AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

       This is a translation of an article about Switzerland by Antonio Martino .      Mr. Martino is an Italian economist and member of parliament. He was the italian Minister of Foreign Affairs during the first Berlusconi Administration and Minister of Defense in the second and third Prime Minister Berlusconi’s government. He’s a professor of economics at the LUISS University in Rome, and he was president of the Mount Pelerin Society a libertarian think-tank founded, among others, by   F. Hayek and Karl Popper . Mr. Martino, when he’s not fighting the collectivist fire, which in Italy, unfortunately, comes from the right as well as the left, blogs in Italian at: antonio martino.org The article is a look at Switzerland, an admirable example of decentralized federalism, responsible fiscal policies and direct democracy, which has endured for centuries. As always your comments will be greatly appreciated. Leonardo Pavese     To be a...

     This was the second article by Antonio Martino which I had translated into English.          The article was a critique of an editorial which Angelo Panebianco , an important Italian editorialist and a professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna , published on the Corriere della Sera , the most widely read Italian newspaper. Angelo Panebianco      Martino's critique is important because it points out the main flaw that unfortunately, I think, mars the thinking of many European and especially Italian intellectuals. That is, the contradictory idea that overarching super-national structures are needed to guarantee democracy and that the self-determination, the freedom and the well being of the European people depend on transnational organization which are nearly unaccountable to voters..      It is symptomatic of a certain attitude and distrust for democracy, which is found among too many Italian i...