NM's blog

The irrational and planless character of society must be replaced by a planned economy that represents the planned and concerted effort of society as such. Society must master the social problem as rationally as it has mastered nature. One condition for this is the elimination of the secret rule of those who, though few in number, wield great economic power without any responsibility to those whose fate depends on their decisions. We may call this new order by the name of democratic socialism but the name does not matter; all that matters is that we establish a rational economic system serving the purposes of the people. Today the vast majority of the people not only have no control over the whole of the economic machine, but they have little chance to develop genuine initiative and spontaneity at the particular job they are doing. We must replace manipulation of men by active and intelligent co-operation, and expand the principle of government of the people, by the people, for the peo...

“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, subject...