the Courier and I of 18 October: "How can the Left to his own conversion to liberalism survive?". I answer with a question in my turn, "How can succeed today if liberalism is not the bearer left to do with it? '. A modern society needs to ensure security for all, can not stand excessive disparities in the well-being. We can therefore allow the free market unless we are able to combine it with confidence and support for the weak. And this is typical of the craft left.

Una sinistra che si proponga essenzialmente l'equa ripartizione delle risorse e delle opportunità, garantendola a individui liberi di scegliere, non può fare a meno della tecnica raffinata di governo dell'economia che consiste nel costruire un mercato libero e ben funzionante, eliminandone distorsioni e asimmetrie: finora non è stata inventata alcuna tecnica migliore di questa. Dove non opera un vero mercato concorrenziale, le ingiustizie sono, mediamente, molto più diffuse e più gravi: «Il mercato — ha scritto il grande economista liberal Arthur M. Okun — ha più spesso subito delle limitazioni per salvaguardare il potere e i privilegi per i pochi che per garantire eguali diritti per i molti» (Equality and efficiency, 1975).

The competitive market, however, has a "political failure": it (does not create, but) shows very accurately the differences in ability among individuals. And these, in the transition from industrial society to post-industrial, are strongly increasing. Since the civilization of a country is measured by how its citizens are poor, there is politically difficult to abandon the old techniques authoritative assurance of equal opportunities, which actually generate income positions on the one hand, the other exclusions, but they a comforting illusion of equality among citizens. Abandon those techniques can only be shown his ability to ensure more effectively support the "losers", their inclusion in the large positive-sum game.

Let's apply this idea in the hot field of work. Today, much of yesterday, work to do there is something for everyone: what creates the false perception of a "labor shortage" is the market failure, also caused by an excess of constraints, placed in an attempt (failed ) to ensure that all minimum standards of treatment. Even in the labor market, the real competition is not given 'in kind', it needs rules, but not the jungle of rules that now make it sticky and inaccessible. In a market that would allow a freer meeting between supply and demand - respect for fundamental civil rights - would sweep away the current unjust division between those inside and those who are excluded from the fortified citadel of the regular work, and the employees themselves would be fired entrepreneurs choose the best and worst . But in that market constraints would increase the reduction of differences in treatment between regular workers, highlighting the inequalities in capacity between individuals much more so than today.

most talented or lucky I earn more, and if they would also benefit the middle band, and the last of the row would not risk the exclusion, but they would risk a low wage.

a real liberalization of the labor market - with all the benefits it brings in terms of social mobility, equal opportunities and promotion of merit - is so politically unthinkable only a system capable of giving strong support to the weakest.

A system of this kind is, for example, what governs the labor market in Denmark: great freedom in the contractual relationship between firms and workers, including freedom of redundancy, but at the same time, high-capacity system to join hands with those who lose their place, guaranteeing continuity of income combined with effective information and guidance services, formazione mirata alle possibilità di lavoro effettive, assistenza alla mobilità. Tutto questo è opera di una sinistra politica: appartiene alla tradizione della grande social-democrazia scandinava.

Oggi probabilmente neppure questo basta più: occorre saper fare fronte a disuguaglianze molto più marcate di quelle tipiche della vecchia fabbrica fordista. Qui le nuove frontiere della «costruzione dell'uguaglianza» sono quelle del reddito garantito per tutti i cittadini fino a quindici anni e del potenziamento della scuola, per combattere la disparità delle dotazioni fin dal suo nascere; quella della contribuzione previdenziale a carico dell'erario per i «bassi servizi», i bad jobs; quella dell'esenzione fiscale totale per i redditi di lavoro bassi. Tutti temi tipicamente propri dell'agenda di una sinistra moderna.
Questo non significa che solo la sinistra possa liberalizzare il mercato del lavoro.
Significa che anche la destra, se vuole farlo davvero, deve imparare a fare almeno un po' il mestiere proprio della sinistra.

fonte: www.corriere.it