Erich Fromm and Left Strategy

This book considers the work of Erich Fromm as it can be applied to radical Left political strategy. It aims primarily to demonstrate the relevance of his ideas to contemporary radical Left strategy and to contribute to the revitalization of critical social theory and its relationship to radical praxis. Specifically, the case is made throughout this volume that Fromm’s humanist socialism offers a unique set of critical tools for impugning entrenched assumptions and ossified debates within the contemporary radical Left about what struggles against capitalist exploitation and myriad interconnected social oppressions can and should look like. Four vantage points are identified and explored to this end. The first focuses on the question of what Fromm’s theoretical contributions can teach us about what radical activism and resistance ought to look like across multiple terrains of struggle. The second asks what Fromm’s insights regarding social character can teach us about the forces that stifle productiveness and reproduce domination. In a more utopian vein, it asks what society might look like once domination has been eliminated. The third places Fromm in dialogue with diverse voices on the Left, including prominent psychoanalysts and social and political theorists, with an eye toward lingering tensions and disagreements about radical social change. The fourth asks why the Right has gained ground politically in recent years and what can be done to contain it, and offers psychoanalytically inflected reflections on the pernicious effects of group narcissism on individuals’ political agency.