ARTURO COLOMBO

Nitti e il concetto di democrazia 

N. 1/1985

Summary — Thirty years lasted Nitti’s " reflection ", reaching its conclusive moment in 1932-33 with the two big volumes on " La democrazia ", which represent a contribution of great value both for the historical analysis and the political judgment on the " long march " for the advent of a democratic system " based on the supremacy of the law, on the guarantee of liberties, on the sovereignty of the people ".

Nitti never believed in a "single" form, in an " absolute recipe " of the " true democracy ". Trained at the school of historicism, he has always looked upon democracy as a " process ", as a gradual construction of a political system capable of overcoming ostracisms and privileges, of combining together equality and freedom, law and progress. But beside democracy "as State ", Nitti emphasized the decisive importance of democracy " as life ", namely as behaviour, capable of involvine different nations and peoples well beyond the reference points of the West.

But, principally during the dramatic period between the two wars, whilst he himself had left Italy and lived the hard life of the political exile, Nitti wanted to denounce the increasing risks and dangers of the two greater " enemies of democracy ". On the right, the forces of nationalism, which would have embodied in Fascism and Nazism (identified as " the antidemocracy "); on the left, Soviet Bolshevism, mainly in the experience of Stalinism (and, more generally, in every form of illiberal Socialism, " without the light of thought ").

At a distance of half a century, one can discuss about the " relativity " that Nitti recognizes to every political system (and from here emerges the " difficult inheritance " of his analysis on the strictly political basis). But, meanwhile, we have to take note that a substantial part of his diagnosis maintains the value of an evidence filled with historical and ideal interest, also for a warning, still unsurpassed, that he entrusts to us. Democracy resembles too much to Penelope’s cloth. It is never quite complete, nor made perfect, because every night there is somebody who plots against it and would like to destroy it, so that, each new day it has to be given new vigour, strengthened. If we look around, we realize Nitti’s suggestion still holds good.