CORE Academy is pleased to share a new author-submitted contribution by Professor Piero Formica, Fellow of CORE Academy, entitled The Comedy of the Italian Economy: The Failure to Renew Culture Is an Ungentle Downward Nudge.

In this wide-ranging essay, Professor Formica reflects on the condition of the Italian economy through a broader lens than conventional economic measurement alone. While the essay discusses GDP, public debt, productivity, wages, investment, research, artificial intelligence, business creation, and political capitalism, its central concern is deeper: the relationship between economic vitality and cultural renewal.

Written in the form of a “Comedy” rather than a conventional economic report, the essay unfolds through a series of scenes. Each scene illuminates a different dimension of Italy’s present condition, from the dominance of GDP in public narratives to the constraints of bureaucracy, the burden of public debt, the weakness of productivity growth, the outflow of young graduates, the underinvestment in research and innovation, and the need to rethink the university in an age of knowledge, entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence.

Professor Formica’s argument is that economic decline should not be understood only as a matter of slow growth or insufficient investment. It may also reflect a deeper failure to renew the cultural, educational, institutional, and entrepreneurial foundations of society. In his analysis, past success can become a source of inertia when accumulated wealth is protected more readily than new knowledge is created, when established interests weigh more heavily than future generations, and when institutions become more comfortable with stability than experimentation.

A major theme of the essay is the dominance of GDP as the principal language of economic evaluation. Professor Formica questions whether GDP alone can adequately capture the quality of social life, human development, environmental sustainability, creativity, or the conditions under which people are able to live and work with dignity. By placing GDP alongside other indicators and social realities, the essay invites readers to consider not only how much an economy produces, but also what kind of society an economy sustains.

The essay also presents Italy as a country of significant strengths and serious vulnerabilities. Professor Formica acknowledges important positive features, including long life expectancy, social cohesion, household savings, and the role of the third sector. At the same time, he draws attention to persistent structural weaknesses in education, youth employment, female labour participation, research and development, innovation capacity, and the ability to retain and attract young talent. The result is not a simple portrait of decline, but a layered diagnosis of a society whose achievements remain real, yet whose future depends on renewal.

Particularly relevant to CORE Academy is the essay’s emphasis on the knowledge economy. Professor Formica argues that modern growth depends not only on visible infrastructure and tangible capital, but also on intellectual capital, education, research, software, training, trust, dialogue, and the circulation of ideas across disciplinary boundaries. Knowledge, in this account, is not merely data. It is a living and relational process, sustained by inquiry, memory, imagination, and the capacity of individuals and institutions to ask better questions.

This concern leads naturally to the essay’s discussion of the reimagined university. Professor Formica calls for educational and research institutions capable of moving beyond rigid disciplinary separation and preparing younger generations for a world shaped by science, technology, the humanities, creativity, entrepreneurship, and artificial intelligence. His reflections resonate with CORE Academy’s commitment to advancing knowledge across the sciences and humanities and to fostering serious dialogue on the future responsibilities of academic institutions.

The essay also addresses artificial intelligence as part of a wider transformation of work, learning, and institutional life. Professor Formica warns against forms of automated control that reduce human activity to measurable outputs while overlooking the deeper meanings, motivations, and social contexts of work. At the same time, the essay suggests that artificial intelligence, when guided by renewed cultures of knowledge and responsibility, may become part of a larger transformation in education, research, and entrepreneurship.

In its final reflections, the essay turns to political capitalism and the ways in which public spending, bureaucracy, professional interests, and inherited structures may limit the emergence of new entrepreneurial energies. The question, for Professor Formica, is not only how economies grow, but how societies make room for future-oriented knowledge, risk-taking, institutional renewal, and the creative participation of younger generations.

Although the essay focuses on Italy, its questions extend beyond one national economy. It speaks to wider concerns facing advanced societies: the limits of GDP-centred thinking, the fragility of knowledge systems, the future of universities, the social meaning of innovation, the governance of artificial intelligence, and the cultural conditions that allow societies to remain open to the future.

CORE Academy shares this contribution in the spirit of scholarly exchange and interdisciplinary reflection. As an independent international academy committed to advancing knowledge across the sciences and humanities, CORE Academy welcomes thoughtful contributions from its Fellows and members on the scientific, technological, cultural, and social transformations shaping humanity’s common future.

The full contribution by Professor Piero Formica is available below.

Attachment: The Comedy of the Italian Economy: The Failure to Renew Culture Is an Ungentle Downward Nudge.pdf

[Download the Full Contribution]

Editorial Note
This contribution is shared as an author-submitted essay by Professor Piero Formica. The views expressed in the attached file, as well as the data, figures, and external materials cited or reproduced therein, are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the institutional position of CORE Academy. CORE Academy shares the contribution in the spirit of scholarly exchange, interdisciplinary reflection, and open discussion.