Book Review: Erich Fromm Escape from freedom: Revisiting Erich Fromm in the light of contemporary authoritarianism

A classic work of social science, if ever there was one, and a text that has been unfairly neglected in recent years, Escape from Freedom is a book that researchers in the field of organization studies would be well advised to rediscover. This key work by Erich Fromm, one of the founding members of the Frankfurt School – a movement from which he subsequently distanced himself – is as pertinent, original and compelling as it ever was due to its clarity on (i) the limits of management as an anonymous bureaucratic power and (ii) the automatization of the individual and the loss of meaning, two of the most prominent topics of research in contemporary critical management studies.

In terms of the former, Fromm’s opposition to the image of the boss/chief as the person entrusted with our freedom, the oversignification of the ‘leader’ as incarnation of the essence of an organization, is combined with a critique of the limitations of bureaucracy, an organizational environment that multiplies the number of decisions which are essentially hetero-determined. Fromm’s fundamental message is a warning against the dangers of ‘overobedience’ gradually subjecting others to increasing levels of oppression. In this respect, obedience to conventions, mimetism and loss of autonomy are instruments of submission which prevent us from constructing our own ethical judgements (Deslandes, 2016), and nurture our sadistic and masochistic tendencies. It is worth noting that Fromm was fully aware of the potential for extending his ‘escape from freedom’ thesis to the field of management, as he himself published an article in Management Science in the early 1970s focusing precisely on the inherent difficulty of reconciling the interests of individuals with the interests of the bureaucracies which employ them (Fromm, 1970). In my opinion, it is no stretch to see these reflections as the basis for the concept of ‘stupidity-based organizations’, as developed by Alvesson and Spicer (2016), wherein individual capacity for initiative, particularly at an intellectual level, is entirely neglected. Functional stupidity is exacerbated when individuals refuse to exercise their freedom of thought, refusing to question the ultimate goal, meaning or consequences of their actions. They may reason that they are simply obeying orders in the interests of their career, while in reality they are deluded about themselves and their capacities.

With regard to the automatization of the individual and the loss of meaning, Fromm contends that the development of industry has transformed people into cogs in a machine, of minimal importance compared with the ceaseless progress of industry itself. He contrasts the medieval craftsman, for whom the finished product was a symbol of personal achievement, with the ‘modern manufacturer’ who conceives of creation only in terms of capital and return on investment. In the late modern era a person with no economic utility is essentially considered to be worthless. Although Fromm was clearly aware that ‘pleasing personalities’ were better equipped to succeed in business than more clashing individuals, he remained convinced that it was the value of the product being sold (or bought) which ultimately made the difference. Fromm cites the example of a petrol station manager whose sole objective is to sell more petrol, constantly and repetitively, under the influence of factors largely beyond his control (fuel prices and the number of drivers stopping at the station) and without ever having to think about himself or his working practices, which remain strictly unchanged. This state of affairs is felt even more keenly in big firms where the boss has become an abstract figure – he never sees him; the ‘management’ is an anonymous power with which he deals indirectly and toward which he as an individual is insignificant. The enterprise has such proportions that he cannot see beyond the small sector of it connected with his particular job. (Fromm, 1941/1969, p. 126)

Fromm calls this the ‘automatization of the individual’ (p. 203), a phenomenon which he believes explains why we are constantly beset by feelings of fear and vulnerability, and an inability to grasp our own autonomy. This concept is echoed in the work of many subsequent thinkers, not least Bernard Stiegler, who builds upon this idea of automatization when he describes the ‘proletarisation’ of the so-called managerial ‘elites’. This is not to be envisaged as a form of literal pauperization, but rather a loss of understanding of one’s own work. The only people safe from ‘proletarisation’ are those whose activities cannot be entirely automated, requiring a certain degree of interpretation, of initiative – of freedom, essentially. In an age where artificial intelligence and government by algorithm are developing at breakneck pace (Vesa, 2018), we should be every bit as concerned about this phenomenon as Fromm was with the developments he observed in contemporary society: by meekly submitting to the systems which frame our lives, without the slightest reflexivity or sense of perspective, we are simply signing up to a contemporary version of the escape from freedom.

When it comes to defining the processes which induce the escape from freedom drive, Fromm first observes that the pre-eminent characteristic of the modern era is the emergence of individuals in constant competition with one another, no longer bound by the ‘primary ties’, which defined previous eras and gave all concerned the reassuring feeling that they belonged to a community. But his goal here is not to establish the concept of freedom in the positive sense (i.e. ‘freedom to’), because as a psychoanalyst, albeit an unorthodox one, Fromm was well aware of the mechanisms at work in the unconscious and our desire to conform to the expectations of others rather than make original decisions for ourselves. Indeed, he finds this combination of individualism and positive freedom to be effectively an empty shell. But the only freedom which truly matters to Fromm, and which he considers to be inalienable, is ‘freedom from’ determination, a sort of negative freedom which protects us, within our given socio-economic context, from our instincts and compulsive fears. But he also argues that it is possible to renounce this essential form of liberty (‘freedom from’), which he nonetheless considers to be the indirect source of all of our creative and imaginative capacities; driven by a sense of fear and isolation. Indeed, we might come to see it as a burden rather than the ultimate sanctuary of our humanity. This is precisely what he saw happening in 1940s Germany, and what he seeks to describe from a historical, psychological and sociological perspective. Fromm does not take issue with the process of ‘individuation’, which is the specific term that he employs here, in and of itself; on the contrary, he acknowledges its merit in the way that the West has, over time, freed itself from traditional forms of authority. But he contends that this very process, taken to the extreme, means that all individuals are now faced with the threat of isolation which would leave them incapable of influencing their own lives, leaving them as isolated beings at risk of falling back into servitude. Fromm felt that it was this disparity between boundless potential and disappointing results, between the possibility of living a fully liberated life and the disillusionment of the present age, which had driven people so precipitously beyond the boundaries of freedom. Hence the title of the book, which alludes to a reactionary impulse, a return towards a time (the middle ages) before the liberation of consciousness was set in motion.

The book is divided into seven chapters of varying length, and advances at least three major theses: the first consists of viewing the rise of the individual in the West, accompanied by the idea of individual freedoms, as a poisoned chalice. This quest for freedom liberates individuals from the domination of their natural and instinctive dispositions, instead enabling them, particularly in professional environments, to pursue the genuine fulfilment of their propensities for intellectual creation and affective experience (Chapters I and II). The second section (primarily Chapters III and IV) describes how this quest for fulfilment was undermined, particularly in Germany, by Protestantism: by emphasizing the need for man to bow to a higher power (i.e. God, religion restricts our independence and capacity for action in the world). The virtues of hard work, particularly in Calvin’s thinking, have nothing to do with a fundamental, existential choice. They are born of a sense of self-doubt, and the drive to escape this anguish and torment by overworking oneself. This compression of humanity’s scope for action, backed up by the doctrine of predestination so dear to Luther, creates the necessary conditions for total submission to the ‘chief’ (i.e. to worldly authority).

Maybe this point merits further examination. On page 160, for instance, Fromm explains that in a psychological sense, the lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness. It is the expression of the inability of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking.

It is important to point out that, at least in my opinion, this is not a case of narcissistic injury, which as an explanatory factor has been more enthusiastically promoted by psychoanalysis than the Protestant roots in question here, but simply the recognition of a vulnerability which may also be a sign of greater lucidity and acuity towards oneself and others. Is it not a certain sense of impunity, of all-powerfulness, which drives individuals to act irresponsibly? In this respect, should we not follow thinkers as diverse as Ricoeur or Vattimo in considering weakness – weakness which is nonetheless conscious of its capacity for real action – as a necessary condition for responsibility?

Finally, the third strand of Fromm’s argument, developed in Chapters V and VI, aims to expose the mechanisms at work in this ‘escape from freedom’. Fromm sees authoritarianism (i.e. ‘the tendency to give up the independence of one’s own individual self’, p. 140), destructiveness (i.e. the destruction of our relationships with others and with ourselves by a feeling of impotence, ‘an escape from the unbearable feeling of powerlessness’, p. 179) and automaton conformity (i.e. ‘the suppression of critical thinking’, p. 191) as methods we use to rid ourselves of the power to take decisions, by ourselves and for ourselves, on our own future. This analysis is essentially psychological in nature, Fromm contends, going on to explain that our patent inability to bear the weight of our own freedom pushes us to offer up our liberty to a superior, powerful figure who we hope will make decisions on our behalf. But Fromm’s analysis goes further still, as he was equally fascinated by the influence of socio-economic factors on individuals, existing in a dialectical relationship with the psychological factors in play (indeed this is one aspect in which Fromm’s work clearly departs from the Freudian model).

This whole process that he describes is in fact nothing short of sadomasochistic, something which Fromm – who was the only child of two ‘super-anxious’ parents (Fromm, 2005, p. 22), of German nationality and Jewish descent – felt was clearly demonstrated in Nazi Germany by those who felt a powerful need to dominate others, while also blindly accepting other forms of authority to which they submitted unreservedly. Venerating authority to the point of desiring it both for and against oneself reveals the paradoxical culmination of a historical movement which Fromm argues is rooted in a process of self-abasement and self-mutilation of individual agency. At this juncture it seems appropriate to introduce a little more nuance to Fromm’s firm conviction, in evidence throughout the book, that our attitudes are fundamentally rooted in a masochistic desire to rid ourselves of our selves, to lose ourselves, to sacrifice our own personalities in the service of some external force. This is a very strong and very profound idea indeed, and also a fairly astute one, but I still feel that it is limited by Fromm’s interpretation and the consequences which he derives from it. Is it really so easy to get rid of one’s self (Deslandes, 2017)? In the dark days around 1941 it was not the ‘self’ which was abandoned, but rather the courage to accept and to live this self to which we are indissolubly attached (Deslandes, 2016). Kierkegaard, whom Fromm singles out as the nineteenth-century philosopher who most prophetically described the feeling of anguish, agrees that decision-making may well result from the exercise of freedom, but that it is first and foremost a question of existential choice, of risk, of a ‘leap into the unknown’ where courage is the cardinal virtue.

Nevertheless, Escape from Freedom remains highly instructive for its analysis of Taylorism and, more generally, as a rallying cry for the use of critical thinking to comprehend the specificities of the world of work. For Fromm, who in this respect evokes comparisons with Marx as portrayed by Michel Henry, ‘external activity only has meaning and dignity as far as it furthers the aims of life’ (1941/1969, p. 109). Fundamentally, Fromm’s criticism is directed against the disconnection, or even the permutation, of ends and means in the realization of tasks: whereas in the past self-realization was a spiritual matter, twentieth-century man is more inclined to seek self-realization in the accumulation of external objects. Fromm’s vision of humanism is wrapped up with a vital urge to constantly grow and open up new horizons, a dynamic force addressing society as a whole. But none of this is possible without self-awareness and critical thinking, as Fromm himself is at pains to point out: ‘Methods of dulling the capacity for critical thinking are more dangerous to our democracy than many of the open attacks against it’ (1941/1969, p. 126).

With this somewhat unexpected analysis of a book which has been partially forgotten, my hope is to inspire a new reading of a classic text: not in the specific context of Germany in the 1940s, from a historical standpoint, but through the prism of organization theory in the light of contemporary globalization and the return of the ‘political strong man’ trope in some of the world’s most powerful nations, a list that contains a number of democratic nations and a phenomenon which should give us all cause for concern. How could this return of authoritarianism not come as a shock to a research community such as ours, which has spent decades developing alternative models of leadership wherein relationships (relational leadership), a sense of service (servant leadership) and even sharing (distributed/shared leadership) are valued more highly than charisma and a commanding manner? The most surprising aspect of this whole phenomenon is not so much the boundless desire for power demonstrated by those at the top, but rather the impassive consent of peoples all over the world. While Freedom House’s recent Annual Survey found that civil liberties are shrinking in more than a third of the world’s countries, more and more citizens appear to be receptive to an increase in authority. And virtually nobody appears to be immune to this sudden resurgence of the ‘great man’ theory: in France, an IFOP survey in 2015 found that 40% of the population were in favour of an authoritarian regime. As they renounce their own liberties in such cavalier fashion, do citizens realize that they are giving free rein to the hubris of leaders? It is hard to imagine an attitude further removed from the democratic concerns of ‘leadership by invitation’ or the egalitarian tendencies of the ‘liberated company’, subjects of so much discussion in our academic circles. Nevertheless, and as a form of indirect homage to Fromm and his commitment to warning us all of the risks of destructiveness and conformity, it is high time that we engage much more substantially and critically with the major lessons of his work and what they can tell us about management. Beyond that, organizational theory has a vital opportunity here to actually intervene with political debates to help raise awareness in the public domain about Fromm’s intellectual legacy – it’s an opportunity too good to be missed.