“Fromm’s story shows us that a critique of authoritarian culture — one that identifies the strong tendencies toward passivity and reaction in the general population — can retain its central thrust, while still maintaining some of the optimism of the original Marxian critique of capitalism, and its orientation toward political action here and now.
“The Sane Society was also notable for its criticism of aspects of the Marxist project, especially concerning the traditional concept of revolution. Fromm believed that there was a profound psychological error in the famous statement that concludes the Communist Manifesto, suggesting that the workers had ‘nothing to lose but their chains’. As well as their chains, the workers also had something else to lose: all the irrational needs and satisfactions that had originated while they were wearing those chains.
“Fromm argued that we need an expanded concept of revolution: in terms of not only external barriers, but of internal, subjective barriers as well. Such a concept would address the roots of sadomasochistic passions, such as sexism, racism, nationalism, and other deformities of individual and social character that were not necessarily going to disappear rapidly in the context of a new society.
“Unlike Horkheimer and Adorno, who refused to criticize the Vietnam War, Fromm was vocal in his anti-war stance. He gave many speeches on college campuses and even wrote speeches for Senator Eugene McCarthy’s 1967–68 anti-war challenge to Lyndon Johnson in the Democratic primaries.
“His 1973 book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness engaged with contemporary academic discussions of human nature, challenging the view of that nature as innately aggressive and avaricious that would provide intellectual ballast for the neoliberal era.
In many ways, Fromm is the Frankfurt School thinker most suited to the current age.”
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