Some Theoretical and Practical Aspects of "Economism"

Economism—theoretical movement for free trade—theoretical syndicalism. It is to be seen to what extent theoretical syndicalism originated from Marxism and how far from the economic doctrines of free trade, i.e. in the last analysis, from liberalism. And therefore it is to be seen whether economism, in its most complete form, is not a direct offspring of liberalism, and had, even in its origins, very little relationship with Marxism, a relation at any rate of an extrinsic and purely verbal kind.

The standpoint of the movement for free trade is based on a theoretical error whose practical origin it is not difficult to identify: on the distinction, that is, between political society and civil society, which from being a methodological distinction becomes, and is presented as, an organic distinction. Thus it is asserted that economic activity concerns civil society and that the State must not intervene in its regulation. But, as in actual reality civil society and the State are identified, it must be settled that even liberalism is a form of "regulation" of a State kind, introduced and maintained by means of legislation and coercion: it is an act of will conscious of its own ends and not the spontaneous, automatic expression of an economic fact. Therefore liberalism is a political programme, destined to change, in so far as it triumphs, the leading personnel of the State and the economic programme of the State itself, in other words, to alter the distribution of the national income.

The case of theoretical syndicalism is different, in that it relates to a subordinate group, which is prevented by this theory from ever becoming dominant, of developing beyond the economico-corporative phase in order to raise itself to the phase of ethico-political hegemony in civil society and of domination in the State. As far as liberalism is concerned it is a case of a fraction of the ruling group which wants to modify, not the structure of the State, but only the direction of government, which wants to reform commercial lconsation and only indirectly industrial legislation (since it is undeniable that protection, especially in countries with a poor and restricted market, limits freedom of industrial initiative and unhealthily favours the origin of monopolies): it is a question of a rotation of the leading parties in the government, not of the foundation and organisation of a new political society and even less of a new type of civil society. In the theoretical syndicalist movement the question arises in a more complex form; it is undeniable that in it the independence and autonomy of the subordinate group, which it professes to express, are in fact sacrificed to the intellectual hegemony of the ruling group, precisely because syndicalism is only an aspect of liberalism, justified by a few mutilated and therefore banal quotations from Marxism. Why and how does this "sacrifice" come about? The transformation of the subordinate into the ruling group is excluded, either because the problem is not even seen (Fabianism, De Man, an important part of the Labour Party), or because it is presented in inconsistent and ineffective ways (social-democratic tendencies in general), or because an immediate leap from a class régime to one of perfect equality and syndical economy is postulated.

The standpoint of economism towards expressions of will, of action and of political and intellectual initiative, as if these were a necessary emanation of economics and, moreover, the sole effective expression of the economy, is, to say the least, strange; thus it is inconsistent that the concrete posing of the question of hegemony should be interpreted as a fact which subordinates the hegemonous group. The fact of hegemony undoubtedly presupposes that the interests and strivings of the groups over which the hegemony will be exercised are taken account of, that a certain balance of compromises be formed, that, in other words, the leading group makes some sacrifices of an economico corporative kind; but it is also undoubted that these sacrifices and compromises cannot concern essentials, since if the hegemony is ethico-political, it must also be economic, it must have its foundation in the decisive function that the leading group exercises in the decisive sphere of economic activity.

Economism presents itself in many other different forms besides liberalism and theoretical syndicalism. All forms of electoral abstention belong to it (a typical example is the abstention of the Italian Clericals after 1870, which steadily diminished after 1900 until 1919 and the formation of the Popular Party: the distinction which the Clericals made between real Italy and legal Italy was a reproduction of the distinction between the economic and the politico-legal world); and there are many forms of electoral abstention, since there can also be semi-abstention, quarter, etc. Abstention is linked with the formula "so much the worse, so much the better", and also the formula of the so-called parliamentary "intransigence" of some groups of deputies. Economism is not always against political action and the political party, but the latter is considered as merely an educational organisation of a syndical type. One point of reference for the study of economism and for understanding the relationship between structure and superstructure is that passage from The Poverty of Philosophy, where Marx says that an important phase in the development of the social group is that in which the single components of a trade union do not struggle any longer only for their own economic interests, but for the defence and development of the organisation itself.¹ This should be remembered together with Engels' statement that only in the "last analysis" is the economy the mainspring of history (in his two letters on Marxism published also in Italian),² and taken together with the passage in the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy where it says that it is in the field of ideologies that men become aware of the conflict which takes place in the economic world.

On various occasions it has been stated in these notes that Marxism is much more widespread than is generally conceded. The assertion is correct if what is meant is that historical economism is widespread, as Professor Loria now calls his more or less clumsy conceptions, and that therefore the cultural environment has completely changed from the time when Marxism began its struggles; it could be said, in Crocian terminology, that the greatest heresy arisen from the womb of “the religion of liberty” has also like orthodox religion, suffered degeneration, has been propagated as “superstition”, i.e. it has entered into a combination with liberalism and produced economism. But it should be seen whether, while the orthodox religion has shrivelled up, the heretical superstition has not always maintained a ferment which will give it a new birth as a higher religion; whether, that is, the slag of superstition can easily be liquidated.

Some characteristic points of historical economism:

1. in research for historical connections it does not distinguish what is "relatively permanent" from what is an occasional fluctuation, and by an economic fact it means the personal self-interest of a small group, in a direct and "dirty Jewish" sense. In other words, it does not take account of the formations of economic classes, with all their inherent relationships, but assumes a mean and usurious self-interest, especially when this takes on criminal forms;
2. the doctrine by which economic development is reduced to a succession of technical changes in the instruments of labour. The discovery of new combustibles and of new motive energies, as of new raw materials to be transformed, has a certain great importance, since it can alter the position of individual States, but it does not determine the historical movement, etc.

It often happens that people attack historical economism believing that they are attacking historical materialism. This is the case, for example, in an article in Avenir of Paris for October 10th, 1930 (reported in The Weekly Review of the Foreign Press for October 21st, 1930, pp. 2303-4) which I quote as typical: "We have been told for a long time, but especially since the war, that questions of self-interest dominate the peoples and lead the world forward. It is the Marxists who have invented this thesis, under the slightly doctrinaire name of 'historical materialism'. In pure Marxism, men taken in the mass do not obey passions but economic necessity. Politics is passion. Patriotism is passion. These two necessary ideas only enjoy an apparent function in history because in reality the life of the peoples, throughout the centuries, is explained by a changing and ever renewed interplay of causes of an economic kind. Economics is everything. Many philosophers and 'bourgeois' economists have taken up this refrain. They assume a certain air of explaining international politics to us by competition for grain, petrol or rubber. They exert themselves to explain to us that all diplomacy is governed by questions of customs duties and cost prices. These explanations are very much in the ascendant. They have a slightly scientific appearance and proceed from a kind of superior scepticism which would like to pass for supreme smartness. Passion in foreign policy? Sentiment in home affairs? Away with it! That stuff is all right for simpletons. The great minds, the initiated, know that everything is governed by supply and demand. Now this is an absolute pseudo-truth. It is utterly false that the peoples only let themselves be led by considerations of self-interest and it is entirely true that they obey above all considerations dictated by a desire for and an ardent faith in prestige. Anyone who does not understand this understands nothing." The rest of the article (entitled "The mania for prestige") gives the example of German and Italian policy which, it says, is dictated by "prestige" and not by material interests. The article contains in brief a large dose of the more banal polemical points against Marxism, but in reality the polemic is against clumsy economism of the Loria type. On the other hand, the writer is not very strong in argument even in other respects: he does not understand that "passion" could be simply a synonym for economic interest and that it is difficult to maintain that political activity is a permanent state of passionate exasperation and agony; French politics is actually represented as systematic and coherent "rationality", purged of all passionate elements, etc.

In its most widespread form of economist superstition, Marxism loses a great part of its cultural expansiveness in the higher sphere of the intellectual group, in return for what it gains among the popular masses and the mediocre intellectuals, who like to appear very cunning but who do not intend to overtax their brains, etc. As Engels wrote, it is very convenient for many people to believe that they have in their pockets, cheap and with no effort, the whole of history, all political and philosophical wisdom concentrated in a few formulae. Forgetting that the thesis that men became conscious of the basic conflicts in the field of ideology, is not of a psychological or moralistic, but of an organic epistemological character, they create a forma mentis for considering politics and hence history as a continuous marche des dupes, a game of illusions and conjuring. "Critical" activity is reduced to exposing tricks, discovering scandals, prying into the pockets of representative men.

Thus it is forgotten that since "economism" is, or is presumed to be, also an objective canon of interpretation (objective-scientific), the search for immediate self-interest must be valid for all aspects of history, for the men who represent the "thesis" as well as for those who represent the "antithesis". In addition another proposition of Marxism is also forgotten: the proposition that "popular beliefs" or beliefs of the same kind as popular beliefs have the validity of material forces. The errors of interpretation in this research for "dirty Jewish" self-interests have sometimes been crude and comical and so have reacted negatively on the prestige of the original doctrine. It is therefore necessary to fight against economism not only in the theory of historiography, but also and especially in the theory and practice of politics. In this field, the struggle can and must be conducted by developing the theory of the political party and by the practical development of the life of certain political parties (the struggle against the theory of the so-called permanent revolution, to which is opposed the concept of revolutionary democratic dictatorship, the importance received by the support given to constituent ideologies, etc.). One could research into the judgments that emerged as to how certain political movements developed, taking as typical the Boulangist movement (from 1886 to about 1890) or the Dreyfus affair or even the coup d'état of December 2nd (an analysis of Marx's classic book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte), to study what relative importance is given to the immediate economic factor and what space is occupied by the concrete study of "ideologies". Faced with these events, economism asks the question: who enjoyed the immediate initiative in the matter? And answers it with arguments as naïve as they are paralogistic. It was enjoyed immediately by a certain fraction of the ruling group and in order not to make a mistake this choice falls on that fraction which evidently has a progressive function and one of control over all the economic forces. One can be sure of not being wrong, because necessarily, if the movement under examination comes to power, sooner or later the progressive faction of the ruling group will end up by controlling the new government and by making it its instrument for wielding the state apparatus to its own benefit.

This, therefore, is a very cheap infallibility which not only has no theoretical significance, but has very little political importance and practical efficacy: in general it does not produce anything except moralistic sermons and interminable personal problems. When a movement of the Boulangist type is produced, the analysis should be realistically conducted along these lines:

1. The social content of the masses who adhere to the movement;
2. What function these masses have in the balance of forces, which is being transformed, as is shown by the very birth of the new movement?
3. What political and social significance have the aims which the leaders present and which find consent? To what effective needs do they correspond?
4. Examination of the means for the proposed end;
5. Only in the last analysis, and in a political and not a moralistic form, does one put forward the hypothesis that this movement will necessarily be changed in nature, and serve very different ends from those which the following multitudes expect.

But with the economists, this hypothesis is asserted in anticipation, when no concrete element (one which, in other words, appears as such on the evidence of common sense and not from some esoterically "scientific" analysis) yet exists to support it, so that it appears as a moralistic accusation of duplicity and bad faith or of lack of shrewdness or of stupidity (on the part of the followers). The political struggle thus becomes a series of personal encounters between those who are not taken in, and who "have the devil in the bottle", and those who are made fools of by their own leaders and are unwilling to be convinced because of their incurable foolishness. On the other hand, until these movements have achieved power it can always be thought that they may fail, and some indeed have failed (Boulangism itself, which failed as such and was later definitely crushed by the Dreyfusard movement; the movement of George Valois; that of General Gayda); research must therefore be directed to the identification of the elements of power, but also of the elements of weakness which they contain within them: the "economist" hypothesis asserts an immediate element of power, i.e. the availability of certain direct or indirect financial support (a large newspaper which backs up the movement is also a financial support) and that is all. It is too little. In this case also the analysis of the different levels of relations of forces can only culminate in the sphere of hegemony and of ethico-political relationships.

An element to be added as exemplifying theories of so-called intransigence is that of rigid aversion on principle to so-called compromises, which has as a subordinate manifestation what can be called the “fear of dangers”. It is clear that the aversion on principle to compromises is closely tied to economism, in that the conception on which this aversion is based cannot be other than the iron conviction that there exist objective laws for historical development of the same character as natural laws, with, in addition, the belief in a fatalistic finalism of a similar character to religious belief: since the favourable conditions are predestined to come into existence and from these will be determined, in a somewhat mysterious way, regenerative events. The result is not only uselessness but the loss of all voluntary initiative aiming to predispose this situation according to a plan. Side by side with these fatalistic convictions is nevertheless the tendency to trust “for the future” blindly and uncritically in the regulating virtue of arms, though this is not completely without logic and coherence, since the intervention of the will is thought to be useful for destruction, not for construction (already in action at the very moment of destruction). Destruction is conceived mechanically, not as destruction-construction. In such ways of thinking no account is taken of the “time” factor and no account is taken, in the last analysis, of the “economy” itself, in the sense that there is no understanding of how mass ideological facts always lag behind mass economic phenomena and how, therefore, at certain moments the automatic drive due to the economic factor is slowed down, cramped or even broken up momentarily by traditional ideological elements. There must, therefore, be a consciously planned struggle to win “understanding” of the requirements of the economic position of the masses which may be opposed to the directives of the traditional leaders. An appropriate political initiative is always necessary to free the economic drive from the tethers of traditional policies, to change, that is, the political direction of certain forces which must be absorbed in order to realise a new, homogeneous, economico-political historical bloc, without internal contradictions; and since two "similar" forces can only be fused in the new organism through a series of compromises or by force of arms, coming together on a plan of alliance or by subordinating one to the other with coercion, the question is whether one has this force and whether it is "productive" to employ it. If the union of two forces is necessary in order to conquer a third, the recourse to arms and coercion (given that these are available) is a purely methodological hypothesis and the only concrete possibility is compromise, since force can be employed against enemies, not against a part of oneself which one wants to assimilate rapidly, for which "good will" and enthusiasm are necessary.

Notes

1. See the exact statement (Poverty of Philosophy, English edition, Moscow, 1956, pp. 194-5.) The Poverty of Philosophy is an essential stage of the formation of Marxism; it can be considered as a development of the Theses on Feuerbach, whereas the Holy Family is an indistinct, intermediate phase of haphazard origin, as appears from the parts dedicated to Proudhon and especially to French materialism. The section on French materialism is more than anything else a chapter in the history of culture and is not theoretical, as it has often been interpreted, and as history of culture it is admirable. Remember the observation that the criticism of Proudhon and his interpretation of the Hegelian dialectic in The Poverty of Philosophy can be extended to Gioberti and to the Hegelianism of the moderate Italian Liberals in general. The parallel Proudhon-Gioberti, although they represent historico-political phases which are not homogeneous, or rather precisely because of this, may be interesting and fertile. ↩
2. Marx-Engels Selected Works, English edition, p. 443 and p. 445.↩