***** Economism -- theoretical movement for Free trade -- theoretical syndicalism. 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....
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. 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 ethico-political hegemony in civil society, and of domination in the State....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 banalized) 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 of the problem is not even considered (Fabianism, De Man, an important part of the Labour Party), or because it is posed in an inappropriate and ineffective form (social democratic tendencies in general), or because of a belief in the possibility of leaping from class society directly into a society of perfect equality with a syndical economy....
A few characteristics of historical economism: ...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 other words, it does not take economic class formations into account, with all its inherent relations, but is content to assume motives of mean...self-interest....
(Antonio Gramsci, "The Modern Prince,"_Prison Notebooks_, pp. 158-63) *****
Yoshie