How Might a Technocracy Govern Italy's Steady-State Economy?

How will a Steady-State Economy be run?

Italy has had a number of Technocratic Governments and the Italian Constitution allows for "...a cabinet (Council of Ministers) made up of experts not officially affiliated to any political party or political coalition (Wikipedia)." One criticism of Technocratic Governments is that they are anti-Democratic. Allowing all decisions to be made by Technocrats is extreme and unnecessary. But, how to decide which decisions might be given over to Technocrats? This blog posting investigates the question.

Italy is already on the way be being a Steady-State Society (see the graphic above, especially the IT1 state-space component). The path of least resistance would be for a technocratic government to facilitate the steady state and focus on the important historical controllers (IT2 and IT3).

• To manage IT1 (Growth), select Ecological Economists, not Monetary or Neoclassical Growth Economists.
• To manage IT2 (KOF-HDI-LU-EF), select Alter-Globalists and Environmentalists. 
• To manage IT3 (LU-N-CO2-EG), select Green Economists and Environmental Scientists.

There are a wide range of experts to choose from in areas that will help Italy reach a Steady-State Economy. Notice particularly that the Historical Controllers (IT2 and IT3) allow for balanced Globalization, Population growth and Energy use. Radical solutions are not needed at this point in Italian Development  and all aspects of Political Development need not be given over to Technocrats.

 

Notes

You can run the ITL20 Model in R-code (here). For more of my posts see Blog Roll: Italy, the Boiler Plate and the Introduction to State Space Models.

Questions

1. Can a Technocratic Government coexist with Democracy?
2. What form of government (Democratic, Socialist, Communist, Mixed or Technocratic) government might be best for a Steady-State Economy?
3. Can a Technocratic Government can become legitimate or will it always loose legitimacy and fail?
4. In a mixed government, which functions are best if run by Technocrats?

Wikipedia Links

• Green Economists  advocates of an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment.
• Environmentalists  a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. 
• Alter-Globalists a social movement whose proponents support global cooperation and interaction, but oppose what they describe as the negative effects of economic globalization, considering it to often work to the detriment of, or to not adequately promote, human values such as environmental and climate protection, economic justice, labor protection, protection of indigenous cultures, peace and civil liberties. The movement is related to the global justice movement.
• The Economy of Italy a highly developed social market economy. It is the third-largest national economy in the European Union, the 8th-largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, and the 12th-largest by PPP-adjusted GDP
• The Economy of Fascist Italy the economy in the Kingdom of Italy during the Fascist period.
• The Politics of Italy conducted through a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. Italy has been a democratic republic since 2 June 1946.
• The History of Italy inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic. During antiquity, there were many peoples in the Italian peninsula, including Etruscans, Latins, Samnites, Umbri, Cisalpine Gauls, Greeks in Magna Graecia and others.
• Giorgia Meloni an Italian politician who serves as Prime Minister of Italy since October 2022. She is the first woman to hold the office and the head of the third-longest government in the history of the Italian Republic.
• Technocratic Government in Italy (Italian: governo tecnocratico), also called technical government (governo tecnico), government of technicians (governo dei tecnici), or government of experts (governo degli esperti), is the term used to refer to a cabinet (Council of Ministers) made up of experts not officially affiliated to any political party or political coalition. This is probably Italy's best hope, politically, for managing a Steady-State Economy.

ITL20 Measurement Model

The IT_L20 Model State Space has three components that explain 97.3% of the variation in the indicators which are taken from the World Development Indicators. The first component, IT1 = (Overall Growth). The second component, IT2, is an historical controller balancing the KOF Index of Globalization and Human Development Index against Unemployment and the Ecological Footprint, (KOF+HDI-LU-EF). The third component, IT3, is another historical controller balancing Unemployment against Population, CO2 emissions and Energy use.