Italian voters directed anger at welfare cheaters rather than the wealthy elite
Evidence
In the summer of 2021, I handed out flyers in the markets of working-class neighborhoods in Turin, Italy, to help a local independent party, and I often talked with passersby. Many were indignant about the economy, but they did not direct their anger toward the top 1 percent of the population, who paid insignificant taxes, or the Italian billionaires, whose numbers had tripled in the past ten years. Instead, they directed their anger toward the “cheaters,” who benefited from the meager basic income of 400 euros (about $470) a month. Note that 46 percent of these cheaters actually worked but did not make enough to survive; they fell into the growing category of the working poor. In 2023, Giorgia Meloni’s government took advantage of the dominant narrative and eliminated the subsidy: 250,000 Italian families were notified via text of the reform that would relapse them below the poverty line. Popular reaction to such a war against the poor was almost nonexistent. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 228
Categorization
- SEED: Angles toward how austerity narratives manufacture consent: the story of Meloni ending basic income with near-zero popular reaction is a concrete case for an essay on manufactured consent and the working poor.
- CANDY: The detail that 46% of ‘cheaters’ actually had jobs but were working poor, and the 250,000 families notified via text, is a sharp conversation piece.
- XREF: connects to: Italian economists blamed poverty on working-class moral defects rather than economic causes — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1141
Broader Connections
- Italian economists blamed poverty on working-class moral defects rather than economic causes
#corroborates(0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1141