The Italian government, led by Giorgia Meloni, has drawn up the draft budget, which is now being examined by Parliament. Four independent institutions, which fortunately remain so – the Bank of Italy, the Institute of Statistics, the Court of Auditors and the Parliamentary Budget Office – have agreed to underline to parliamentarians that the budget, and in particular the reform of personal income tax, favors the upper classes.
The episode invites us to reflect on a recurring substantial trait of the Western far right hidden behind inflammatory rhetoric and distraction maneuvers: being Robin Hoods in reverse, which favor the rich. Something surprising if you consider that so many of them present themselves as irreducible defenders of the simple people outraged by the globalized elites. The truth is that many people on the far right favor the rich and demolish the working classes.
Meloni’s balance sheet is just one example. In Germany, for example, the galloping AfD carries in its political platform proposals for the abolition or reduction of taxes which, according to independent experts, are clearly favorable to the rich. In the UK, Nigel Farage proposed in his manifesto for the last general election a huge tax cut worth €100 billion a year, which would obviously destroy the ability to provide public services. This week he gave a new speech in which, beginning to believe he has real options for achieving power, he spelled out this bombastic approach. But an overlay of sheepskin does not hide the instincts of a wolf.
An interesting case is also that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a leading exponent of the European far right in its most Trumpist/mileist version. His extreme version of the plan to scrap public health and education services in favor of the private sector, brilliantly crystallized in the way his master strategist (MÁR) has his partner (Alberto) on his agenda Chiron) – is evidently a relentless mechanism of weakening the position of the popular classes in favor of the elites, hidden behind the profound cultural depth of the ideology of the freedom of the sticks. Unfortunately, thanks to willing facilitators, manipulation manages to deceive many.
It is curious that Ayuso pointed this out The grapes of wrath by Steinbeck as his favorite book, when it is a devastating denunciation of the abuses of unbridled capitalism and a literary support for the entire great political project of social cohesion embodied by Roosevelt’s New Deal, the antipodes of Ayusism. The reasoning therefore leaves us perplexed, but we must recognize that the literary criterion is exquisite and admirable, since the novel is a true cathedral.
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, of course, Donald Trump is also attributed to the reverse pattern of Robin Hood. His tax reform in the first term unequivocally favored the elites. In the second, the techno-emperors – the richest men in the world – drool indescribably at the prospects that open up to them.
Not all cases are the same. Not everything is disastrous. An objective criticism, for example, must give credit to Meloni for having kept Italy’s accounts in reasonable balance, which was necessary. But this reverse Robin Hood trend is scandalous. There is often the same story behind it. Freedom, deregulation and tax cuts will stimulate growth and bring prosperity to all. The reality is that they tend to bring it more to some: the usual ones. The data of Thatcherism are an eloquent and constant reminder of this. I hope more and more citizens can see what these Robin Hoods do in their Sherwood Forest. It is hoped that, starting from that awareness, those citizens will decide to move, like another forest: that of Birnam, which has advanced towards Macbeth to cut him down.
