Nothing is more unpopular today than the free market economy, i.e., capitalism. Everything that is considered unsatisfactory in present-day conditions is charged to capitalism. The atheists make capitalism responsible for the survival of Christianity. But the papal encyclicals blame capitalism for the spread of irreligion and the sins of our contemporaries, and the Protestant churches and sects are no less vigorous in their indictment of capitalist greed. Friends of peace consider our wars as an offshoot of capitalist imperialism. But the adamant nationalist warmongers of Germany and Italy indicted capitalism for its “bourgeois” pacifism, contrary to human nature and to the inescapable laws of history. Sermonizers accuse capitalism of disrupting the family and fostering licentiousness. But the “progressives” blame capitalism for the preservation of allegedly outdated rules of sexual restraint. Almost all men agree that poverty is an outcome of capitalism. On the other hand many deplore the fact that capitalism, in catering lavishly to the wishes of people intent upon getting more amenities and a better living, promotes a crass materialism. These contradictory accusations of capitalism cancel one another. But the fact remains that there are few people left who would not condemn capitalism altogether.8
It is true that a great many men suffer from a chronic feeling of inner emptiness, of spiritual impoverishment, the sense of lacking personal identity. It is true that a great many men feel alienated—from something—even if they cannot say from what—from themselves or other men or the universe. And it is profoundly significant that capitalism should be blamed for this. Not because there is any justification for the charge, but because, by analyzing the reasons given for the accusation, one can learn a good deal about the nature and meaning of men’s sense of alienation and non-identity— and, simultaneously, about the psychological motives that give rise to hostility toward capitalism.
The writers on alienation, as I have indicated, are not an intellectually homogeneous group. They differ in many areas: in their view of what the problem of alienation exactly consists of, in the aspects of modern industrial society and a free-market economy which they find most objectionable, in the explicitness with which they identify capitalism as the villain, and in the details of their own political inclinations. Some of these writers are socialists, some are fascists, some are medievalists, some are supporters of the welfare state, some scorn politics altogether. Some believe that the problem of alienation is largely or entirely solvable by a new system of social organization; others believe that the problem, at bottom, is metaphysical and that no entirely satisfactory solution can be found.
Fortunately for the purposes of this analysis, however, there is one contemporary writer who manages to combine in his books virtually all of the major errors perpetrated by commentators in this field: psychologist and sociologist Erich Fromm. Let us, therefore, consider Fromm’s view of man and his theory of alienation in some detail.
Man, declares Erich Fromm, is “the freak of the universe.”
This theme is crucial and central throughout his writings: man is radically different from all other living species, he is “estranged” and “alienated” from nature, he is overwhelmed by a feeling of “isolation” and “separateness”—he has lost, in the process of evolution, the undisturbed tranquillity of other organisms, he has lost the “pre-human harmony” with nature which is enjoyed by an animal, a bird, or a worm. The source of his curse is the fact that he possesses a mind.
“Self-awareness, reason, and imagination,” Fromm writes in Man for Himself, “have disrupted the ‘harmony1 which characterizes animal existence. Their emergence has made man into an anomaly, into the freak of the universe.” Man cannot live as an animal: he is not equipped to adapt himself automatically and unthinkingly to his environment. An animal blindly “repeats the pattern of the species,” its behavior is biologically prescribed and stereotyped, it “either fits in or it dies out”—but it does not have to solve the problem of survival, it is not conscious of life and death as an issue. Man does and is; this is his tragedy. “Reason, man’s blessing, is also bis curse… .”*
In The Art of Loving, he writes:
What is essential in the existence of man is the fact that he has emerged from the animal kingdom, from instinctive adaptation, that he has transcended nature— although he never leaves it; he is part of it—and yet once torn away from nature, he cannot return to it; once thrown out of paradise—a state of original oneness with nature—cherubim with flaming swords block his way, if he should try to return.8
That man’s rational faculty deprives man of “paradise,” alienating and estranging him from nature, is clearly revealed, says Fromm, in the “existential dichotomies” which his mind dooms man to confront—”contradictions” inherent in life itself. What are these tragic “dichotomies”? He names three as central and basic. Man’s mind permits him to “visualize his own end: death”—yet “his body makes him want to be alive.”6 Man’s nature contains innumerable potentialities— yet “the short span of his life does not permit their full realization under even the most favorable circumstances.”7 Man “must be alone when he has to judge or to make decisions solely by the power of his reason”—yet “he cannot bear to be alone, to be unrelated to his fellow men.”8
These “contradictions,” says Fromm, constitute the dilemma of the “human situation”—contradictions with which man is compelled to struggle, but which he can never resolve or annul, and which alienate man from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature.
If the logic of the foregoing is not readily perceivable, the reason does not lie in the brevity of the synopsis. It lies in the unmitigated arbitrariness of Fromm’s manner of presenting his ideas; he writes, not like a scientist, but like an oracle who is not obliged to give reasons or proof.
It is true that man differs fundamentally from all other living species, by virtue of possessing a rational, conceptual faculty. It is true that, for man, survival is a problem to be solved—by the exercise of his intelligence. It is true that no man lives long enough to exhaust his every potentiality. It is true that every man is alone, separate, and unique. It is true that thinking requires independence. These are the facts that grant glory to man’s existence. Why would one choose to regard these facts as a terrifying cosmic paradox and to see in them the evidence of monumentally tragic human problems?
There are men who resent the fact that their life is their responsibility and that the task of their reason is to discover how to maintain it. Large numbers of such men—men who prefer the state of animals—may be found (or used to be found) sleeping on the benches of any public park; they are called tramps. There are men who find thought abnormal and unnatural. Large numbers of such men may be found in mental institutions; they are called morons. There are men who suffer a chronic preoccupation with death; who bitterly resent the fact that they cannot simultaneously be a concert pianist, a business tycoon, a railroad engineer, a baseball player, and a deep-sea diver; who find their existence as separate, independent entities an unendurable burden. Large numbers of such men may be found in the offices of psychotherapists; they are called neurotics. But why does Fromm choose tramps, morons, and neurotics as his symbols of humanity, as his image of man—and why does he choose to claim that theirs is the state in which all men are destined to start, and out of which they must struggle to rise?
Fromm does not tell us. Nowhere does he establish any logical connection between the facts he observes and the conclusions he announces.
If we are not to regard his conclusions as arbitrary—as mystical revelations, in effect—then we must assume that he does not bother to give reasons for his position because he regards his conclusions as virtually self-evident, as irresistibly conveyed by the facts he cites, easily available to everyone’s experience and introspection. But if he feels it is readily apparent, by introspection, that the facts he cites constitute an agonizing problem for man—the most appropriate answer one can give is: “Speak for yourself, brother!”
Reason, Fromm insists, and the self-awareness which reason makes possible, turns man’s “separate, disunited existence” into an “unbearable prison”—and man “would become insane could he not liberate himself from this prison and reach out, unite himself in some form or other with men, with the world outside.”9
The following paragraph is typical of what Fromm considers an explanation:
The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety. Being separate means being cut off, without any capacity to use my human powers. Hence to be separate means to be helpless, unable to grasp the world—things and people— actively; it means that the world can invade me without my ability to react. Thus, separateness is the source of intense anxiety. Beyond that, it arouses shame and the feeling of guilt. This experience of guilt and shame in separateness is expressed in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. After Adam and Eve have eaten of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil,” after they have disobeyed . . . after they have become human by having emancipated themselves from the original animal harmony with nature, i.e., after their birth as human beings—they saw “that they were naked—and they were ashamed.” Should we assume that a myth as old and elementary as this has the prudish morals of the nineteenth-century outlook, and that the important point the story wants to convey to us is the embarrassment that their genitals were visible? This can hardly be so, and by understanding the story in a Victorian spirit, we miss the main point, which seems to be the following: after man and woman have become aware of themselves and of each other, they are aware of their separateness, and of their difference, inasmuch as they belong to different sexes. But while recognizing their separateness they remain strangers, because they have not yet learned to love each other (as is also made very clear by the fact that Adam defends himself by blaming Eve, rather than by trying to defend her). The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love—is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety.10