 Gramsci referred to the views of these trade unionists as vulgar economism, which he equated to covert reformism and even liberalism.By virtue of his belief that human history and collective praxis determine whether any philosophical question is meaningful or not, Gramsci's views run contrary to the metaphysical materialism and copy theory of perception advanced by Engels, and Lenin, though he does not explicitly state this.For Gramsci, Marxism does not deal with a reality that exists in and for itself, independent of humanity.