The ethical Marxism of Erich Fromm

Lawrence Wilde

pp. 55-73

in: Mark Cowling, Paul Reynolds (eds), Marxism, the millennium and beyond, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstrakt

The coincidence of the centenary of the birth of Erich Fromm (1900–1980) and the dawn of a new century provides a timely opportunity to reassess his largely neglected contribution to socialist theory. Fromm is one of the most widely read theorists associated with the Marxist tradition, but for the most part this popularity rests on the attraction which books like The Art of Loving hold for those in search of individual paths to enlightenment in a rather unloving world.² Fromm was very concerned by the possibility that his work could be read solely for individual therapy, with the socialism pushed to one side. Shortly before the publication of his final book, To Have Or to Be? (1976), he withdrew a section on "Steps Towards Being" for fear that it might encourage individualistic responses to conditions which require structural transformation.³ Indeed he condemned many of the books which purport to show the way to well-being as harmful by their fraudulence, "exploiting the new market that caters to people's wish to escape their malaise".⁴ Metaphorically, the intention here is to relocate Fromm from the burgeoning "Spiritual Paths' shelves of the radical bookshop to the dusty and diminishing space reserved for "Socialist Theory". I will argue that in developing the ethical and psychological implications of Marx's theory of alienation and applying it to the conditions of his day, he made an immensely valuable yet underestimated contribution to socialist theory.

Cited authors

Marx Karl

Fromm Erich