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From The New International, Vol. XXIV No. 1, Winter 1958, pp. 36–40.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
AMONG THE MODERN CRITICS of the de-humanization of life in capitalist society, there is a special place for the works of Erich Fromm. As a psychoanalyst and social psychologist, Fromm stands almost alone in his blanket condemnation of mass conformity to an alienated society and the divorce of the highest human ideals from life which the vast majority of his colleagues pass glibly off as “adjustment to reality.” In addition, because of his contributions to psychoanalytic theory, Fromm is one of the few socialists whose works are widely read and respected by young intellectuals in the American universities today. This alone is sufficient cause for consideration when a new work by Fromm appears. And when the work is so provocative, exasperating, stimulating, and oft-times silly an effort as The Sane Society [1] the cause for examination is multiplied.
Fromm’s critique of conformity, alienation, and authoritarianism begins with Escape from Freedom, in which he examines the neurotic fear of free choice and individual expression instilled by repressive, class-dominated societies, not only in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, but in the United States as well. In Man For Himself, the exploitative character orientation engendered by competitive social and economic human relations is analyzed and contrasted with the “productive orientation” which Fromm conceives as the ideal most conducive to man’s inner nature and strivings, and which can only flourish with the abolition of class society.
The Sane Society has been heralded as a continuation and, indeed, a culmination of Fromm’s ideas, in which not only does he condemn modern society but he offers, for the first time, an alternative—a method of social change.
The book begins with a review of Fromm’s earlier criticism. Suicide, homicide, and alcoholism tables are published to illustrate his contention that “the countries of Europe which are among the most democratic, peaceful and prosperous ones, and the United States, the most prosperous country in the world, show the most severe symptoms of mental disturbance.” He goes on to expand from this that in terms of a normative humanism, man’s most vital needs are denied by the society in which he lives, his most noble impulses are stifled, and his basest ones are glorified; it is therefore man’s society which is pathological and not man himself. Fromm’s long chapter on Man in Capitalist Society is a vivid, nightmarish illustration of the trends towards authoritarianism, robot-like conformity, and alienation-produced helplessness. Here, Fromm is at his best, writing with a breadth of scope and an angry indignation which propels his reader to quicken his pace, stimulates intense emotions, and provokes deep thinking about the hundreds of aspects of modern life upon which Fromm’s excoriating pen touches. It is Fromm at his best, talking as the outraged puritan whose ideals have been insulted and trampled upon, and who recalls to mind the best in the style of the muckrakers, the Zola of J’Accuse, and the call to nobility that has been the most cherished heritage of the socialist movement. In his sweep, there is none of the dreary scholasticism, the pussyfooting relativism, the painfully categorized vagueness of Fromm’s sociological and psychological compeers. This is clearly a man with a point of view!
YET THERE ARE PAGES HERE which are exasperating and disconcerting. Fromm is a puritan, and along with his outrage are features of crankishness; and if his scope transcends scholastic bounds, it also sacrifices clarity and leaves us with the uneasy impression that this greatly respected and read anti-capitalist voice is a bit confused. And if the ill-informed and often eccentric nonsense which follows this chapter and masquerades as the road to the sane society requires an explanation, it is here, in the best of Fromm, that we must return to seek out the germs of confused thinking. But first, to do justice to Fromm, let us continue with his “solution.”
With the end of his exposé, Fromm begins an attempt to analyze Various Answers to man’s dehumanization and alienation. Marx is examined with great respect and praise. Historical materialism is viewed as “the most lasting and important contribution of Marx to the understanding of the laws governing society ... a truly dynamic and holistic theory.” But true to the revisionist tradition, there is Stalinism to be accounted for and inevitably it must find its roots in Marx. Where? On page 258, we read, “In the very centralism of Marx lies the basis for the tragic development of the socialist idea in Russia.” And on page 261, “It is the tragic mistake of Marx, a mistake which contributed to the development of Stalinism, that he had not freed himself from the traditional overevaluation of political power and force.” And three pages later, we find that the basis for The Three Most Dangerous Errors in Marx’s Thinking turns out to be none other than “the underestimation of the complexity of human passions.” And what were the “Three Most Dangerous Errors?” One: “Neglect of the moral factor”; Two: "Grotesque misjudgment of the chances for the realization of Socialism”; and by all means Three: Marx’s belief “that the emancipation from exploitation would automatically produce free and co-operative human beings.” So we find that the great creator of historical materialism, tragically, had centralist tendencies, overrated political power and force, underestimated the passions, neglected the moral factor, thought socialism would triumph, and naively believed the end of exploitation would “automatically” end exploitative social relations. But even assuming Marx was terribly wrong in some or all of these (as we do not) one naturally seeks in Fromm’s book a scientific explanation for the rise of Stalinism. But all that Fromm— a champion of historical materialism —offers here is the popular fallacy that Stalinism flows from Leninism, for Lenin “had no faith in man” (the italics belongs to Fromm). It is not an approach that is likely to bolster our respect for Fromm as a materialist.
WITH MARX AND LENIN MOST crudely and cavalierly dismissed Fromm continues in search of a solution which presumably is not centralist, does not neglect the moral factor, correctly estimates the passions, has faith in man, etc. Fromm finds his answer in “humanistic communitarianism.” This is found in the theory of co-management, for “the principal point here is not ownership of the means of production, but participation in management and decision making.” (Author’s italics). Fromm’s ideal, in this regard, appears to be a certain watchcase factory in France called Boimondau. Here, it would appear that one Marcel Barbu has truly ushered in the New Jerusalem in abolishing alienation, instilling brotherhood, and laying the framework for the “productive orientation.” In this “Community of Work,” workers and management turned their swords into plowshares and wrote their own Decalogue of “natural ethics,” the ninth commandment of which is “Thou shall fight first against thyself, all vices which debase man, all the passions which hold man in slavery and are detrimental to social life: pride, avarice, lust, covetousness, gluttony, anger, laziness.” Furthermore, we find among the principles upon which Boimondau is built that “One has to be actively related to the whole world.” Since this is obviously no simple task, these communards have begun with the creation of 28 “social sections” (“But new ones are constantly added”). Among the “teams (“listed according to numerical importance”) are “1. Spiritual Section:”, composed of Catholic, Humanist, Materialist, and Protestant teams; “2. Intellectual Section,” with General Knowledge, Civic Instruction, and Library teams. Other sections include Interior Decorating Festivals and Gatherings, Countereffort, Solidarity, and Bookbinding teams. Included also, toward the bottom of the list, are “2 registered nurses, 1 practical nurse for general information, and 3 visiting nurses” along with male and female Basketball and Physical Culture teams.
One reads of this utopian settlement with some embarrassment when one realizes that this was not written by Robert Benchley, but endorsed as a “solution” by an author with whom we were previously identifying. Of course, Fromm questions “whether conditions similar to those created by the communitarians can be created for the whole of our society,” particularly when the work is of a mass-production rather than artisan nature. Here, Fromm ends up pathetically supporting a scheme for workers buying up all the common stock of the United States Steel Corporation, demagogically advanced by B.F. Fairless as a counter-proposal to the Guaranteed Annual Wage. “Actually,” says Fromm, “They would not even have to purchase that much," (he is speaking of an amount in excess of one billion dollars), “But only part of it in order to have enough of the stock to give them a voting majority.” But is such humiliating naivete the road to the Sane Society? Surely there must be more? And certainly there is, for Fromm tells us “Sanity and mental health can be attained only by simultaneous changes in the sphere of industrial and political organization, of spiritual and philosophic orientation, of character structure, and of cultural activities. The concentration of effort in any of these spheres, to the exclusion or neglect of others, is destructive of all change.” We are told by Fromm, at the very conclusion of his magnum opus, “As long as we can think of other alternatives, we are not lost; as long as we can consult together, we can hope.” Man has his choice!
But if this sorry conclusion were all that masqueraded as thought in this book, and if only a snide, sarcastic exposition of these ideas were justified, there would be little reason for considering it. But, we have already noted that Fromm is a figure in American intellectual life, and has developed his views from a laudable anti-capitalist critique. To toss off Fromm’s analysis as mere muddle-headedness does him as little justice as he does to the Marxist solution. What is necessary is to analyze Fromm at his best, in his criticism of modern society, to find out what went wrong in his evaluation. The answer would appear to lie in Fromm’s forte: his view of alienation itself.
FROMM BEGINS WITH THE definition of alienation as conceived by Marx as that condition of man where his “own act becomes to him an alien power, standing over and against him, instead of being ruled by him.” For Marx, the concept of alienation was intimately associated with a sense of helplessness and impotence on the part of its victims, and it was the crucial point for him that under socialism “the full and free development of each individual becomes the ruling principle.” Fromm, like Marx, is concerned with the alienating function of money in the process of consumption as well as alienation in production. But here Fromm extends his definition and includes among aspects of alienation the most valuable contributions of modern industrial society. It is in the use value of commodities that Fromm sees alienation as most oppressing, and it is here that we begin to sense the crankishness of Fromm’s analysis. Fromm condemns the use of white bread, which is “tasteless and not nourishing”; he sneers at modern man as “consumption-hungry”; he vehemently attacks the process of trading things in: “One loves the newness of things bought and is ready to betray it; when something newer has appeared.” Photography is seen as an alienated substitute for experience; ball games, movies, television, and all other passive experiences are anathematized as part of the “receptive orientation” which is counterposed to the productive one which he trumpets. In brief, one senses in Fromm not only an abomination of capitalism, but for modern technology itself. Fromm would not only enrich man’s capacity to develop himself freely, but would restrict it to rigidly “productive” bounds.
It is difficult to read Fromm without sensing the nostalgia for medieval artisanry and its fancied “belongingness.” His contempt is not restricted to the “automation” of life, but to the automation of industry itself. Fromm’s ideals are puritanical ones; the image of the kibbutz, with happy, folk-dancing multitudes working together in the sun and finding joy in sweat, stands over him and serves as a criterion for his analysis. There is an intolerance for passive experience, for leisure spent “unproductively,” for human desires and aspirations as they are rather than as they should be. Fromm rails against conformity, but would substitute a more rigid conformity to that which he deems “productive” or “creative.” There is a snobbish quality to Fromm’s highbrow tastes that would seem to deny others the right to develop themselves from fully gratifying and thereby passing through their lowbrow or middlebrow taste as they presently exist.
It is this intolerance of human feelings that leads Fromm to insist on an immediate leap in all areas at once; and it is his refusal to tolerate deviation from his productive ideal that leads him towards finding his solutions in such intolerantly tolerant communities, divorced from the mainstream of life, as Boimondau. What is meant by the “full and free development of each individual” is a society in which men are free to choose their own destinies with a maximum of awareness and a minimum of limitations. Such a society requires a tolerance for other orientations than Fromm’s Spartan life; and it requires as thorough an automation of production as is possible, not a retreat to the fancied pleasure of the medieval artisan in his creation. It requires a development of productive forces to such a level that man will be free to choose whether to center his life about “productive work” or about leisure pursuits. It requires going beyond the dictum of “He who shall not work shall not eat” to an organization of social life summed up in the phrase, “From each according to his capacity and to each according to his need,” with capacity determined individually rather than by forces outside of man. What is more important and urgent today, it requires not more insignificant New Jerusalems at Boimondau, nor more empty formulations about man having his choice, nor even such excellent exposes of “conformity” and “alienation” as Fromm and his followers are capable of. What is required is a respect for human, needs as they exist, for social action and for realizable proposals which which realistically take into account the facts of life.
1. The Sane Society by Erich Fromm, Rinehart, New York, 370 pp., $5.00
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