Collective life in the less civic regions of Italy has been blighted for a
thousand years and more. Why? It can hardly be that the inhabitants prefer
solitary and submissive squalor.' Foreign oppression might once have
been part of the explanation for their plight, but the regional experiment
suggests that self-government is no panacea. One is tempted to ask in
exasperation: Have people in these troubled regions learned nothing at all
from their melancholy experience? Surely they must see that they would
all be better off if only everyone would cooperate for the common good.