Antonio Gramsci. The Modern Prince
Some Theoretical and Practical Aspects of "Economism"
Economism – theoretical movement for Free Trade – theoretical
syndicalism.41 It
should be considered to what degree theoretical syndicalism derives
originally from the philosophy of praxis, and to what degree from the
economic doctrines of Free Trade – i.e. in the last analysis from
liberalism. Hence it should be considered whether economism, in its most
developed form, is not a direct descendant of liberalism, having very
little connection with the philosophy of praxis even in its origins –
and what connection it had only extrinsic and purely verbal.
From this point of view one should study the polemic between Einaudi and
Croce over the new (1917) preface to Croce's "Historical Materialism".42 The need, spoken of by
Einaudi, to take into account the literature of economic history inspired
by English classical economics, may be satisfied in the following sense.
The literature in question, through a superficial contamination with the
philosophy of praxis, gave rise to economism; hence when Einaudi criticises
(very imprecisely, to tell the truth) certain economist degenerations, he
forgets the old adage that those who live in glass houses should not throw
stones. The nexus between free-trade ideology and theoretical syndicalism
is particularly evident in Italy, where the admiration of syndicalists
like Lanzillo & Co. for Pareto is well known.43 The significance of the two tendencies,
however, is very different. The former belongs to a dominant and directive
social group; the latter to a group which is still subaltern, which has not
yet gained consciousness of its strength, its possibilities, of how it is
to develop, and which therefore does not know how to escape from the
primitivist phase.
The ideas of the Free Trade movement are based on a theoretical error whose
practical origin is not hard to identify; they are based on a distinction
between political society and civil society, which is made into and
presented as an organic one, whereas in fact it is merely methodological.
Thus it is asserted that economic activity belongs to civil society, and
that the State must not intervene to regulate it. But since in actual
reality civil society and State are one and the same, it must be made clear
that laissez-faire too is a form of State "regulation", introduced
and maintained by legislative and coercive means. It is a deliberate
policy, conscious of its own ends, and not the spontaneous, automatic
expression of economic facts. Consequently, laissez-faire
liberalism is a political programme, designed to change – in so far as
it is victorious – a State's leading personnel, and to change the
economic programme of the State itself – in other words the
distribution of the national income.
The case of theoretical syndicalism is different. Here we are dealing with
a subaltern group, which is prevented by this theory from ever becoming
dominant, or from developing beyond the economic-corporate stage and rising
to the phase of ethical-political hegemony in civil society, and of
domination in the State. In the case of laissez-faire liberalism,
one is dealing with a fraction of the ruling class which wishes to modify
not the structure of the State, but merely government policy; which wishes
to reform the laws controlling commerce, but only indirectly those
controlling industry (since it is undeniable that protection, especially in
countries with a poor and restricted market, limits freedom of industrial
enterprise and favours unhealthily the creation of monopolies). What is at
stake is a rotation in governmental office of the ruling-class parties, not
the foundation and organisation of a new political society, and even less
of a new type of civil society. In the case of the theoretical syndicalist
movement the problem is more complex. It is undeniable that in it, the
independence and autonomy of the subaltern group which it claims to
represent are in fact sacrificed to the intellectual hegemony of the ruling
class, since precisely theoretical syndicalism is merely an aspect of
laissez-faire liberalism – justified with a few mutilated
(and therefore banalised) theses from the philosophy of praxis. Why and
how does this "sacrifice" come about? The transformation of the
subordinate group into a dominant one is excluded, either because the
problem is not even considered (Fabianism, De Man,44 an important part of the Labour Party),
or because it is posed in an appropriate and ineffective form
(social-democratic tendencies in general), or because a belief in the
possibility of leaping from class society directly into a society of
perfect equality with a syndical economy.
The attitude of economism towards expressions of political and intellectual
will, action or initiative is to say the least strange – as if these
did not emanate organically from economic necessity, and indeed were not the
only effective expression of the economy. Thus it is incongruous that the
concrete posing of the problem of hegemony should be interpreted as a fact
subordinating the group seeking hegemony. Undoubtedly the fact of hegemony
presupposes that account be taken of the interests and the tendencies of the
groups over which hegemony is to be exercised, and that a certain compromise
equilibrium should be formed – in other words, that the leading group
should make sacrifices of an economic-corporate kind. But there is also no
doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential;
for though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be economic, must
necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group
in the decisive nucleus of economic activity.
Economism appears in many other guises besides laissez-faire
liberalism and theoretical syndicalism. All forms of electoral
abstentionism belong to it (a typical example is the abstentionism of the
Italian Clericals after 1870, which became ever more attenuated after 1900
until 1919 and the formation of the Popular Party; the organic distinction
which the Clericals made between the real Italy and the legal Italy was a
reproduction of the distinction between economic world and politico-legal
world); and there are many such forms, in the sense that there can be
semi-abstentionism, 25 per cent abstentionism, etc. Linked with
abstentionism is the formula "the worse it gets, the better that will be",
and also the formula of the so-called parliamentary "intransigence" of
certain groups of deputies.45 Economism is not always opposed to political
action and to the political party, but the latter is seen merely as an
educational organism similar in kind to a trade union. One point of
reference for the study of economism, and for understanding the relations
between structure and superstructure, is the passage in The Poverty of
Philosophy where it says that an important phase in the development of
a social class is that in which the individual components of a trade union
no longer struggle solely for their own economic interests, but for the
defence and the development of the organisation itself.G In this connection Engels'
statement too should be recalled, that the economy is only the mainspring
of history "in the last analysis" (to be found in his two letters on the
philosophy of praxis also published in Italian); this statement is to be
directly related to the passage in the preface to the Critique of
Political Economy which says that it is on the level of ideologies
that men become conscious of conflicts in the world of the economy.
At various points in these notes it is stated that the philosophy of praxis
is far more widely diffused than is generally conceded. The assertion is
correct in what is meant is that historical economism, as Professor Loria
now calls his more or less incoherent theories, is widely diffused, and that
consequently the cultural environment has completely changed from the time
in which the philosophy of praxis began its struggles. One might say, in
Crocean terminology, that the greatest heresy which has grown in the womb of
the "religion of freedom" has itself too like orthodox religion degenerated,
and has become disseminated as "superstition" – in other words, has
combined with laissez-faire liberalism and produced economism.
However, it remains to be seen whether – in contrast to orthodox
religion, which has by now quite shrivelled up – this heretical
superstition has not in fact always maintained a ferment which will cause it
to be reborn as a higher form of religion; in other words, if the dross of
superstition is not in fact easily got rid of.
A few characteristics of historical economism: 1. in the search for
historical connections it makes no distinction between what is "relatively
permanent" and what is a passing fluctuation, and by an economic fact it
means the self-interest of an individual or small group, in an immediate and
"dirty-Jewish" sense. In other words, it does not take economic class
formations into account, with all their inherent relations, but is content
to assume motives of mean and usurious self-interest, especially when it
takes forms which the law defines as criminal; 2. the doctrine
according to which economic development is reduced to the course of
technical change in the instruments of work. Professor Loria has produced a
splendid demonstration of this doctrine in application, in his article on
the social influence of the aeroplane published in Rassegna
Contemporanea in 1912; 3. the doctrine according to which
economic and historical development are made to depend directly on the
changes in some important element of production – the discovery of a
new raw material or fuel, etc. – which necessitate the application of
new methods in the construction and design of machines. In recent times
there has been an entire literature on the subject of petroleum: Antonio
Lavosia's article in Nuova Antologia of 16 May 1929 can be read as
a typical example. The discovery of new fuels and new forms of energy, just
as of new raw materials to be transformed, is certainly of great importance,
since it can alter the position of individual states; but it does not
determine historical movement, etc.
It often happens that people combat historical economism in the belief that
they are attacking historical materialism. This is the case, for instance,
with an article in the Paris Avenir of 10 October 1930 (reproduced
in Rassegna Settimanale della Stampa Estera [Weekly Review of the
Foreign Press] of 21 October 1930, pp. 2303-4), which can be quoted as
typical: "We have been hearing for some time, especially since the war, that
it is self-interest which governs nations and drives the world forward. It
was the Marxists who invented this thesis, to which they give the somewhat
doctrinaire title of 'Historical Materialism'. In pure Marxism, men taken
as a mass obey economic necessity and not their own emotions. Politics is
emotion; patriotism is emotion; these two imperious goddesses merely act as
a façade in history. In reality, the history of peoples throughout the
centuries is to be explained by a changing, constantly renewed interplay of
material causes. Everything is economics. Many 'bourgeois' philosophers
and economists have taken up this refrain. They pretend to be able to
explain high international politics to us by the current price of grain, oil
or rubber. They use all their ingenuity to prove that diplomacy is entirely
governed by questions of custom tariffs and cost prices. These explanations
enjoy a high esteem. They have a modicum of scientific appearance, and
proceed from a sort of superior scepticism which would like to pass for the
last word in elegance. Emotions in foreign policy? Feelings in home
affairs? Enough of that! This stuff is all right for the common people.
The great minds, the initiates, know that everything is governed by debits
and credits. Now this is an absolute pseudo-truth. It is utterly false
that peoples only allow themselves to be moved by considerations of
self-interest, and it is entirely true that they are above all motivated by
desire for, and ardent belief in, prestige. Anyone who does not understand
this, does not understand anything." The article (entitled The Desire
for Prestige) goes on to cite the examples of German and Italian
politics, which it claims are governed by considerations of prestige, and
not dictated by material interests. In short, it includes most of the more
banal polemical gibes that are directed against the philosophy of praxis;
but the real target of the polemic is crude economism of Loria's kind.
However, the author is not very strong in argument in other respects either.
He does not understand that "feelings" may be simply a synonym for economic
interests, and that it is difficult to maintain that political activity is a
permanent state of raw emotion and of spasm. Indeed he himself presents
French politics as systematic and coherent "rationality", i.e. purged of all
emotional elements, etc.
In its most widespread form as economistic superstition, the philosophy of
praxis loses a great part of its capacity for cultural expansion among the
top layer of intellectuals, however much it may gain among the popular
masses and the second-rate intellectuals, who do not intend to overtax their
brains but still wish to appear to know everything, etc. As Engels wrote,
many people find it very convenient to think that they can have the whole of
history and all political and philosophical wisdom in their pockets at
little cost and no trouble, concentrated into a few short formulae. They
forget that the thesis which asserts that men become conscious of
fundamental conflicts on the level of ideology is not psychological or
moralistic in character, but structural and epistemological; and they form
the habit of considering politics, and hence history, as a continuous
marché de dupes, a competition in conjuring and sleight of
hand. "Critical" activity is reduced to the exposure of swindles, to
creating scandals, and to prying them into the pockets of public figures.
It is thus forgotten that since "economism" too is, or is presumed to be,
an objective principle of interpretation (objective-scientific), the search
for direct self-interest should apply to all aspects of history, to those
who represent the "thesis" as well as those who represent the "antithesis".
Furthermore, another proposition of the philosophy of praxis is also
forgotten: that "popular beliefs" and similar ideas are themselves material
forces. The search for "dirty-Jewish" interests has sometimes led to
monstrous and comical errors of interpretation, which have consequently
reacted negatively on the prestige of the original body of ideas. It is
therefore necessary to combat 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 carried on by
developing the concept of hegemony – as has been done in practice in
the development of the theory of the political party,46 and in the actual history of certain
political parties (the struggle against the theory of the so-called
Permanent Revolution – to which was counterposed the concept of
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship;47 the extent of the support given to constituentist
ideologies,48 etc.).
A study could be made of how certain political movements were judged during
the course of their development. One could take as a model the Boulangist
movement (from 1886 to 1890 approximately)49 of the Dreyfus trial or even the coup
d'état of 2nd December (one would analyse the classic work on the
subject50 and
consider how much relative importance is given on the one hand to immediate
economic factors, and on the other to the concrete study of "ideologies").
Confronted with these events, economism asks the question: "who profits
directly from the initiative under consideration?", and replies with a line
of reasoning which is as simplistic as it is fallacious: the ones who
profit directly are a certain fraction of the ruling class. Furthermore,
so that no mistake shall be made, the choice falls on that fraction which
manifestly has a progressive function, controlling the totality of economic
forces. One can be certain of not going wrong, since necessarily, if the
movement under consideration comes to power, sooner or later the
progressive fraction of the ruling group will end up by controlling the new
government, and by making it its instrument for turning the State apparatus
to its own benefit.
This sort of infallibility, therefore, comes very cheap. It not only has
no theoretical significance – it has only minimal political
implications or practical efficacy. In general, it produces nothing but
moralistic sermons, and interminable questions of personality. When a
movement of a Boulangist type occurs, the analysis realistically should be
developed along the following lines: 1. social content of the mass
following of the movement; 2. what function did this mass have in
the balance of forces – which is in process of transformation, as the
new movement demonstrates by its very coming into existence? 3. what
is the political and social significance of those of the demands presented
by the movement's leaders which find general assent? To what effective
needs do they correspond? 4. examination of the conformity of the
means to the proposed end; 5. only in the last analysis, and
formulated in political not moralistic terms, is the hypothesis
considered that such a movement will necessarily be perverted, and serve
quite different ends from those which the mass of its followers expect.
But economism puts forward this hypothesis in advance, when no concrete
fact (that is to say, none which appears as such to the evidence of common
sense – rather than as a result of some esoteric "scientific" analysis)
yet exists to support it. It thus appears as a moralistic accusation of
duplicity and bad faith, or (in the case of the movement's followers), of
naiveté and stupidity. Thus the political struggle is reduced to a
series of personal affairs between on the one hand those with the genie in
the lamp who know everything and on the other those who are fooled by their
own leaders but are so incurably thick that they refuse to believe it.
Moreover, until such movements have gained power, it is always possible to
think that they are going to fail – and some indeed have failed
(Boulangism itself, which failed as such and then was definitively crushed
with the rise of the Dreyfusard movement; the movement of Georges Valois;
that of General Gajda).51 Research must therefore be directed towards
identifying their strengths and weaknesses. The "economist" hypothesis
asserts the existence of an immediate element of strength – i.e. the
availability of a certain direct or indirect financial backing (a large
newspaper supporting the movement is also a form of indirect financial
backing) – and it satisfied with that. But it is not enough. In this
case too, an analysis of the balance of forces – at all levels –
can only culminate in the sphere of hegemony and ethico-political
relations. [1933-34: 1st version 1930-32]
One point which should be added as an example of the so-called
intransigence theories is the rigid aversion on principle to what are
termed compromises52
– and the derivative of this, which can be termed "fear of dangers".
It is clear that this aversion on principle to compromise is closely linked
to economism. For the conception upon which the aversion is based can only
be the iron conviction that there exist objective laws of historical
development similar in kind to natural laws, together with a belief in a
predetermined teleology like that of a religion: since favourable
conditions are inevitably going to appear, and since these, in a rather
mysterious way, will bring about palingenetic events, it is evident that
any deliberate initiative tending to predispose and plan these conditions
is not only useless but even harmful. Side by side with these fatalistic
beliefs however, there exists the tendency "thereafter" to rely blindly and
indiscriminately on the regulatory properties of armed conflict. Yet this
too is not without its logic and its consistency, since it goes with a
belief that the intervention of will is useful for destruction but not for
reconstruction (already under way in the very moment of destruction).
Destruction is conceived of mechanically, not as
destruction/reconstruction. In such modes of thinking, no account is taken
of the "time" factor, nor in the last analysis even of "economics". For
there is no understanding of the fact that mass ideological factors always
lag behind mass economic phenomena, and that therefore, at certain moments,
the automatic thrust due to the economic factor is slowed down, obstructed
or even momentarily broken by traditional ideological elements – hence
that there must be a conscious, planned struggle to ensure that the
exigencies of the economic position of the masses, which may conflict with
the traditional leadership's policies, are understood. An appropriate
political initiative is always necessary to liberate the economic thrust
from the dead weight of traditional policies – i.e. to change the
political direction of certain forces which have to be absorbed if a new,
homogeneous politico-economic historical bloc, without internal
contradictions, it to be successfully formed. And, since two "similar"
forces can only be welded into a new organism either through a series of
compromises or by force of arms, either by binding them to each other as
allies or by forcibly subordinating one to the other, the question is
whether one has the necessary force, and whether it is "productive" to use
it. If the union of two forces is necessary in order to defeat a third, a
recourse to arms and coercion (even supposing that these are available) can
be nothing more than a methodological hypothesis; the only concrete
possibility is compromise. Force can be employed against enemies, but not
against a part of one's own side which one wishes rapidly to assimilate,
and whose "good will" and enthusiasm one needs. [1933-34: 1st
version 1932]
[G]
See the exact statement.53 The Poverty of Philosophy is an essential
moment in the formation of the philosophy of praxis. It can be considered
as a development of the Theses on Feuerbach, while The Holy
Family – an occasional work – is a vaguely intermediate
stage, as is apparent from the passages devoted to Proudhon and especially
to French materialism. The passage on French materialism is more than
anything else a chapter of cultural history – not a theoretical passage
as it is often interpreted as being – and as cultural history it is
admirable. Recall the observation that the critique of Proudhon and of his
interpretation of the Hegelian dialectic contained in The Poverty of
Philosophy may be extended to Gioberti and to the Hegelianism of the
Italian moderate liberals in general. The parallel Proudhon-Gioberti,
despite the fact that they represent nonhomogeneous politico-historical
phases, indeed precisely for that reason, can be interesting and
productive.
41.
Economism was defined in various ways by Lenin, especially in What is
to be Done?, e.g. "the fundamental political tendency of Economism
– let the workers carry on the economic struggle (it would be more
correct to say the trade-unionist struggle, because the latter also
embraces specifically working-class politics) and let the Marxist
intelligentsia merge with the liberals for the political 'struggle'."
Lenin opposed to economism the theory of a vanguard party which would unite
intellectuals and workers, and bring socialist theory "from outside" to the
proletariat – which in the course of its own, spontaneous action can
only develop "trade-union consciousness".
By "theoretical syndicalism", Gramsci means what is in English known simply
as "syndicalism" – the Italian word "sindicalismo means both
"syndicalism" and "trade-unionism". There was a strong syndicalist
tradition in the Italian working-class, notably among the anarchists and
anarcho-syndicalists. Anarchist workers played a leading part in many of
the great industrial struggles of the war and immediate post-war years,
especially in Turin, where Gramsci during the Ordine Nuovo period
repeatedly attacked the sectarianism of many socialists towards them. On
the other hand, the anarcho-syndicalist leaders, typified by Arturo
Labriola, were politically ambiguous to say the least. Labriola was an
interventionist in 1915, and although he was later an anti-fascist, many of
the other anarcho-syndicalist leaders rallied via nationalism to fascism,
in a process which Gramsci related to the "transformism" of the bourgeois
politicians following the Risorgimento. (See Alcuni temi.)
42.
Luigi Einaudi (1874-1961) was a prominent liberal politician and economist,
who participated in the Aventine opposition to fascism in 1924-25, and who
after the fall of fascism became Governor of the Bank of Italy, and
subsequently President of the Republic (1948-55). Croce's Materialismo
storico ed economia marxistica was first published in 1900, but in
1917 Croce added a new preface to the third edition in which he explained
his reasons for having written the book: what he saw as the benificent
effects of Marxism on Italian intellectual life in the decade 1890-1900,
notably in its impact on historical studies. Einaudi's comments were
published in Riforme Sociale, July-August 1918, p. 415.
43.
Agostino Lanzillo (1886-1952) was an anarcho-syndicalist, author of a book
on Sorel, who rallied to fascism and became a member of the National
Council of the fascist corporations in 1931. Gramsci analysed the process
whereby many anarcho-syndicalists rallied to nationalism and fascism in his
Alcuni temi. Pareto is best known today for his theory of
élites, but he was also a prominent economist and theorist of Free
Trade.
44.
Henri De Man (1885-1953) was a Belgian social-democrat, author notably of
the work of revisionism "Au delà du marxisme" (1929). In
1934 he wrote a programme of peaceful transition to socialism, known as the
"De Man Plan", and was a minister from 1935 to 1938. In 1946 he was
sentenced to prison for collaboration with the Germans during the
occupation of Belgium.
45.
Some of the old intransigent wing of the PSI helped to form the Communist
Party in 1921, others remained in the "maximalist" majority faction of the
PSI. This passage, however, seems clearly directed more specifically
against Bordiga, his abstentionism, etc.
46.
By Lenin, What is to be done? etc.
47.
Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution was not really developed before
his "Balances and Prospects" of 1906. However, in 1905 he had published a
pamphlet called "The period up to 9 January" which was published with a
preface by Parvus which stated that "The Revolutionary Provisional
Government of Russia will be the government of a workers' democracy ... a
coherent government with a social-democratic majority". This position
differed both from that of the Mensheviks, who believed that the revolution
was necessarily bourgeois in character and that the social-democrats should
adopt an abstentionist attitude, and from that of the Bolsheviks, who stood
precisely for a "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of workers and
peasants". Lenin's two main texts (prior to his "Two Tactics of
Social-Democracy") developing the latter concept: "Social-Democracy
and the Provisional Revolutionary Government", and "The
Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry"
are polemics against the Mensheviks, but the former includes a section
commending Parvus' text, but warning against certain errors contained in
it, notably the statement that the revolutionary provisional government
would be a Social-Democratic government. "This is impossible", Lenin
wrote, "... because only a revolutionary dictatorship supported by the vast
majority of the people can be at all durable. ... The Russian proletariat,
however, is at present a minority of the population in Russia. It can
become the great, overwhelming majority only if it combines with the mass
of semi-proletarians, semi-proprietors, i.e. with the mass of the
petty-bourgeois urban and rural poor. Such a composition of the social
basis of the possible and desirable revolutionary-democratic dictatorship
will, of course, affect the composition of the revolutionary government and
inevitably lead to the participation, or even predominance, within it of
the most heterogeneous representatives of revolutionary democracy." The
slogan of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship was of course dropped
by Lenin and the Bolsheviks after the February Revolution in 1917, but it
was revived in the inner-party debates of the mid-twenties, especially with
reference to Poland and to the Chinese Revolution.
48.
i.e. the huge weight of the "mass of the petit-bourgeois urban and rural
poor", referred to in the passage from Lenin quoted in the preceding note,
in the existing balance of social forces in Russia. These strata had
democratic or "constituentist" objectives, i.e. they wanted a Constituent
Assembly and put their faith in constitutional reforms. See too Lenin's
article "Constitutional Illusions" of July 1917.
49.
See note 3 in section 1.
50.
i.e. Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
51.
Georges Valois was a French fascist thinker, who early in this century
formed the "Cercle Proudhon", of which Sorel was a member. After
the World War he organised a movement aimed at "national revolution", based
on ex-servicemen and inspired by Mussolini; it was equally hostile to
"bolshevism" and "plutocracy". In the 'thirties he espoused a form of
"convergence" theory, seeing both the USA and USSR as evolving towards a
highly technological, syndical form of society.
General Rudolf Gajda, commander of the Czech Legion under Kolchak during
the Civil War in Russia, discharged from the Czech army for plotting a
military putsch in the 'twenties, formed a fascist League for Electoral
Reform which won three seats in the 1929 elections in Czechoslovakia. When
the Nazis entered this country, he hoped to become their puppet ruler, but
they no doubt mistrusted his nationalist past since his hopes were
frustrated.
52.
In his comments on "intransigents" (see note 45) Gramsci
often appears, as here, to be referring also – or even especially
– to the positions of Amadeo Bordiga. Bordiga was among those
communists criticised in Lenin's Left-wing Communism – an
infantile disorder, whose eighth chapter was entitled, ironically, "No
compromises?".
53.
Poverty of Philosophy, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1956,
pp. 194-95.