
Italy is the clearest example of how a rich country can slowly destroy itself through decades of bad management. Since the late 1990s, Italy has had almost zero productivity growth. Real wages have stagnated. And public debt is now around 137% of GDP, projected to move toward 139% overtaking Greece as the highest in the eurozone. It is the result of 25 years of 1. Low innovation and very low adoption of new technologies 2. Family and insider succession in many companies, weakening meritocracy 3. Underdeveloped VC industry, startup ecosystem and R&D base 4. Political capture by lobbies and organised crime 5. Extreme administrative, judicial and business bureaucracy 6. Political fragmentation 7. Demographic collapse No country can remain rich forever if productivity does not grow, debt keeps rising and politics only manages decline instead of reversing it.




























