Feelings in politics can themselves be expressions of economic interests, not their opposite.

Evidence

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. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 712

Categorization

• DEFINE: Key move in Gramsci’s anti-economism: emotions and prestige-seeking are not separate from material interests but expressions of them — dissolves the false dichotomy his bourgeois critics rely on.
• XREF: connects to: Passions and affects, not rationality, secure allegiance to democratic values — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 433