Intervija ar Ēriha Fromma biedrības prezidentu Dr. Raineru Funku
Ēriham Frommam veltītās starptautiskās konferences „Brīvība un brīvības: iespējas un draudi” priekšvakarā par Frommu, viņa darbu un ideju aktualitāti, kā arī brīvību un brīvībām Latvijā un pasaulē sarunājamies ar Starptautiskās Fromma biedrības prezidentu Dr. Raineru Funku.
Ar Dr. Raineru Funku sarunājas Anne un Ainārs Saukas
Intervija ar Ēriha Fromma biedrības prezidentu Dr. Raineru Funku
Re: Intervija ar Ēriha Fromma biedrības prezidentu Dr. Raineru Funku
humanistic communitarian socialism
an ideal political system proposed by Erich Fromm in which humane values would underlie the socioeconomic structure. The goal of humanistic communitarian socialism is a nonexploitative society, composed of small communities rather than large governmental or corporate entities, in which all members develop to their maximum ability, are self-regulating, and contribute fully as individuals and citizens.
humānistiskais komunitārais sociālisms
ideāla politiskā sistēma, ko ierosināja Ērihs Fromms, kurā humānas vērtības būtu sociālekonomiskās struktūras pamatā. Humānistiskā komunitārā sociālisma mērķis ir neekspluatējoša sabiedrība, kas sastāv no mazām kopienām, nevis lielām valsts vai korporatīvām vienībām, kurā visi dalībnieki attīstās līdz maksimālajām spējām, ir pašregulējoši un sniedz pilnu ieguldījumu kā indivīdi un pilsoņi.
an ideal political system proposed by Erich Fromm in which humane values would underlie the socioeconomic structure. The goal of humanistic communitarian socialism is a nonexploitative society, composed of small communities rather than large governmental or corporate entities, in which all members develop to their maximum ability, are self-regulating, and contribute fully as individuals and citizens.
humānistiskais komunitārais sociālisms
ideāla politiskā sistēma, ko ierosināja Ērihs Fromms, kurā humānas vērtības būtu sociālekonomiskās struktūras pamatā. Humānistiskā komunitārā sociālisma mērķis ir neekspluatējoša sabiedrība, kas sastāv no mazām kopienām, nevis lielām valsts vai korporatīvām vienībām, kurā visi dalībnieki attīstās līdz maksimālajām spējām, ir pašregulējoši un sniedz pilnu ieguldījumu kā indivīdi un pilsoņi.
Fascism and Nazism receive short shrift from Fromm, as we should expect. They are pathological in the purest sense, being a regression to an earlier stage of development—an infantile dependence on irrational authority, an "escape from freedom" into a new idolatry of leader and nation. For Fromm, the most important target of critique is communism, since it is, according to him, a perverted version of the ideals for which he stands.
In this respect, the republication of this book at the present time is indeed timely—for the collapse of totalitarian communism is widely viewed in the West as the falsification of socialist beliefs. Western socialism is widely regarded—and not merely by its detractors—as being simply the first step on the road to Moscow. Already in 1955, we see Fromm in this book urging socialists to disown the communist bloc. To fail to distinguish between Moscow-style communism and socialism was for him to play into the hands of right-wing propagandists. Nothing that has occurred in Russia since the revolution, if we are to believe Fromm, has anything to do with true socialism. As Rosa Luxemburg clearly saw, "the choice to be made was between democratism and bureaucratism"; Lenin, who "had no faith in man" chose the latter. The Stalinism which this led to was, in its ruthless exploitation of workers in the name of rapid accumulation of capital, no better than nineteenth-century capitalism: much worse, in fact, because it unleashed an unprecedented apparatus of State terror and totalitarian repression.
Although Fromm relies extensively, particularly for his concept of alienation, on the early writings of Marx, he is in no doubt that Marx's later thinking sowed the seeds of this totalitarianism.
The socialist tradition of Babeuf, Fourier, Owen, Proudhon and Bakunin is based on the ideal of "brotherly love" and shows a repugnance for centralized, absolute authority. Over decentralization, Marx equivocated disastrously: the state must "wither away"—but not until after the revolution. The predictable result was that the Party which led the revolution would consolidate its dictatorial hold on the people until—as happened from the end of the 1980s onwards—it simply became too inefficient, and too despised, to remain in power.
Fromm's critique of Marx is careful and respectful, seeking to leave intact all the valuable elements of his thinking. Marx's overvaluation of economic and political change, his belief that the taking-over of the means of production by the workers would automatically eliminate alienation, was connected with his undervaluation of the psychological and moral dimension:
Lacking in satisfactory psychological insights, he did not have a sufficient concept of human character, and was not aware of the fact that while man was shaped by the form of social and economic organization, he in turn molded it.
(P. 255)
The famous statement at the end of the Communist Manifesto that the workers "have nothing to lose but their chains", contains a profound psychological error. With their chains they have also to lose all those irrational needs and satisfactions which were originated while they were wearing the chains. In his respect, Marx and Engels never transcended the naive optimism of the eighteenth century.
(p 257)
If Marxism—Leninism was the wrong answer to the ills of Capitalism, what is, then, the right one?