Abstract
Fromm’s To Have or To Be? (written during the 1960s–70s) says people and societies follow two basic ways of living: “having” and “being.” The “having” way focuses on owning things, showing status, and controlling others. The “being” way focuses on living fully shared experiences, inner growth, love, and creativity.
Fromm shows how language, beliefs, and economic systems push people toward the “having” way. He warns that this leads to overconsumption, harm to the environment, weaker communities, and less real happiness. He criticises capitalist materialism and urges both personal change (more empathy, self-awareness, meaningful work) and social change (fairer systems that value people and the planet).
Context
Erich Fromm’s To Have or To Be? (1976) emerged at the intersection of post‑war humanistic psychology, New Left critiques of capitalist society, and the cultural shifts of the 1960s–70s. Fromm trained in psychoanalysis at Heildelberg and was influenced by Marxist and Frankfurt School thought. He wrote as Western societies moved from postwar reconstruction into mass consumer affluence.
The book reframes a long-standing moral-philosophical distinction (possession vs. existence) as a sociopsychological diagnosis: the “having” orientation, measured in possessions, status, and control, had become institutionalised by mass production, advertising, and bureaucratic institutions. The alternative “being” orientation emphasised shared experience, creativity, and inner development.
Its publication in the 1970s also responded to contemporaneous debates about alienation, environmental limits, and the meaning of prosperity. Economically, many industrialised countries were confronting the end of the long postwar boom (oil shocks, inflation, stagflation), exposing contradictions in promises that growth would automatically yield happiness. Culturally, the counterculture, human potential movement, and renewed interest in Eastern spirituality had popularised critiques of materialism. Fromm reframed these in psychoanalytic and ethical terms.
Politically, the book echoes New Left concerns: criticism of consumer capitalism, commodification of life, and the erosion of community, while remaining rooted in Fromm’s humanistic socialism, rather than doctrinaire Marxism.
Intellectually, To Have or To Be? synthesised strands of mid‑20th‑century thought: Fromm’s earlier work on character and social pathology: The Sane Society, (1955), Freudian and existential analyses of freedom and anxiety, and Marxian critiques of alienation. Its style—diagnostic, prescriptive, and accessible—fit the era’s appetite for public intellectuals addressing social malaise. The book anticipated later debates about sustainable consumption and identity in late capitalism: its concerns about overconsumption, the instrumentality of relationships, and the ecological consequences of a “having” society proved prescient for environmental and anti‑consumer movements that gained force in subsequent decades.
Gabriel Marcel and Fromm
In the forward to his book Fromm cites Marcel's Being and Having (1949) saying that he:
"...writes from a theological and philosophical standpoint;"
Fromm also points out that his own book is a "psychological and social analysis" of the terms having and being.
Both authors address the human condition, freedom, and love, but from different roots and emphases. Fromm, rooted in humanistic psychoanalysis and Marxist social critique, sees alienation as primarily social and economic. Modern capitalism produces a “having” orientation, where people define themselves by possessions, status, or roles and this results in passivity, anxiety, and escape mechanisms (conformity, authoritarian submission, or destructive revolt). Authentic freedom for Fromm is an active, productive stance, “being” rather than “having”, expressed through reasoned autonomy, creative work, and loving solidarity.
Marcel, a Christian existentialist and metaphysical phenomenologist, frames the human situation in terms of mystery, fidelity, and presence rather than Fromm’s socio-psychological categories. For Marcel, alienation arises from objectification: treating persons and being itself as objects to be used (abstracting reality into “problem” rather than encountering “mystery”). Authentic existence is found in relational fidelity, receptivity, and the lived experience of communion with others and with the transcendent. Freedom for Marcel is not principally an abstract autonomy but the freedom-to-be-open (faithful surrender, availability) that enables genuine interpersonal presence and participation in being.
Fromm is sceptical of institutional religion when it reinforces authoritarian structures or escape mechanisms, yet he affirms a humanistic religiosity, an ethical orientation grounded in reason, human solidarity, and a reverence for life. Marcel, by contrast, treats faith as existentially primary: personal encounter with God and hope are central to resolving ontological loneliness; theological reflection and sacramental themes infuse his philosophy, making transcendence integral rather than optional.
On ethics and praxis both converge, but differ in orientation: both prioritise love and solidarity, but Fromm emphasises social structures, political economy and educational change to cultivate productive character and democratic humanism. Marcel focuses on personal conversion, fidelity, and the moral significance of small, concrete acts of presence and care, trusting that moral persons transform their world through relational authenticity.
Staehelin on Fromm
Balthasar Staehelin, who in 1969 published the book Haben und Sein (Having and Being), presented Erich Fromm as a distinctly humanistic social psychologist whose strength lay in merging psychoanalytic insight with sociocultural and ethical criticism. He stressed that Fromm rejected reductionist, biological explanations of human behaviour and instead located personality within historical, economic, and cultural contexts. For Staehelin, Fromm’s notion of the “social character”, the idea that societal structures shape widespread character traits and orientations, is a central analytic achievement that links individual psychology to social conditions.
Staehelin emphasised Fromm’s exploration of freedom’s paradox: modern freedom can generate anxiety that drives people toward conformity or authoritarianism. He treated Fromm’s analyses of authoritarian tendencies and the “escape from freedom” as crucial diagnoses of 20th‑century mass societies. Staehelin highlighted Fromm’s normative commitments: ethics grounded in love, productive work, and a life‑affirming orientation (biophilia) rather than success‑driven or necrophilic values, as shaping both Fromm’s theory and his public interventions.
Staehelin's research situates Fromm within 20th‑century humanism and links Fromm’s psychoanalytic theory to sociohistorical analysis, highlighting themes such as freedom, authoritarianism, and the social character. He helped introduce and contextualise Fromm’s writings for German‑speaking academic and literary audiences.
Fromm’s earlier works
Erich Fromm’s To Have or To Be? synthesises and intensifies themes he developed over three decades of writing, recasting earlier social-psychological diagnoses into a practical-cultural framework. The book inherits the central humanistic psychoanalytic concern with freedom and the dangers of escape first articulated in Escape from Freedom (1941). There Fromm showed how individuals flee the anxiety of freedom into authoritarianism, conformity, or destructiveness. In To Have or To Be? he argues that the “having” orientation is a parallel escape where people seek refuge in possessions, status, and fixed identities to avoid the insecurity of authentic selfhood.
Fromm’s concept of social character, elaborated in The Sane Society (1955), provides the sociological backbone for To Have or To Be? In The Sane Society he analysed how capitalist institutions and culture shape personality types that accept alienation and passivity. In the 1976 book he applies that lens specifically to consumer capitalism, diagnosing a widespread character structure organised around possession, accumulation and the instrumentalisation of relationships. Where earlier works examine institutional determinants of character, To Have or To Be? reframes the problem as a cultural mode of existence: "having" versus "being", making the critique more existential and diagnostic of everyday life.
The Art of Loving (1956) supplied Fromm’s positive account of mature love as an active, productive orientation grounded in care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. To Have or To Be? extends that moral-psychological programme by identifying “being” as the matrix for genuine relatedness and creativity: to be is to engage in productive love, presence, and shared activity rather than to possess others or things. Thus the book turns Fromm’s psychotherapy-inflected prescriptions into broader lifestyle and ethical recommendations, aimed at reversing alienation.
Across his works Fromm’s political commitments also evolve. While he consistently criticises capitalist materialism and advocates a form of humanistic socialism, his language moves away from orthodox Marxist economics toward values, character, and moral psychology. To Have or To Be? emphasises cultural and existential transformation alongside structural change, linking personal modes of relating to larger ecological and social consequences, a concern less prominent in his earlier, mid-century texts. Methodologically and stylistically, the book continues Fromm’s interdisciplinary blend of psychoanalysis, sociology, philosophy, and religion and preserves the accessible tone of works like The Art of Loving, but it does so with a more explicit ethical programme aimed at cultivating 'being' over "having'.
Summary
Foreword
The foreword to Erich Fromm’s To Have or To Be? introduces the book’s central contrast between two fundamental modes of existence—the possessive “having” orientation, which values accumulation, ownership, and status, and the participatory “being” orientation, which prioritises presence, love, creativity, and authentic relating. Fromm links the dominance of the having mode to modern capitalist society, consumerism, and commodification, arguing that this focus produces alienation, anxiety, and moral decline. The foreword frames the book as both a diagnosis of these social-psychological ills and a hopeful call for personal and cultural transformation toward being, suggesting that such a shift requires changes in values, education, and social structures to restore human dignity and genuine community.
PART ONE: Understanding the difference between having and being
Fromm opens by framing the central distinction: two fundamentally different modes of existence, the having mode (defined by possession, acquisition, and measurable outcomes) and the being mode (defined by experience, participation, and inner states). He traces the theme through poetry, language, and philosophy, showing how cultural shifts toward nouns and possession mirror a societal drift into the having orientation. Using literary examples (Tennyson, Basho, Goethe) and historical thinkers (Buddha, Jesus, medieval mystics, Marx), Fromm argues that the having orientation fosters alienation, anxiety, and identity tied to what one owns rather than who one is. He introduces the ethical and psychological stakes: choosing being over having changes how people relate to themselves, others, and nature.
Fromm then expands on why the distinction matters practically and morally. He contrasts societies and institutions that reward possession—status, consumerism, competitive achievement—with life-forms that cultivate presence, creativity, and love. Psychological consequences are detailed: individuals rooted in having experience insecurity, defensiveness, and a need to dominate; those rooted in being exhibit spontaneous creativity, trust, and authentic relatedness. Fromm connects economic structures (capitalism, commodification) to the spread of the having orientation and warns that without a shift toward being, personal fulfilment and social health are endangered.
Next the author surveys intellectual traditions that illuminate having vs. being. Fromm draws on classical philosophy (Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle), Hegelian dialectics, Christian mysticism (Eckhart), and Eastern thought (Buddhism) to show recurring critiques of possession-centered life. He examines how language, metaphysics, and the emergence of private property shaped self-conceptions—turning persons into owners and things into commodities. Fromm also contrasts modern scientific-technological rationality, which tends to reify and quantify, with existential and humanistic emphases on process, presence, and qualitative experience.
Fromm then moves to clinical and empirical terrain: how having and being show up in personality, neurosis, and everyday behaviour. He describes the “having” character: acquisitive attitudes, identity tied to possessions and roles, envy, and the instrumental treatment of people and nature. The “being” character is exemplified by productive love, creativity, and the capacity for play, humility, and gratitude. Fromm connects these modes to developmental processes, education, and socialisation, arguing that upbringing and economic context tend to cultivate having unless intentionally countered.
Fromm analyses linguistic shifts that both reflect and reinforce the having orientation—nouns over verbs, possession-focused idioms, and the grammatical framing of experience as objects to own. He points out everyday phrases that distance people from feelings (“I have a problem”) and shows how thought shaped by possession impairs self-awareness and relation. The chapter argues that changing language and conceptual habits is a necessary step toward cultivating being: learning to speak and think in verbs (process, relation, becoming) fosters presence and reduces alienation.
Concluding Part One, Fromm sketches the practical implications of choosing being over having. He outlines areas—education, work, love, religion, and politics—where a being orientation produces healthier outcomes: cooperative institutions, meaningful labour, educations that cultivate capacities rather than credentials, and spiritual practices that emphasise presence. He warns that superficial reforms won’t suffice; structural economic and cultural changes are needed alongside personal transformation. The chapter closes by urging a conscious cultural shift: revaluing qualities of being, promoting non-possessive love, and redesigning social institutions to nurture human flourishing.
PART TWO: Analysing the fundamental differences between the two modes of existence
Fromm opens Part Two by restating the central distinction between the Having and Being modes of existence, arguing that modern culture privileges possession and accumulation while neglecting presence and participation. He defines Being as an orientation toward activity, love, and creative relatedness rather than toward objects to own, and he frames the forthcoming chapters as an exploration of what Being looks like psychologically, socially, and ethically.
Fromm then elaborates on the structure and qualities of Being: it is process-centered rather than outcome-centered, values shared experience, and fosters creativity, humility, and inner richness. Fromm emphasises that Being shows up in productive work and authentic love—activities in which the self unfolds through participation—and contrasts these with instrumental, possession-focused behaviour.
The author introduces biophilia, a love of life and growth, as foundational to the Being orientation, and contrasts it with necrophilia, an attraction to death, rigidity, and destruction linked to the Having orientation. He connects necrophilic tendencies to authoritarianism, fetishisation of objects and ideas, and social practices that deaden spontaneity and empathy.
Fromm traces psychological and social origins of the Having orientation: early conditioning, identification with possessions, family and property relations, and economic systems that reward accumulation. He shows how fear of loss and the need for security push individuals to define themselves through ownership, producing alienation and fragile identities.
The author cites concrete practices for cultivating Being, recommending self-observation, inner discipline, meditation, engagement in productive work, and the practice of love as a skill. He stresses small, habitual changes: simplifying life, reducing attachments, and fostering mutuality, over ideological pronouncements, arguing that Being must be enacted daily.
Acknowledging that personal change is constrained by structure, Fromm analyses institutional preconditions for Being: cooperative economics, education that cultivates character, and social policies that prioritise human development over profit. He critiques capitalist consumer culture for reinforcing Having and calls for systemic reform to make Being viable for more people.
He outlines the moral consequences of the two modes: Being gives rise to empathy, responsibility, and care; Having breeds exploitation, indifference, and moral impoverishment. He proposes an ethic grounded in respect for life and fostering others’ growth, and argues that moral education should cultivate capacities for love and productive action rather than obedience or acquisitiveness.
Fromm surveys how major cultural forces relate to Being: certain spiritual and humanistic traditions support experiential, life-affirming values, while reductionist science or dogmatic religion can either assist or obstruct Being depending on orientation. Fromm advocates a humanistic synthesis that integrates rational insight with a commitment to life and genuine experience.
The author presents a programme for personal and social transformation combining inner work (self-knowledge, discipline, practice of love and productive activity) with collective action to reshape institutions. He warns against utopian quick fixes and authoritarian impositions, urging patient, disciplined effort and solidarity as the means for cultural change.
Concluding Part Two, Fromm sketches the psychologically mature person grounded in Being: autonomous yet related, creative, capable of productive work and authentic love, and guided by ethical responsibility. He envisions societies reorganised around human growth rather than consumption and expresses guarded optimism that such a transformation is attainable through persistent individual and social effort.
Part Three: The New Man and the New Society
Fromm opens Part Three by asserting that societal change requires a corresponding change in character structure; political or economic reforms alone will not produce a truly humane society. He defines the “new man” as one who prefers being over having, whose orientation is rooted in relatedness, reason, love, and productive activity rather than possession, greed, and dominance.
Fromm contrasts the new man with the contemporary “having” character: the latter’s identity is based on objects owned, status, and consumption, producing isolation and emotional impoverishment. He argues that the new man’s development depends on social structures that encourage generativity, freedom, and cooperation rather than competition, conformity, and authoritarianism.
He stresses education’s central role: schools and child-rearing must cultivate curiosity, critical thinking, and responsibility instead of obedience and acquisitiveness. The author critiques capitalist institutions that transform people into commodities and make personal worth measurable by market value, calling for economic systems orientated to human needs.
Fromm examines the psychological roots of authoritarianism, showing how insecurity and escape from freedom lead people to submit to power or seek domination. He discusses bureaucracy and technological rationality: when technology and administration serve profit and control, they suppress individuality and creativity.
Fromm insists political change must be democratic and participatory; centralised power—even with progressive goals—can recreate alienation and domination. He proposes decentralisation: small-scale institutions, worker self-management, and local control can foster responsibility and social connectedness.
Fromm outlines economic measures: guaranteed employment, limits on private property’s power, progressive distribution of wealth, and production geared to human welfare rather than consumption. He describes work reorganisation: meaningful, creative labour with cooperative structures will help people develop productive orientation and self-respect. The author emphasises leisure reform: free time should enable growth, community, and creative activity, not mere consumption or passive entertainment. He argues for a new legal and political culture grounded in human rights, civic responsibility, and institutions that protect individual freedom while promoting social welfare.
The author connects ethical development with social institutions: moral norms arise from conditions that foster empathy, trust, and mutual aid. He warns against utopian blueprints imposed from above. Instead, social change must grow organically from transformed individuals and participatory movements.
Fromm examines socialist prospects: democratic socialism aligned with humanistic values could support the new man, but authoritarian socialism would replicate old pathologies. He critiques both laissez-faire capitalism and bureaucratic collectivism as failing to respect human dignity; both concentrate wealth/power and stifle spontaneity.
Fromm calls for cultural change: art, religion, and philosophy should promote the value of being, authentic experience, and critical consciousness. He stresses the role of small groups and social ties in character formation; intimate communities teach responsibility, love, and accountability.
He discusses psychological techniques for fostering the being mode: self-awareness, active reason, discipline of attention, and practice of love and humility. He argues that existential courage is required: individuals must accept uncertainty and freedom rather than cling to possessions or rigid identities. Fromm describes education for adult citizens: lifelong learning, civic engagement, and institutions that encourage critical thought and solidarity.
He returns to the interplay of individual and society: personality changes facilitate institutional reform, and reformed institutions reinforce new character structures in a reciprocal process. Fromm acknowledges obstacles: vested interests, cultural inertia, and the comfort of accustomed roles resist transformation.
He outlines strategies of change: grassroots organisation, education campaigns, gradual institutional reforms, and exemplary communities that model alternative ways of living. Fromm ends by asserting hope: a new humanistic society is possible if enough individuals commit to inner change and collective action, creating institutions that nourish being over having.
Themes
Economic progress doesn’t guarantee happiness or wealth.
Everywhere we look, another product promises to better our lives: a new car to make us feel successful, a phone to help us manage our responsibilities. But if a better life is readily available, why are so many overwhelmed, lonely, disillusioned, and discontented?
Western civilisation’s “pursuit of happiness” has produced anxiety, depression, and addictions. The urge to compete and compare leaves many isolated and convinced that we need to be more and have more. Ironically, as long as accumulation is a primary ambition, people will never accumulate enough. They will grow more and more unfulfilled. But the consequences of unbridled consumption don’t stop at the level of the individual. There are societal consequences, too. One of these is the consolidation of wealth in the hands of the few.
Because our capitalistic, “every-man-for-himself” system rewards selfishness and greed, things like solidarity, sharing, and contentment are devalued. Over time, this increases the disparity between economic classes, and can even cause wars. Historically speaking, greed has factored into almost every international war.
When greed drives society, everyone loses. Employers seek to deceive their customers, destroy their competition, and exploit their workers. The communist solution, however, like capitalism, doesn’t seek to curb consumption.
Social and economic changes are necessary to reshape a society that no longer benefits the majority. Otherwise, the cycle of dissatisfaction will continue.
Selfishness Stems from a Having Mindset
By focusing on self-serving goals, societies built on the "having" mindset encourage selfish behaviours among leaders and citizens alike. Leaders prioritise their own gains—financial or political—over the needs of the public. Meanwhile, citizens disengage from collective wellbeing, focusing only on their private interests.
Corporate leaders cutting jobs while maintaining personal bonuses and politicians catering to wealthy donors exemplify the results of selfish leadership. Similarly, everyday people may ignore pressing societal issues since these don't immediately affect them, exacerbating inequality and injustice.
This attitude divides society into "exploiters" and "exploited," causing rifts that can lead only to conflict or revolution. A shift toward being could create a more equitable, interconnected world where resources and responsibilities are shared.
Humanity’s Strained Relationship with Nature
Industrialism has shifted humanity’s perspective on nature from one of respect to one of exploitation. Where humans once worked alongside nature’s rhythms, we now aim to dominate and extract as much as possible from it, endangering both the planet and ourselves.
Large-scale exploitation of natural resources like air, water, and forests has resulted in ecological disasters. But nature often reacts as evidenced by climate-change-driven phenomena such as increasing natural disasters and food shortages. Mass overconsumption leaves humanity facing dire environmental consequences.
A return to a respectful coexistence with nature requires a drastic ideological shift. By embracing the being mindset and limiting consumption, humanity can begin to heal the damage industrialism has done to our planet.
Anchors of "Having" Keep Us Trapped
The "having" mindset leaves us exposed to three levels of dissatisfaction. First, tying identity to possessions creates insecurities, as everything we "have" can be lost. Second, constant comparison pits individuals against one another in an unwinnable race for status and approval. Third, people seek fleeting happiness from superficial pleasures that cannot provide lasting joy.
Conversely, awareness of the having mindset’s pitfalls can lead to transformation. Recognising the limits of acquiring and choosing to focus inward allows for a path toward sustainable satisfaction and peace.
Being grounded in traits like love, reason, and creativity empowers individuals to find meaning regardless of their circumstances. Instead of chasing short-term thrills, individuals can nurture self-confidence and deeper, longer-lasting joy.
Reshaping Society for Collective Wellbeing
A society rooted in the "being" mindset requires redefining core values. This means redefining productivity, relationships, and even time. Productivity shifts from industry-driven busyness to actions reflective of inner purpose. Relationships grow from manipulation and objectification to connection.
By reshaping our culture, humans can live more harmoniously, free from the constant need to prove or acquire. A collective understanding of time evolves as people stop rushing toward "more" and begin appreciating balance in their daily lives.
This collective shift would minimise consumerism and material inequality, focusing on human fulfilment as the ultimate goal.
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