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The article develops a series of reflections starting from the reading of the «Report of the commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress» coordinated in 2009 for the French Presidency by Stigliz-Sen-Fitoussi. Focussing on the concept of quality of life as it is dealt with in the report, the authors cross-reference some of these dimensions with the welfare systems of the Italian regions, particularly those of the South. The data used are those of Istat’s multi-purpose survey «Aspects of daily life 2008» and those of the Eu-Silc survey.

There is an anti-Risorgimento front, made up of the Northern League and a varied array of neo-Bourbon and neo-Guelph circles that are trying to rewrite history. But if these attempts at historical revisionism were countered with consideration of what happened after Italy was united, the result would be «a convincing balance sheet right down to the present». Without the Risorgimento, Italy could never have be-come one of the richest and most advanced countries in the world. There should be a new emphasis on national unity, partly because the country’s development is not a zero-sum game (if more resources go to the South, the North loses out, or vice versa). As well as being an essential outlet for the North’s products, the South is a resource that can guarantee a more balanced development for the country.

In the first part the article examines the conceptions, operational areas and underlying paradoxes of the very idea of «social policies», a body of public policies that by nature cannot reach the deep reasons for the ills it is dealing with and that is disconnected from the formal, rationalist logic of the policy process. The second part considers the major themes of the complex, family-based social realm in the South – themes that are no longer on the agenda of national development strategies for an area that has to fend for itself against organized crime, and social policies cannot even carry out their most traditional and limited function of stemming the worst effects.

Comparison between European systems in recent years has always shown Italy to be clearly behind in the average performance of its students and in the minimum competency threshold, as there is a wide segment of students with little knowledge of basic competencies. Alongside this, what emerges from the analysis is that the Italian educational system is one that is ineffective, unfair and extremely differentiated regionally. This work uses the Pisa data of 2006 to try to identify the dynamics that produce competency differentials (both between individuals and geographical areas) bearing in mind the effects produced by contextual factors.