Italy and its élites: proposals for a new ruling class

The impetus for the seminar on “Italy and its élites: proposals for a new ruling class”, held as part of the Aspen Seminars for Leaders program, grew out of an awareness of the urgent need for a new class of leaders to be established in the various sectors of Italian society. The process of deciding who should number among the new élite must, first and foremost, focus on a methodological issue, namely: selection must be based on merit and no longer merely on cooptation, the approach currently followed not only in the political sphere but also in business, in universities and in research centers. The new class of leaders, chosen on the basis of merit, should be modeled on a benchmark checklist of well-defined personal and public values and be very clear on the process of legitimization and accountability which the general public, increasingly tired of the old way of doing things, demands. In this process, a key role must be played by the systems used to select and advance students through their educational career, which should be revamped on the basis of the criteria of excellence and rigor, thereby reducing inequalities in opportunities to access a quality education system.