It's all about stuffing your pockets and those of your family. Because nobody can be trusted. You don't build for the future. You don't care about that now.
It seems that there is a fundamental lack of trust amongst Italians. And if there's no trust, you can't build on each other and focus on the long-term. Because you have to spend tons of time watching your back and taking care of yourself.
How will you fucking turn around such a culture?
This to say: I'm not sure Italians will ever turn it around, still I sometimes think it would be nice to come back and try to change things, but it is incredibly hard given that most of the young people there either leave, they accept shitty jobs or have the same mentality of their parents.
Take now... some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him:
"Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city; in ten years the railroad will have taken
the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and
improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any
higher?" He will tell you, "No!" "Will the wages of the common labor be any higher...?" He will tell you,
"No the wages of common labor will not be any higher..." "What, then, will be higher?" "Rent, the
value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession." And if, under such circumstances, you
take his advice, you need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like
the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon or down a hole in the ground;
and without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you
will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be
an almshouse.
[0] Not like that story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electron....
Top-down:
- U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction
- U.S. Civil Rights Act, enforced by National Guard troops
Bottom-up:
- women's suffrage protest movements of early 20th century
- educational reformist movements e.g. U.S. 19th century
- religious heresies -- Lutheranism
The weakness of "top-down" is that the dysfunction re-emerges when the top-down force is relieved -- if the Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction had fully succeeded, the National Guard would have had no need to walk the streets of Alabama with rifles in hand.
The weakness of "bottom-up" is that lasting, visible improvement takes years, and is therefore uninteresting to politicians chiefly looking to get re-elected, say, next month.
[1] Payroll taxes go towards the Social Security budget, which covers health insurance, retirement pensions, unemployment insurance, etc.
[2] Income taxes (and VAT) go towards the state budget, which covers debt interests payments, education, justice, police, military, etc.
Gross income: 100.000 EUR / year [2]
-------------------------
TAXES
- Income tax (28.600 EUR)
- "solidarity premium" (2.300 EUR)
- church tax (1.600 € - cumpolsory until you leave the curch)
SOCIAL SECURITY (compulsory)
- unemployed insurance (1.200 EUR)
- pension insurance (7.300 EUR)
- health insurance (4.500 EUR)
- long term care (800 EUR)
-------------------------
Net income: 53.700 EUR
Add to that what is often called gross-gross-income: Hidden from your paycheck is that social security has to be paid by your employer as well (so in this case amounts to 113.080 EUR which makes for a combined rate of 53%) [3]
[1] Hypothetical young graduate from Italy/Spain/France: Unmarried, no children and catholic
[2] 100k is not the typical pay for freshly graduated-from-school devs in Germany, but an attainable income goal after some working years nonetheless
[3] some exemptions in that employer-part, its a bit less than the employee-part
Smaller companies in Berlin like SoundCloud, ThinkCell, and Simplaex offer €100k+ for engineers with the experience they need.
Even startup salaries are nudging €75k on AngelList and StackOverflow Jobs.
Most countries have a system in which this is prevented in a tiered system (like the German example) where there is the utter bottom layer where you get just enough money to fulfil primary needs (health, roof, bed, food, power, water etc). This status often also means you get other things as well, like free education for people that really cannot afford anything. This basic needs for existence tier is no fun to live in as far as I've seen/heard, and is a pretty good motivator to get out of as soon as possible.
As far as I know, this is also why you don't see the same tent camps underneath overpasses you see in the US; unless you completely remove yourself from society (by choice or by mental status), there is no need for it.
Then, on top of that base layer, which is not something you usually get to, there are the layers that deal with cases where injury causes you to not be able to work, as well as simply losing a job (which is usually because your contract expired, the company no longer exists, or you did something yourself -- not the case where the employer simply said "we don't want you" -- they can't , not with a permanent contract). This layer gets you anywhere between 50% and 80% of your last salary in most countries.
Keep in mind, that with most of those constructions, a lot of systems are in place that prevent you from going that low, or staying that low, on the income/self-sufficiency ladder. This is because it was mostly modeled on the concept that enabling people to live is cheaper than having a bunch of people on the street, as well as simple compassion and empathy. A lot of it comes from historical concepts, but it seems to grow in the same direction.
The "basic" one (ALG 2) which amounts to ~9-12 EUR/day + rent (if it is a reasonable flat) [1] It comes with a lot of strings attached, like you have to use up your savings first and can recieve penalties if you don't show up for job interviews etc.
The "premium" one (ALG 1) pays you ~65% of your last 12 months gross income regardless of savings and termination pay. You guessed it, for that to make sense you would have to be employed at least 12 month before becoming jobless and at a sufficient pay-rate. Also it is limited to 1 year (after that -> ALG2)
PS: Health-insurance is included
[1] grossly simplified
Kinda beside the point, but that does not actually make sense. My home budget and car budget are different, but I collect them from the same source. I don't get a different job to pay for my car. Many countries pay for social security out of income taxes, or pay for general budget stuff out of payroll taxes.
I don't know what the real reason behind payroll taxes is. Probably it's mostly historical, as opposed to something you would reimplement if you were doing it from scratch today. But it is most definitely not simply because those taxes go into a different budget.
However it's important to note that many people don't actually pay that much income tax in France, or at least nowhere near the 20% to 40% number you're giving.
If you're married it depends on your spouse revenue, whether you have kids or not (especially between 0 an 3 yo because you get a tax credit on daycare, etc...)
I think the biggest difference between a Software Engineer in France and UK or Germany is not the taxes, but that the gross salary would usually be much lower in France.
In Germany, you get decent public transportation, great education and healthcare for your tax money. In Italy these things range from tolerable but inefficient to outright useless depending on where you are.
I've also lived in Germany, and while they do love their paperwork and forms you are more or less guaranteed a specific result if you comply with the process, and it happens within a determined time frame. In Italy you can do the same exact process 5 times and get 5 different responses, or simply no response at all as they will happily lose your paperwork over and over. In many cases officials ask for random documents that don't exist and are not listed anywhere as required, simply to make you leave and bother someone else.
I've become convinced however that all of these issues above are actually caused at their core by nepotism, cronyism and corruption. The most incompetent and corrupt get promoted to the top, and the rest are trampled until they give up or leave. There's no future and no opportunity for bright young Italian people.
Where I live businesses still pay protection money to the mafia, openly. Why would any young person want a part of that? This is going to get worse for Italy as young people, who would normally be the catalyst for progress and change, simply leave.