The Mind of the Good Ruler: How Empathy Drives Governance

The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Leopold II (1797-1870) did something very peculiar for a ruler of a state: he left us a personal diary. It was a collection of handwritten notes that cover all the period of his rule as Grand Duke, up to when he was deposed in 1859. It was published in 1987. It is a fascinating document (unfortunately existing only in Italian, as far as I know) that allows us a rare chance of a glimpse of how the mind of a ruler works -- in this case a good ruler. 

 

Why are our leaders so bad? Maybe it is us who always choose the worst possible persons for the job? But are they bad at the start, or do they go bananas as things go on? It would be nice to be able to understand what goes on inside the head of leaders, but they are people notoriously capable of cheating just about anyone, including themselves. And the main tool of the cheater is to hide what he is thinking. 

Maybe we could know more if we could have the personal diary of some of those powerful figures, but they don't usually keep diaries. That's probably part of their habit of keeping hidden what they really think. But sometimes we do have documents that open a view for us inside the head of these people. I already discussed the case of Benito Mussolini on the basis of the diary kept by his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. 

Mussolini was an almost paradigmatic bad leader and here I would try to contrast his approach to ruling with another figure of leader who, under many respects, was completely opposite: that of the Grand Duke Leopold II, who ruled Tuscany from 1824 to 1859. And he did something that very few rulers did: he left us a diary of his everyday life throughout all the period of his rule as Grand Duke of Tuscany!

It is a fascinating document that gives us an incredibly detailed view on the life of a person who was in charge of a state of nearly 2 million inhabitants. Of course, it is not the only document we have about Leopold's life. The story is complex and a matter of study for professional historians. What I can say, here, is that I did my best to digest the more than 500 pages of the diary and I'll try to pass to you my impression of the Grand Duke life and personality. And I think he was a good man who did his best. 

Of course, it is not that Leopold did everything right as Grand Duke. On the contrary, his rule could be defined as a failure since, eventually, he was deposed and forced to leave his beloved Tuscany. But note that when he left nobody in Tuscany would even remotely imagine to harm him, to say nothing about killing him and hanging him upside down, as it happened with a later ruler, Benito Mussolini. There is a poignant detail in the story: it is said that the Florentines lined up along the road of the carriage that carried the Grand Duke away and saluted him by taking their hats off and calling him "Babbo" ("Daddy"). In the picture, you see him represented as an old gentleman saying goodbye forever to his city and to his people. 

So, you see? People can recognize a good leader when they are blessed with one. And the basic characteristic of a good leader is that he cares for his people. In other words, it is a question of empathy. A good leader likes the people he leads. 

Contrast, again, with Mussolini as he appears in the notes of his son in law. The aging Duce clearly disliked his subjects, considering them little more than cannon fodder. And not just that, he rejoiced when he thought that Italians were dying of cold. So much that he imagined himself as having caused their death by ordering the reforesting of the Appennini mountains and, as a result, generating a colder climate. Not a joke: it is what Ciano reports and we have no reason to think it is not true. (incidentally, that makes Mussolini the first leader to use a "climate weapon," although he used it against his own people. But that's typical of petty dictators).

Compare with Leopold's kind attitude: it appears so often in the diary that you are forced to conclude that it was genuine, not a construct of state propaganda. The Grand Duke was no populist. He was a truly popular leader. He loved to speak to Tuscans, even with peasants, and to hear their opinions. And he was truly happy when they were happy. As an example, (p. 67 of the 1987 Sansoni edition) he reports how he met a 102 year old peasant who told him, "qui ci stava la fame, Pietro Leopoldo, suo nonno, fece tante cose, la cacciò, e non ci venne più" (here, there was hunger. Your grandfather, Pietro Leopoldo, did many things, chase it away, and now it is no more). 

Another example from the Grand Duke's notes. The straw hat industry had generated prosperity among the Tuscan people, so much that peasant girls who were skilled in making straw hats could "marry without the need of a dowry." ("una giovane che sapesse quel lavoro andava senza dote a marito") (p. 77). Leopold clearly likes that, and that's the more remarkable in an age when the straw hat industry was considered as something subversive as it had brought a certain degree of prosperity to the Tuscan peasants. It was the way he saw the world: he was primarily a family man who enjoyed his role of father so much that he extended it beyond his family, all the way to all Tuscans.

But it is not just a question of feelings: you can be well-intentioned, but also a bumbling idiot. But that wasn't the case of the Grand Duke. He was not just caring, but also a competent manager who personally took care of the everyday details of the government's work. Again, compare with the behavior of a bad leader: Benito Mussolini had locked himself inside a personal echo chamber in which he would hear and care about little more than his own grandiloquent proclaim. And he launched Italy into a disastrous war largely because he really had no idea of the real possibility of the Italian military forces. Think instead of Leopold II: it is clear from what he writes that he has a quantitative, even scientific, understanding of what the government is doing, often relying on the advice of scientists and experts.

Just as an example, in a note of 1851, Leopold describes how a combination of bad weather and pestilence caused a poor harvest and a diffuse famine. He says (p 414) that in some villages "le donne tenevan chiuse le finestre ai bambini per ingannarli perché credessero non venuto il giorno ancora e non domandassero pane." ("the women were keeping the windows shut for the children, in order to cheat them and convince them that the day had not come yet so that they would not ask for bread"). But this is not just a feeling, the Grand Duke is actively looking for ways to import grain to Tuscany, and when ships loaded with grain finally come, he rejoices while listing their numbers and the loads carried. As a final note, he praises not himself, but the Tuscan government for having stuck to a policy of free commerce that had encouraged the delivery of food to the population. He was a modest man not only in what he wrote but in everything he did.

There is a lot more to be said about this document, but that would be out of place, here. Let me just explain how it was that such a good and caring ruler eventually failed and was ousted. That was the result of forces that were operating outside Tuscany. The Grand Duke, although caring and effective as a local ruler, never gives us a hint in his notes that he understood the power game that was going on in the world at that time. 

The "Great Game" as it was played in mid 19th century, involved the Empires of the time competing against each other (then as now). Italy was a weak player in the game, being a patchwork of statelets, That was well recognized by the Italian thinkers of the time, who clamored for a unification that would give to Italy a sufficient economic and military force to become a serious player at the world level. But things weren't simple, they never are. The neighboring French and Austrian empires had all the interest in keeping Italy divided, and eventually partitioning it among themselves. Conversely, the British didn't want the rival French and Austrian empires to expand in Italy and pushed for a unified Italy that would keep both at bay. 

Eventually, the British won the game by one of the greatest masterpieces of diplomacy of all time. In an incredible strategic mistake, the French ruler, Napoleon 3rd, was bamboozled into making war against the Austrians to help Piedmont to conquer Italy. That involved much work by the Countess of Castiglione, said to be the most beautiful woman of her times, while at the same time an agent of the Piedmontese government. But that's another story. The French and the Austrians defeated each other and Italy fell into the hands of the King of Piedmont.

In this game, the Grand Duke Leopold was in a no-win situation. He was from an Austrian family of aristocrats and he could do little but lean on the Austrian side. He tried his best to maintain a certain level of neutrality, but when the Austrians were defeated, he was automatically defeated, too. And he did what he had to do, leave his Tuscany, while maintaining his dignity. I think we can say he remained faithful to his duty as a leader even with this last action.

And that's the story of a good ruler who did his best. How was it that Leopold II was so much better than most of our modern rulers? It is, of course, difficult to extract general rules from a single example, but one thing we can say is that Leopold didn't just become a leader. He was trained as a leader from his early years. He spoke fluently both German and Italian, he studied art, literature, and law, gaining a certain recognition as a literate, author of essays on Italian poetry. He also was very much interested in science, and he studied agricultural technologies. In terms of the intellectual climate of the time, I think he was deeply affected by the "Enlightenment" atmosphere of his age. He may well have read the Book by Antonio Muratori titled "About the Public Happiness" (1749) where the author clearly states that the job of a leader is to ensure the happiness of his subjects. And that's what Leopold seems to have striven to do during all of his life. 

So, shouldn't we train our leaders a little better, instead of choosing them in the haphazard, inefficient, and unreliable rituals we call "elections"? Shouldn't we train them in showing a little more empathy? Probably yes, but a proposal like this one is not likely to go very far, nowadays. 

When was it that we lost the idea that a good leader should be trained as such? Hard to say but, probably, it has to do with the rise of propaganda during the 20th century. Then, leaders learned that the way they appeared was way more important than the way they actually were. Whatever it was, we are stuck where we are. Bad leaders are the last thing we need, but we have plenty, and I don't need to name them.

As a sign of changing times, the good Grand Duke of Tuscany, was the object of a memory removal campaign after he was deposed in 1859. So, there is little left in his city, Florence, that directly reminds us of his presence. One exception is this votive tabernacle on the hills south of Florence. It escaped destruction probably because it doesn't mention the Grand Duke's name, but we know it was him who wanted it erected. On it, we can still read that it was placed there "by a Father and his two daughters in gratitude for having survived a carriage accident." That he didn't sign the dedication was typical of Leopold's personality: he was a modest man who didn't like to show off (just like our modern politicians, right?).

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A comment by

Duen Hsi Yen

The note below was not written for this post, but Dr. Hsi Yen sent it to me as a comment. Indeed, the memories of the Grand Duke of Tuscany transpire a certain aura of Confucianism, a sort of Tuscan version of the Tao Te Ching. And it is also true that the European thought of the 18th century was much influenced by Chinese philosophy. Too bad that there was no Great Wall to defend Tuscany from foreign barbarians!

My father’s beautiful calligraphy, Dr. Ernest Chu Yen. What he taught me about how we care for each other the Confucian way. I’m named after Chu Hsi, 12th century neoConfucian scholar which paved the way for more than 600 years of relative harmony in China before Western powers decided to try to carve up China like they did Africa.

 

 

Translation:

 

When the Great Way prevailed, the world community was equally shared by all. The worthy and able were chosen as office-holders. Mutual confidence was fostered and good neighborliness cultivated. Therefore people did not regard as parents only their own parents, nor did they treat children only their own children. Provision was made for the aged till their death, the adult were given employment, and the young enabled to grow up. Old widows and widowers, the orphaned, the old and childless, as well as the sick and the disabled were all well taken care of. Men had their proper roles and women their homes. While they hated to see wealth lying about on the ground, they did not necessarily keep it for their own use. While they hated not to exert their effort, they did not necessarily devote it to their own ends. Thus evil schemings were repressed, and robbers, thieves and other lawless elements failed to arise, so that outer doors did not have to be shut. This was called the age of Great Harmony (Ta Tung)

The Mind of the Evil Ruler: What Goes on inside the Heads of the People who Govern the World?

The damage that bad rulers can do to people and things is gigantic, especially considering that they command military apparatuses of immense power. But what goes on in their minds, exactly? Are some of them truly evil? Or just criminally incompetent? We'll probably never know for sure, but we have some hints for at least some of them. Here, I am exploring the case of Benito Mussolini, using the diary written by his son in law as a source of information.

There is a sentence attributed to Terry Pratchett that goes as, "the IQ of a mob is the IQ of its most stupid member divided by the number of mobsters." Actually, I think Robert Heinlein said something similar first (although I can't find that quote anymore). In any case, the idea that collective intelligence goes down with the number of the members of a group seems to have some logic in it, although it cannot be said to be scientifically proven.

If that's true, then we have a huge problem. How to manage states formed of tens or hundreds of millions, even billions, of people? A possible solution is to reduce the denominator of the formula to a single, absolute ruler who takes all the decisions. Indeed, it seems that human crowds, dumb as they may be, tend to think that all problems can be solved by someone who "will get things done." 

Unfortunately, the idea of giving all the power to a single big man doesn't seem to work so well. Another quote by Robert Heinlein says "A well run tyranny is almost as scarce as an efficient democracy." (confirmed). You may have read that Trump is a narcissist, Biden is affected by Alzheimer's, Putin by the Asperger syndrome, and that Assad is evil just because he is. The list of mad or evil rulers is long, but what do we know about these people? In practice, very little because they live shielded by a barrier of lies in the form of propaganda and press releases. Even the people who know them well, relatives and close friends, may well be fooled by people who arrived at the top exactly by their capability of fooling everyone, perhaps even themselves.

Maybe, if we could have a diary written by one of these madmen, say, Adolf Hitler, we could understand what made them do the evil things they did. But the manuscript that was claimed to be Hitler's diary in 1983 was a hoax and no dictator of note ever left us a personal diary. It is perhaps a consequence of their personality. As I said, they tend to swindle everybody, including themselves, and a diary would be a weapon in the hands of their enemies.

But there are other possibility: the closest thing to a personal diary written by a dictator is a diary written by a close relative or a collaborator. One such diary was kept by Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of the Mussolini government in Italy from 1937 to 1943. He was not only a close collaborator of the Duce but also a close relative since he had married his daughter. You can find the complete diary in Italian at this link.

 

So, what can we learn from this document? First, note that Ciano was not an intellectual, nor he had any professional expertise. He is best described as a high-rank playboy who had used the money and the prestige of his father, a war hero, to gain access to Mussolini's family and eventually to marry Mussolini's daughter. That, of course, opened up for him a bright career at the top and he was widely considered the most likely candidate to succeed the Duce as Italy's leader. During the period in which he was active as foreign minister, he often acted as the second-in-command in the government. 

Ciano wrote detailed notes of his everyday activities as foreign minister for the whole period of his appointment. Clearly, he was an insider and he knew things nobody else knew. Of course, we don't have to take these notes as completely truthful. Especially in the final pages we clearly detect an attempt by Ciano to distance himself from his illustrious father-in-law and his egregious blunders. Later on, he joined a coup against Mussolini but that sealed his downfall: he was tried and then shot for treason on orders of Mussolini himself. But, overall, it is probable that many details of the daily written document do reflect real events.
 

One thing we learn from Ciano's notes is how haphazardly Italy was run. A country of 45 million inhabitants was steered by people who seemed to carry on, day by day, the best they could without a specific direction. Mostly, the story sounds like a TV soap: the atmosphere in the high echelons of the government was a poisonous mix of gossip, treachery, and abject deference to the great boss. The name of the game was a simple sentence: "Mussolini is always right." Anyone could be demoted to a powerless position if he happened to displease the commander in chief. In 1939, that happened also to Achille Starace, a longtime associate of Mussolini and secretary of the Fascist party. 

Even the great boss, Mussolini, didn't seem to have a well defined plan. He seemed to be thinking that Italy should pursue a policy of territorial expansion and that that was necessary because Italy was a young nation that needed space for its growing population. That could obtained at the expense of the evil and decadent plutocracies that were England and France. And that was to result in the creation of an Italian Empire that would rival the old Roman Empire.

If that was the plan, it wasn't a good plan. Mussolini, just like most politicians, couldn't reason quantitatively and had neither interest nor trust in data. He trusted mainly his intuition and he never understood how badly unprepared were the Italian armed forces, nor how weak the Italian economy was in comparison to that of the powers of the time. Unfortunately for him, he was lucky enough that some of his initial military adventures were successful. And victories don't teach you anything.

Not that Mussolini was a fool, not at all. As a young man, he had been a smart politician and a shrewd journalist. We have his diary during the time when he was in the trenches during WWI and there we find nothing of the warlike rhetoric of his later years. He always kept his head low: no question for him to jump out of the trench and lead a bayonet assault. In 1917, he was lightly wounded by the accidental explosion of an Italian cannon and that was the end of the war for him. It was also a stroke of luck: not only he could gain a reputation as a war hero, but he avoided to be caught in the rout of the Italian army after the disaster of the battle of Caporetto, a few months later. 

20 years later, we read in Ciano's diary how the smart politician had turned into a bumbling fool. Let me translate a few excerpts for you. 

 

Dec 19, 1937. The Duce said: "On my grave I want this epigraph: Here lies one of the most intelligent animals ever appeared on the face of the earth". The Duce is proud of his instinct which he considers, and has actually proved to be, infallible.

Sep 29-30 1938 (Criticizing Great Britain) "When animals are adored in a country to the point of making cemeteries, hospitals, homes for them; when bequests are made to parrots it is a sign that decadence is underway. Moreover, in addition to the many reasons, this also depends on the composition of the English people. 4 million more women. Four million sexually dissatisfied creatures, artificially creating a multitude of problems to arouse or artificially creating a multitude of problems to excite or appease their senses. Not being able to embrace a single man, they embrace humanity ".

June 3, 1939 "I" said the Duce "I am like a cat, cautious and prudent, but when I take a leap I am sure to land where I want.

Dec 24, 1940 – It's snowing. The Duce looks out of the window and is happy that it snows: "This snow and this cold are fine" he says "so the pipsqueaks die: and this mediocre Italian breed is improved. One of the main reasons why I wanted the reforestation of the Apennines it was to make Italy colder and snowier ".

You see what I mean, and there is much more in Ciano's diary. It is like dealing with an old man who has lost track with reality. Yet, as I wrote in a previous post, a post-mortem examination showed that Mussolini's brain was still functional during the last years of his rule. By all means, it was the normal brain of a normal person. What Mussolini's brain had lost was not neurons, but the capability of empathy: understanding and caring for your fellow human beings. 

Empathy requires a certain effort, it is a tool that needs to be sharpened every day. But just as you get fat if you don't exercise your body, you get dumb if you don't exercise your mind. What happened with Mussolini and the Italian government was a self-reinforcing loop. The people around Mussolini soon found that they could keep their position if they never disagreed with the boss. Mussolini, in turn, found that he could easily get rid of those who disagreed with him. And the result was that he was even more surrounded by yes-men who always agreed with him. Eventually, he found he didn't need empathy: he could just order people to do what he wanted. 

It was not just Mussolini's mind that had degraded for lack of exercise. It was the whole chain of command of the Italian government that had degraded in a way that reminds the sentence by Terry Pratchett about the collective intelligence of a group. By the 1930s, the process had led to situation that you could describe as "government by the whims of the boss."

It all became painful clear when, in 1940, Mussolini ordered the invasion of Greece in winter, across the Epirus mountains, with woefully insufficient and poorly equipped troops. We have the minutes of the government reunions that preceded the attack on Greece: it is clear it was the Duce alone who decided to attack and the date of the attack. Nobody dared to oppose his decision. On the contrary, generals competed with each other to state that it could be done easily. A classic effect of groupthink. Disaster ensued, as it should have been expected. 

I think that the key to the whole story is the excerpt from Ciano's diary where he describes how Mussolini rejoiced at the thought of Italians freezing to death. This is not just incompetency or stupidity, it is one of the few moments in Ciano's diary where we see true evil appearing. You might want to picture in your head Mussolini standing near the window of his office, maybe close to a warm radiator, while he rubs his hands together and smiles in a Satanic smile like the character of a comic book. (you may add also the classic Satanic laughter that goes as Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!)

My impression is that, while losing empathy, Mussolini was also gradually losing the moral bonds that keep normal people from being truly evil. He had discovered that not only he could order to kill foreigners as he pleased, but that the more foreigners he caused to be killed, the more he became popular in Italy. So, he proceeded to expand this strategy until, unfortunately for him (and for many others), the idea backfired. Badly. After that a half million Italians had died because of Mussolini's mistakes, you know how he ended, hanged upside-down. Nobody should rejoice at the death of anyone, but it seems that the universe has ways to punish one's worst mistakes.

Mussolini's case is just one that's close enough to our times that we have abundant documentation about it. It is also sufficiently remote that we can discuss it from a reasonably objective viewpoint. The question is: why is it so easily for governments to be hijacked by evil/incompetent/dumb leaders? Unfortunately, that may occur much more often than we would like to think. Are some of our leaders rejoicing when large numbers of mere commoners die because of their actions, just as Mussolini did? I can think of at least one example of one of our prominent politicians rejoicing at the violent death of the leader of a foreign country, and you probably understand whom I mean. 

And what could be the effect on a president's mind of the capability of killing anyone, anywhere, by a drone strike without the need to provide a justification or fearing retaliation? Can you imagine that drone strikes are decided by people who rub their hands together while producing Satanic smiles? We won't know how evil these people really are until much after they are gone, if ever.

The Right-Wing Steamroller: First Trump in the US, then Bolsonaro in Brazil, now Salvini in Italy..... No, wait! Salvini was Defeated!!

A Reflection on the Defeat of the Italian League in the Recent Regional Elections.

The right-wing League has been defeated in the regional elections of yesterday in the "Emilia-Romagna" in Italy. It was a key region, traditionally held by the left. The leader of the League, Matteo Salvini, had made an all-out effort to win there in the wake of the weakening of the traditional political parties, but he failed. It was not just a local event, it shows the weakness of a whole propaganda system and it opens up the question of how social media affect democracy. It is just the beginning of a long story that we'll see unraveling in the future. (BTW, note in the image the Catholic rosary held by Mr. Salvini, part of a hodgepodge of modern and ancient ideas he used for his electoral propaganda).

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Italian League, had focused his electoral efforts on Emilia-Romagna, the Center-North region that was a traditional stronghold of the Italian left. In the wake of the crisis of the left-wing parties in Italy, it seemed possible, even easy, for the League to win there. That would have been a big blow for the central government and would probably have forced new national elections. Then, the League would have won hands-down.

It was as good as any battle plan. But the best plans of mice and men (and of Mr. Salvini) tend to gang agley. Mr. Salvini turned out to be an amateur in the role of the local Napoleon: he overstretched his forces and he was defeated. Now he is facing an uncertain retreat that he won't probably survive, politically.

Of course, the vagaries of local politics in Italy are only of modest interest for the rest of the world (and even for Italy). Yet, I think we all can learn something from the recent Italian elections. What we have seen was an unexpected failure of the recently developed propaganda techniques that brought right-wing parties to victory almost everywhere in the world.

In terms of electoral propaganda, Matteo Salvini had done everything "by the book" to prepare for the elections. His propaganda machine goes under the name of "La Bestia" (The Beast) and it has been operating for a few years in the way pioneered earlier on by Silvio Berlusconi and that brought Donald Trump to the presidency in the US.

The idea is to target the lowest cultural level of the population. Use scare tactics, find enemies of all sorts, demonize them, then promise safety in the hands of a right-wing government. As "ministro degli interni" (ministry of the interior) at the national level, Mr. Salvini had waged a feverish hate campaign against immigrants, communists, leftists, intellectuals, etc. Then, La Bestia used technologies of targeted propaganda on social media, the same pioneered earlier on by Cambridge Analytics. Again, all done in a very aggressive manner, targeting the most sensible fraction of social media users.

It didn't work. The resistance of the left was remarkable: it was the same surprise that Napoleon must have experienced when he found that he couldn't beat the Russians at Borodino. The left in Italy is commonly seen as a spent force but, evidently, it is not, not completely, at least. But, possibly, Mr. Salvini has undone himself by exaggerating with his electoral tactics. Too much screaming, too much hate, too many threats. Mr. Salvini surely has a certain capability of endearing himself with the least cultured fraction of the population but as a leader, well, you could say he looks more like a bus driver. He never had a job, never worked for a living, failed to obtain a university degree. People perceived that the leader of the League really had no plan other than taking power and then, probably, screaming even louder.

One specific mistake that Mr. Salvini may have done was to play down the climate-environmental problem. He did his best to avoid the subject and when he was forced to face it, he tended to slip away using jokes or sneers. He also failed to comment on the general tendency of his supporters to take an aggressive anti-science position, to say nothing about the barrage of insults they directed at Greta Thunberg. Also here, Salvini gave the impression of having no ideas and no plans. He didn't realize that it is no more possible for a politician to ignore climate change.

So, we saw the first defeat of a set of propaganda techniques that seemed to be invincible with Trump, Bolsonaro, and the others. At the same time, we saw the complete defeat and the disappearance of the "5-star" movement (M4S). The M5S was the result of another attempt to use the Internet in the political process. It was based on the use of a platform called "Russeau" that tried to create a shared decisional process -- in some respects. it was the opposite approach of "The Beast."  Like a giant Rube Goldberg machine, the M5S decisional system worked well until it ceased to work.

Surely, the Beast, the Russeau, and other electoral methods will evolve and change on the basis of the experience gained in this and other elections. But, if the Internet is generating a remarkable revolution on the methods used to win elections, it doesn't seem to help much in what is to be done afterward. This problem is what doomed the M5S and would probably doom the League, in case they were to take power in Italy. With all our powerful communication technologies and models, all politics is still based on 4-5 word slogans: "Make America (or Italy) Great Again." A fine idea, but how exactly?

Italian Elections: The Great Five-Star Surprise

Nearly definitive results of the Italian national elections of March 4, 2018. the "five-star movement" (M5s) got the most votes, although the center-right wing coalition (CDX) has the largest number of seats in the Italian parliament. For the center-left (CSX), it was a total disaster. So, what made the M5s party so successful: my impression is that their mode of functioning could be described as  "government by Facebook, for Facebook, in the name of Facebook." Is it our political future?

In several senses, it is not difficult to understand the results of the recent Italian elections. Think of the center-right leader, Mr. Berlusconi, as an older Mr. Trump. At nearly 82, Mr. Berlusconi still tries to play the role of the alpha-male while his acolytes built up a program based on building a barrier against immigrants (not exactly a wall, because there is a sea in between Italy and Africa, but the concept is the same.). The center-right is also pursuing policies akin to "making Italy great again" (or perhaps grate again, if they were referring to Parmesan cheese). In short, the Italian right and the American right are very similar, including such details as allowing citizens to carry firearms.

The left - what remains of it - is represented by Mr. Matteo Renzi, the perfect equivalent of Ms. Clinton, in terms of being both hateful and out of touch with reality. Just like Ms. Clinton, Mr. Renzi and his followers managed to conduct an unbelievably obsolete and counterproductive campaign. The left carefully avoided any references to new ideas or - God forbid! - ideas that could be understood as being "leftist". During the campaign, they gave the impression of being completely dominated by the right, desperately trying to tell voters that they would do the same things that the right was proposing, just with a little extra human touch - maybe. One wonders whether Mr. Renzi was actually paid for the job of finishing off the remnants of the Italian left. It was a necessary outcome anyway, the only surprise was how well the Italian left played the role assigned by the Gods to those whom they want to destroy - that is, of becoming crazy. (at least, however, so far the Italian Dems didn't blame Putin for their defeat(*).)

But how about the "five-star" movement? Who are they? Why did they win? For sure, there is no equivalent of the M5s in the US or anywhere in the West - so far. Their strong point, it seems, was the obsolescence of the traditional political parties. Politicians are widely perceived as thieves and, perhaps worse than that, they are deeply embedded and compromised with the "system."

In the US, the "system" is mainly represented by the military-industrial complex, pushing for more and more money for more and more useless wars overseas. In Italy, there is less emphasis on the military system, but the government is surely embedded with this and other traditional power centers, including the oil and gas industry. Otherwise, how would you explain that the Renzi government engaged in the destruction of the Italian renewable energy industry, killing tens of thousands of jobs? Do this and more idiocies, and eventually, the people will remember that and punish you, if they can.

In the end, Italians seem to have reasoned that their political system is so deeply corrupt to be unrecoverable, at least in terms of the traditional political forces (e.g. the left). So, they rewarded a force claiming to be composed of honest citizens - in a way amateurs rather than professional politicians. And the M5s movement won despite the concerted effort of both the Left and the Right to defame them.

My impression, however, is that there is more than that. The M5s movement may be the harbinger of things to come.Maybe the M5s success will turn out to be short-lived. But the great intuition of the founders of the M5s movement (Beppe Grillo and Roberto Casaleggio) that social media are destined to become more and more important. And that not just as tools for politics. Social media are becoming politics.

If you look at how the M5s movement works, you see that it is unlike anything you would call a "political party." I could say it looks like more like a version of Facebook. No leaders, no plans, no ideology, just a general idea that a networked group of people debate to find the best solutions for the problems we face. It seems to work - it is a new way to manage the system.

Government by Facebook, in the name of Facebook, for Facebook? Maybe.



*Note added on March 9: As we might have expected, Putin has been accused to have meddled in the Italian elections. The task fell on Samantha Power, former UN envoy during the Obama administration, presently in the midst of a scandal involving abusing her of power when she was at the UN. I don'think anyone took that seriously on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. Power's tweet was ignored by the American press and ridiculed in the Italian press in the rare cases when it was considered worth of attention.

Trump and Berlusconi: harbingers of the coming Seneca Cliff

Donald Trump and Silvio Berlusconi have many similarities as country leaders. I argue here that they are the symptom of a giant political transition which is reversing the trends that started more than two centuries ago with the French revolution.  Human rights have a cost and this cost has been paid, so far, by fossil fuels (our "energy slaves"). Now that our dark slaves are leaving us, who will pay? Not a small problem and the result seems to be an ongoing "Seneca Transition" catapulting us to a new and different world. 

After one year of Trump presidency, America looks more and more the same as Italy was when Berlusconi ruled it. I am not going to list the similarities between Berlusconi and Trump: it has already been done and everyone knows about the sex scandals, the outrageous behavior, the offensive way of speaking, all that.

For Silvio Berlusconi, this kind of behavior led him to be prime minister for a total of 9 years, over more than 20 years in which he strongly influenced Italian politics. Today, it looks perfectly possible that, at 81, he may become prime minister again with the coming national elections, in March, replacing the fading star of his heir, Matteo Renzi (aka "Berlusconi 2.0").

Donald Trump uses the same methods developed by Berlusconi and he seems to be attaining a remarkable political staying power. Fighting him, the American Left is making the same mistakes that the Italian left made with Berlusconi: demonizing him while aping his political choices. Actually, the American Left is doing even worse: at least the Italian Left never accused voters to be so dumb that they could be easily swayed by the propaganda tricks of a foreign power. A surefire way to win elections: first you tell voters they are morons, nay, traitors, then you ask for their vote.

But there is a method to this madness. The Left is making the mistakes it makes because it operates on the basis of an obsolete political paradigm. Most of the political struggle up to recent times has been based on a principle discovered first by Harold Hotelling in the 1920s (it is called the Hotelling-Downs model): he who controls the center, wins (it works also in economics and with chess).

There is a problem with this model: it works only if there is a political center. As I described in a previous post, that's not true anymore: today there are two centers and the way to win elections is to occupy one of the two, as Donald Trump perfectly understood. Hillary Clinton didn't and her defeat was unavoidable.

Once you take notice of this double-peaked distribution, it is clear why the demonizing of the man at the top doesn't work: the more you demonize him from the left, the more he is seen a hero from the right. This is also something that Donald Trump perfectly understands, but not the Dems, evidently.

And now, what's going to happen? In a previous post, I argued that political polarization is a necessary reaction of society to scarcity. Here I may add that Berlusconi and Trump are symptoms of a giant political phase transition just starting.

The origins of what we are seeing are in the 18th century when fossil fuels - coal at that time - generated a rapid economic expansion. The political response to the newly gained prosperity was the French Revolution, giving birth to the political movement that we call "the Left." The French Revolution introduced the concept of human rights and, traditionally, the Left has emphasized rights while the Right has emphasized duties.

Having rights is nicer than having duties, but the problem is that human rights have a cost and that this cost was paid, so far, by fossil fuels. Now that fossil fuels are on their way out, who's going to pay?

On this point, the Left has nothing to propose but empty promises and people are starting to understand that. That's the reason for the rise of the political Right everywhere in the world. It is a political phase transition that's wrenching us away from the familiar fossil-powered world and catapulting us to a different world.

Phase transitions are normally abrupt and often violent (part of the concept of the "Seneca Effect").  Surely, the French revolution was violent and abrupt and it would be a miracle if all the problems we'll face in the future will be leaders like Berlusconi and Trump and their heirs. They are verbally aggressive but, so far, not so much in physical terms. They are part of the transition, but they are not causing it and the transition will not end with them.

Where the transition will take us, it is impossible to say. What we can say is that a person who has only rights but no duties is a monster while a person who has only duties and no rights is a slave. Neither condition is appealing and, eventually, we'll find a compromise and settle for something in between. But it will take time.

Why do the Poor Vote for the Rich? Trump, Berlusconi, and the Empire of Lies

Trump and Berlusconi: the rich voted by the poor

The results of the US elections were not so surprising for me; after all, I live in a country where politics has been dominated by a financial tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, for more than 20 years. Berlusconi and Trump share many characteristics, but the most curious one is that they are rich and that the poor vote for them. Why is that? Are the poor stupid or what?

But the poor are not stupid. It is true that they are badly misinformed by the Western media, but they also perceive that they are facing a true Empire of Lies and that they are being lied to, consistently, brazenly, and gleefully. There are plenty of studies (*) showing that people detect lies not on the basis of rational considerations, but on a much simpler test: consistency. They take into account what a person does, not so much what that person says.

In other words, if you want to help the poor and gain their trust, you have to be poor. That's why Franciscan monks wear a brown tunic, pledge to own nothing, and are forbidden even to touch money. If you want to have the vote of the poor, you don't have to arrive at such extremes, but you have to be consistent: what you are has to be in agreement with what you say. And, if you are rich, you shouldn't even try to disguise yourself as being poor. As I said, the poor are not stupid.

That was the problem of the Italian Communist Party that was supposed to represent the workers. Over the years, it came to be led by wealthy people who claimed to represent the workers, but who were not workers; they were at best well-paid bureaucrats; at worst, thieves. Eventually, the workers started voting for Berlusconi en masse and the Italian Communist Party was swept away from history. It turned into the present "Democratic Party," a mongrel that we could define as "Berlusconi 2.0".

Berlusconi was brash, silly, nasty, politically incorrect, a womanizer, and more, but he mainly said what he thought, he was not lying. People perceived that he was not the front man for someone else. Now, over 80 and mostly retired from politics, he could probably come back and win again.

It is very much the same thing for Donald Trump. You may hate what he says, but there is little doubt that he says what he thinks; he is not lying. It was exactly the opposite for Hillary Clinton, who was perceived as having much to hide, despite what she kept saying. And, in the end, it makes sense to prefer an honest son of a bitch to a smooth-sounding liar, no matter how pleasant is what she says. (**)

So, things went the way they should have. One thing that should never surprise us about the future is that it always surprises us. Will we ever learn that?


(*) If you have the time to read the book "Big Gods" by Ara Norenzayan, do so. It is an eye opener in this matter.

(**) Remarkably, it was the right-wing Berlusconi government that created the Italian solar industry. Then, the (theoretically) left-wing government of Matteo Renzi destroyed it. Renzi killed tens of thousands of jobs in the solar industry while, at the same time, maintaining that he was creating jobs. Did I say "Empire of Lies"...... ?