Marxism degenerated into economism by fusing with laissez-faire liberalism

Evidence

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. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 709

Categorization

• XREF: Gramsci’s ‘philosophy of praxis’ as heresy degenerating into superstition echoes his broader account of how hegemonic ideas are diluted in common sense—connects to how Islamophobia readings will treat Orientalist common sense as vulgarized theory. — connects to: Sartre’s Critique reworked Marxist economism into praxis-language for a new era of revolutionary ferment; Keynes declared in 1924 that laissez-faire was coming to an end — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 10; Interwar liberal revivalists saw laissez-faire itself as a dogmatic mystique — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 177 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Defines economism as Marxism’s degeneration into superstition when fused with laissez-faire liberalism.