Il ruolo dell'industria: grandi e medie imprese

The big Italian companies, and then the mid-sized ones, over the industrial development have gone through some major evolutionary phases: from the origin of large-scale industry in the post-unification period that led to the Great Depression in the thirties to the establishment of a large group of companies under public control. These companies then suffered a degeneration which in turn called for subsequent restructuring and privatization. With the coming of globalization there was finally the emergence of a new way of conceiving the national skills: on the one hand with the return of the state which is the guarantor of stability in sectors considered strategic (e.g. energy) on the other with the prevalence in the private manufacturing systems of moderate size units. The latter phenomenon (dubbed the Fourth capitalism) is not the result of particular politicies or industrial operations, but it is a kind of Darwinian evolution that has forced the system to deal with more complex scenarios and at the same time highly competitive