A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #36-25 - The Panettone Report. Censis: At Christmas, we are all less poor (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Every year, around this time, the entertainment industry offers us 
panettone-style movies, the consumer society decorates the Christmas 
tree, Christianity multiplies living nativity scenes. And, punctual as a 
secular ritual, the Censis Report arrives: the great snapshot of Italy.
A snapshot that seems neutral, but above all reflects the gaze of its 
creator. The people become fauna to be observed; conflict transforms 
into "malaise"; poverty into "middle-class fever." Yet the numbers say 
otherwise: an impoverished, exploited, precarious country, living from 
day to day because its future has been stolen.

Narration replaces analysis

The Censis prose-"savage age," "barbarians," "Grand Hotel Abyss"-serves 
not to understand, but to neutralize. Economic processes become states 
of mind; political choices become psychological fatalities. 
Deindustrialization? "The Autumn of Industry." Precariousness? 
"Instability." Stagnant wages? "Distress." Growing poverty? Not there. A 
lexicon that depoliticizes everything: no capital, no exploitation, no 
political responsibility. Only perceptions. Why does Censis talk about 
the middle class and not poverty? The central category of the Report is 
always the same: the middle class. Not by chance. The middle class is 
the audience to which the elites speak: the buffer zone that guarantees 
social stability. Poverty, on the other hand, would force us to talk 
about wages that have stagnated for decades, structural precariousness, 
dismantled welfare, unpunished tax evasion, concentrated private wealth. 
Better to transform the social question into collective anxiety. Better 
to talk about "perceived decline" than about produced inequality.

The "Great Debt": Austerity Masquerading as Necessity

Censis presents the growth of public debt as a natural destiny that 
requires the downsizing of welfare. The implicit message is clear: the 
state can no longer afford to guarantee social rights. But it remains 
silent about those who have benefited for years from lenient tax 
policies, those who fuel tax evasion, and those who have profited from 
the privatization of services. Debt interest weighs more heavily than 
spending on hospitals and schools: true. But the Report fails to ask why 
ordinary people and not the wealthy should pay it. The "Great Debt" thus 
becomes the elegant language used to justify permanent austerity.

Militarism as a distorted response to the crisis

The Censis report acknowledges a crucial fact: while manufacturing 
declines, the arms industry is growing by 32%. It is the only sector 
showing growth.

The country's new industrial policy, therefore, no longer speaks of 
innovation, education, research, and skilled labor. It speaks of 
rearmament. Italy is pursuing a 2% GDP military spending target, while 
funding for healthcare, transportation, and public housing is considered 
"unsustainable." This isn't a minor detail: it's the transformation of 
the welfare state into an armed state.

Militarism doesn't respond to the crisis: it consolidates it, shifting 
resources from rights to weapons and from popular needs to geopolitical 
logic.

Conclusion

Every December, Censis delivers its image of Italy. A snapshot that 
calls for adaptation, not change; for resignation, not struggle. But 
behind the rhetoric of the "anxious middle class" lies an impoverished 
country. Behind the "savage age" lies an economic model that doesn't 
work. Behind the "Great Debt" lies austerity. Behind the "arms race" 
lies the sacrifice of welfare. Our task is to break this framework, 
restore words to the conflict, name those responsible, and give strength 
to the struggles of those experiencing this crisis firsthand. Because 
it's not Italy that's savage: it's capitalism that governs it. And no 
annual report can tell the story of collective daily resistance.

Totò Caggese

https://umanitanova.org/il-rapporto-panettone-censis-a-natale-siamo-tutti-meno-poveri/
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