At the end of the day, this sort of constitutionalist analysis by the Italian nomenklatura is pretty much the approach by the Church and its outriders during the high middle ages. This led both to the Henrician dismantlement of the Church in the UK ( to paraphrase "who is in charge in my country if I am not"), the rise of Lutherism (to paraphrase "something that is divorced from the consent of the people cannot stand') and the 30 years war in Europe (Counter revolution), followed inexorably by the hollowing out of the Holy Roman Empire as political gravity shifted away from a supernational polity.
Any politico-economic trend that leaves its 'beneficiaries' standing on the edge of a cliff top (can't grow forward, can't move backwards) will lead eventually to a crumpled body at the bottom of great heights. Of course its logical that the only course of events immediately before that point is to stand on ones tiptoes, windmilling arms to avoid the fall into the void. Of course, it is commonplace to suggest that no one would willingly place ones-self there by choice but these things are best thought about as a series of individual steps without the willingness to look up.
We need an update to that military classic "on the psychology of military incompetence' by Dixon, to the political world!
"In effect Mattarella was repressing debate in the name of unspoken constitutional principles that Italians could have any government they wanted except one that challenged the imperatives of eurozone membership."
Europeans are very much creatures of "the done thing". For people of influence and authority in Italy, like in the rest of Europe, questioning the EU or the eurozone and its architecture is a taboo on the level of standing up in the middle of a High Papal Mass and loudly asking who just farted.
I don't know whether this attitude is the result of the economic logic of eurozone membership, or whether the eurozone architecture itself is what gave rise to this mentality, but there it is. I suppose a good Marxist would say that everything is downstream of economics.
At the end of the day, this sort of constitutionalist analysis by the Italian nomenklatura is pretty much the approach by the Church and its outriders during the high middle ages. This led both to the Henrician dismantlement of the Church in the UK ( to paraphrase "who is in charge in my country if I am not"), the rise of Lutherism (to paraphrase "something that is divorced from the consent of the people cannot stand') and the 30 years war in Europe (Counter revolution), followed inexorably by the hollowing out of the Holy Roman Empire as political gravity shifted away from a supernational polity.
Any politico-economic trend that leaves its 'beneficiaries' standing on the edge of a cliff top (can't grow forward, can't move backwards) will lead eventually to a crumpled body at the bottom of great heights. Of course its logical that the only course of events immediately before that point is to stand on ones tiptoes, windmilling arms to avoid the fall into the void. Of course, it is commonplace to suggest that no one would willingly place ones-self there by choice but these things are best thought about as a series of individual steps without the willingness to look up.
We need an update to that military classic "on the psychology of military incompetence' by Dixon, to the political world!
"In effect Mattarella was repressing debate in the name of unspoken constitutional principles that Italians could have any government they wanted except one that challenged the imperatives of eurozone membership."
Europeans are very much creatures of "the done thing". For people of influence and authority in Italy, like in the rest of Europe, questioning the EU or the eurozone and its architecture is a taboo on the level of standing up in the middle of a High Papal Mass and loudly asking who just farted.
I don't know whether this attitude is the result of the economic logic of eurozone membership, or whether the eurozone architecture itself is what gave rise to this mentality, but there it is. I suppose a good Marxist would say that everything is downstream of economics.