Conference for the Aspen Junior Fellows

The focus of discussion at this year’s annual conference for the Aspen Junior Fellows was the political legacy of 2017, marked by the various outcomes of elections around Europe, the uncertain course of Brexit negotiations, the emergence of the new American administration’s policy stances, and the Catalan independence referendum.

There have been a number of exceptional events in 2016, including Brexit and Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.  Next year promises to be no less extraordinary, with elections scheduled in such major European countries as France and Germany.  Within this context the Aspen Junior Fellows Annual Conference focused on the great changes affecting politics in the 21^st century, which relate to the efficiency and constraints of the democratic process, populism and technocracy, and new forms of communication and engagement, supported by the innovat

Participants at this Aspen Junior Fellows Conference characterized the current era as a time of change for space exploration, with humanity’s presence off-planet directed at reaching new destinations and new ambitious goals. It was acknowledged, however, that there are various challenges to achieving these objectives, both in outer space and in terms of purely “Earth-based” decisions. The race for Mars has begun, creating a cultural and economic buzz at a global level.

The focus of the 14^th annual Conference for the Aspen Junior Fellows was the profound transformation undergone by the concept of labor due to major advances in technology, which are changing the way labor is organized, the forms it takes, and where it is performed. Indeed, the institutions that regulate it and the role of workers in increasingly digitized and automated production processes are also changing, while the balance of power between labor and capital has shifted.

The seventh Annual Conference for the Aspen Junior Fellows was dedicated to the topic of the city, in the year in which, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, as indicated in the United Nations Population Fund Report. The timeliness of this issue is confirmed by the theme of the 2010 Shanghai Expo: Better City, Better Life. By holding the conference in Milan, the challenges faced by the experimental city in its preparations for the 2015 Milan Expo were highlighted.

This conference focussed on the evolution of traditional political categories, from reform liberalism to liberal socialism, from economic values to development and equal opportunity, from individual merit to corporate mentality, the role of the state and the independence of enterprise. Different solutions have been developed throughout Europe: from the Grosse Koalition in Germany to “neocentralism” in the UK, to a definitive abolishment of the left-right divide (as some defined it) in France.

The Aspen Junior Fellows annual conference focused its debate on redefining a new patriotism in terms of economy, culture and society. Patriotism founds itself on freedom and the search of common good and therefore does not represent a threat to other countries, nor an obstacle to stable and positive relations with Europe and the rest of the world. In the economic field, being patriotic does not necessarily imply protectionism, position which could – in the long run – damage Italian interests; it means applying a “careful liberalism” as professed by Einaudi.

The conference was an occasion for the Aspen Junior Fellows to confront themselves with senior leaders on strategic issues concerning globalization. The debate focused primarily on Europe; participants don’t see the recent setbacks as a reason to give up on the Old Continent and it is therefore necessary to the fight demographic decline and relaunch the economy.