I purchased this book for a class. It is a fabulous book and it was in good shape.

When I first read it I was enlightened. To me most people want freedom, but are afraid of the results of their actions. To avoid a bad chose people will let someone else choose for them. That's the origin of Fascism,Communism and other totalitarianisms. in everyEscape from Freedom cultures you have people that just "Don't Rock the Boat." or "Go with the flow." It makes them feel safe. To be free you have the right to be right or wrong. That's scary for most people.

This book, initially published in 1941, provides an invaluable framework for understanding the rise of Fascism in the 1930s. Fromm argues that the German masses (especially the lower middle class) were not tricked into supporting Hitler and his cohorts; they willingly succumbed to gain powerful psychic benefits. In brief, by surrendering themselves to the great leader, they escaped the dilemma of surviving in a world that seemed threatening and beyond their control.

Having come to the United States in 1934 to escape the Nazis, Fromm wrote with first hand familiarity of the political situation in his native country. In addition, he was an accomplished psychologist, well versed in the theories of Sigmund Freud et al. No wonder his analysis of the appeal of Nazism to the German population rings true, even though this development might seem of primarily historical interest at this point.

But there is much more, because Fromm postulates a similar lack of comfort with individual political and economic freedom to the populations of other nations under widely varying circumstances. He also describes a variety of coping mechanisms, from accepting religious belief systems (which he obviously does not set much store in) to giving up one's own autonomy and buying into the conventional wisdom of the society as communicated by the mass media.

While it is suggested that people can learn to live authentically in accordance with their own ideas, converting freedom from a threat to a benefit, Fromm sets so many obstacles in the way that one is inclined to doubt whether he truly believes in such a vision. Note also his sense of comfort with society in the Middle Ages, when people knew what fate held in store for them based on the accident of their birth, and with the lot of animals (e.g., wood chucks) that can make their way in life based on instinct.

Ultimately, Fromm makes clear what he really thinks: most people are not qualified for freedom after all and someone (hopefully infused with benevolent intent) must do their thinking for them.

On the one hand, he says, "progress for democracy lies in enhancing the actual freedom, initiative, and spontaneity of the individual, not only in certain private and spiritual matters, but above all in the activity fundamental to every man's existence, his work."

On the other, "the irrational and planless character of society must be replaced by a planned economy that represents the planned and concerted effort of society as such. *** Only in a planned economy in which the whole nation has rationally mastered the economic and social forces can the individual share responsibility and use creative intelligence in his work."

In holding up a planned economy as part of the solution, it seems to me, Fromm is basically conceding the bankruptcy of his central premise - that there is some way to have certainty and freedom at the same time.

What is to say that a planned economy works better than the free market, or that people will really have more outlets for their individual aspirations and abilities in such a system? Also, come to think of it, the Fascists (and Communists as well) were big on centrally planned economies.

Following in the footsteps of Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm was trained in psychoanalysis and became a consulting psychologist. Writing this book in 1941, Fromm was intrigued by how dictators like Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin were able to gain the support of their mass populations and, in effect, lure them away from freedom (insofar as they had any to begin with). His study is partly driven by his assetion that this luring force toward fascism widely prevails "in millions of our own people", referring to Americans, and is the reason I read this book.

His thesis then becomes that in a state of freedom (independent, rational, objective), individuals are alone and alienated and have doubt. Man longs for security and a sense to belong.

In support of his thesis, Fromm begins with lessons drawn from the middle ages and the Renaissance, a time when "The masses who did not share the wealth and power of the ruling group had lost the security of their former status and had become a shapeless mass, to be flattered or to be threatened-but always to be manipulated and exploited by those in power. A new despotism arose side by side with the new individualism. Freedom and tyranny, individuality and disorder, were inextricably interwonen".

He, furthermore, uses examples of "masochistic perversion because it proves beyond doubt that suffering can be something sought for".

The book becomes more relevant when Fromm finally gets to 20th century America and writes, "The principal social avenues of escape in our time are the submission to a leader, as has happened in Fascist countries, and the compulsive conforming as is prevalent in our own democracy".

And then Fromm gets to the mechanisms of escape. The one I find particularly intersting is "automaton conformity". In his words, "...the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offerred to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be. The discrepancy between "I" and the world disappears and with it the conscious fear of aloneness and powerlessness...The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self".

And this, patient reader, is the relevance of Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom" to the American Republic. If 300 million individuals lose their "self" to their "leader" (because they want to conform) then what we have is a totalitarian dictatorship exactly like Hitler's, Stalin's, and Mussolini's. And, as I went to great detail to show in my review of the book, Propaganda, the invisible government of the USA has been conditioning our minds and snatching our thought without us even being aware of it. This conditioning is, for all intensive purposes, complete. Expect the other shoe to drop within the next twelve months.

Fromm writes, "...if we do not see the unconscious suffering of the average automatized person, then we fail to see the danger that threatens our culture from its human basis; the readiness to accept any ideology and any leader, if only he promises excitement and offers a political structure and symbols which allegedly give meaning and order to an individual's life. The despair of the human automaton is fertile soil for the political purposes of Fascism".

Written almost seventy years ago, this book is still surprisingly relevant today. Fromm explores freedom from two sides, man's strive for it and man's strive in spite of it.

An essential book for anyone who truly values freedom, and even more essential for those who try to rebel against society and carve their own niche. Are they really? Or are they falling into freedom's trappings.

Especially powerful is the section on Nazism, written at the dawn of World War II. Great stuff here.

Psychologist Erich Fromm gives one a thought provoking view of the human condition-perhaps more true noe than when the book was written. He takes a multi-disciplanary approach using the History of Western Civilization, Psychology, Sociology, Marxist, Freudian, and Existential Thought.

If you are a socialist, Fromm will present a well-needed critique of modern psychosocial life, that will enhance your understanding. If you are an anti-socialist, Fromm will present to you an interesting and profound challenge. I would buy and read this book in either case.

I think that the book is brilliant in that there is danger that modern man in the capitalistic society is prone to surrender his freedom: not so much to Fascism (as Fromm warns against), but rather to the unthinking world of pop culture.

Erich Fromm was a popular author among college students in the 60's. This particular book expressed the notion that human beings did not really want freedom and were on a constant psychological journey to undermine their own personal freedom in many convoluted ways. The author gives examples of how we undermine our freedom and how we try to escape from the burden of freedom and independence.
I read this so many years ago that I can remember nothing specific. What I do remember is that I carried this book around with me for at least a year. As I read it and pondered the author's implications. At the time I thought he was the "best". I should re-read something of his today and see what I think now. This would be a good psychological experiment. But "there are so many book and so little time".

I bought this book trying to undestand the last events in Russia. There is no mirror situation between Germany in 30-s of the last century and the current situation in Russia. However, there is the same conclusion. If you are not ready to take a responsibility for your own freedom, you will lost it.

Erich Fromm is perhaps the most brilliant psychoanalyst period. I have read two other books by him, and am again amazed by his ability to create a unifying and extemely broad theory on how escape from objective external control (ie religious organizations) leaves us feeling alone and powerless; our lives become seemingly meaningless. Erich Fromm should be read by anyone who is deeply interested in the social sciences (I'm a psychology major) or even anyone interested in knowing themselves better as he is able to reveal many of our faults to us. Fromm may have been a humanist, but he writes in a style that is as demanding of our change as it is understanding of our faults.

Fromm originally wrote this work to explore the psychological reason for the success of Nazism in Germany. But the book also explores the pathologies inherent in modernity itself. Modernity introduced radical destabilizing forces into traditional economic, political and religious structures. This caused mass anxiety which resulted in people becoming subject to cults, religions and political movements that promise stability, surety and predictability. This is a wonderful insight that can explain such varied 20th century phenomena as the return to religious fundamentalism, political fanaticism, mindless admiration for pop stars etc. His interpretation of the Old Testament could serve as a wonderful antidote to Jewish and Christian inclinations towards escaping from the freedom of their own autonomous reason. This inclination is a cautionary for 'settler Zionism' and the idolotry of land that I issue in my own book "The Optimistic Jew: a Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century".

I genuinely though it was really boring. It didn't change my views on anything. I'm not a marxist, perhaps that's why I didn't enjoy the book. I felt as if I was in a classroom, while being lectured by a really boring professor (because he writes in first person)
It was very dull.

Erich Fromm originally wrote this work in 1941 which explores the psychological reason for the success of Nazism in Germany. However that is not the only subject of the book. It also explores the pathologies in industrial democracies as well.

Modern totalitarian movements are empowered by the psychology of a society which suffers anxiety and alienation as a result of the freedom and dynamism introduced with the change in economic, political and religious structures brought by modernity.

Two escapes from freedom are possible, descent into sadist and/or masochistic perversion, or the automaton (mindless conformity).

One interesting strain of social research would be the extension of Fromm's theory to militant Islam. The same theory that Fromm postulates for the origin of destructive behavior may apply to the appeal to sucide bombing seen in the Middle East.

In the final chapter Fromm reads like a science fiction libertarian. He expounds utopian visions like Gene Roddenberry. The object being the evolution of a society that not only provides freedom from (negative freedom in Fromm's vocabulary) compulsion, but also freedom to (positive freedom) realize each individual's potential. Unfortunately, in the final five pages, Fromm extolls the virtues of Marxism. It is not unexpected. Writing in 1941, Fromm would have no idea the horrors that would be perpetrated in the name of radical egalitarianism in China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, all over Latin America and the continent of Africa. Marxism has been the height of chic in academia since the depression. It is like reading Carl Popper, an otherwise really smart guy, who has been seduced by radical egalitarianism.

Getting past the appeal to Marxism, Escape from Freedom is a very important book in understanding the appeal of totalitarian movements.

I started reading Fromm after the terrible election of 2004 for two reasons: 1)I needed a diagnosis of political authoritarianism, particularly its psychological aspects; and 2) I wanted to hear something from someone who still had some hope for humanity and the essential goodness of people, at least in potential. Fromm usually isn't included in the syllabi of trendy crit theory/Frankfurt School grad seminars, and it's a shame. For Fromm, modern society is not individualistic so much as it is individualized--like it or not, the modern individual is stranded alone in the world without the anchors of tradition, security, community, etc. Laissez-faire economics and neo-liberal ideologies celebrate this condition, but the fact is that humans are social beings and this type of "freedom" is just as terrifying as it is liberating. Powerless and alone, the individual too often tries to escape from freedom by masochistically submerging his/her self to some greater authority and/or sadistically taking power over others (which of course is also a form of subservience, because the master needs his slave). If this sounds all too familiar in America in 2006 then pick Escape From Freedom along with Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism and Theodor Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality. But despite being surrounded by Nazism in Germany and then Cold War conformity in the US, Fromm remained optimistic that individuals could discover true freedom by realizing their interdependence with others and nature in a way that perserved rather than annihilated their personal dignity. He discovered Zen in his later years and attempted to synthesize it with his Freudian-Marxism. If you need a dose of that kind of optimism, see Fromm's books Man For Himself, Marx's Conception of Man, To Have or To Be?, and The Art of Being.

I started reading Fromm after the terrible election of 2004 for two reasons: 1)I needed a diagnosis of political authoritarianism, particularly its psychological aspects; and 2) I wanted to hear something from someone who still had some hope for humanity and the essential goodness of people, at least in potential. Fromm usually isn't included in the syllabi of trendy crit theory/Frankfurt School grad seminars, and it's a shame. For Fromm, modern society is not individualistic so much as it is individualized--like it or not, the modern individual is stranded alone in the world without the anchors of tradition, security, community, etc. Laissez-faire economics and neo-liberal ideologies celebrate this condition, but the fact is that humans are social beings and this type of "freedom" is just as terrifying as it is liberating. Powerless and alone, the individual too often tries to escape from freedom by masochistically submerging his/her self to some greater authority and/or sadistically taking power over others (which of course is also a form of subservience, because the master needs his slave). If this sounds all too familiar in America in 2006 then pick Escape From Freedom along with Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism and Theodor Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality. But despite being surrounded by Nazism in Germany and then Cold War conformity in the US, Fromm remained optimistic that individuals could discover true freedom by realizing their interdependence with others and nature in a way that perserved rather than annihilated their personal dignity. He discovered Zen in his later years and attempted to synthesize it with his Freudian-Marxism. If you need a dose of that kind of optimism, see Fromm's books Man For Himself, Marx's Conception of Man, To Have or To Be?, and The Art of Being.

The escape from freedom is as Dostoevsky wrote in in 'The Grand Inquisitor' section of 'Brothers Karamazov' is made out of a desire to escape the burden of responsibility and decision. The preference for ' bread and circuses' over a life of hard decisions is one way of succumbing to totalitarianism.
Fromm sees then the possibility of escaping from freedom even when one lives in a democratic society. And he strongly argues for a different path, one in which individual human beings take responsibility for their own lives and dare to live in freedom.

I'm not the most intellectual of thinkers, or the best suited to evaluate a book like this, but because we live in a democracy and I'm allowed to express my opinion, I think I will. I found this study of totalitarian systems interesting, if not always convincing because of so much psycho-babble thrown in. But this book shows how some people feel alienated and dehumanized and "left behind" in a democracy, and how such people are willing to submit to the fascist idea of a government and ruler who claims to care about them and taking care of their concerns rather than a dog-eat-dog "free society" where like in no other society you're left to fend for yourself. This book is a criticism of democracy's dangers, as well as the dangers that bring about oppressive autocratic rule. Recommended for those who like to read psychology and sociology.

David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness"

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An amazing book that pieces modern society starting from the medieval to the renaissance and reformation, that is, from a well defined structured and fixed group identity, fixed meaning to life, determined purpose to life and the here after, to that of the existential, capitalistic and monopolist society that has produced radical individualism with the type of freedom producing severe loneliness, separation and the need to alleviate such emptiness, which has been fulfilled by illusionary means.

Fromm relates a major piece of Western civilization's struggle in the ability to see the correlation between the medieval, secure, self-employed society to that of the Renaissance, an elite aristocracy employing the masses as dependent employees, commodities under a new capitalistic society. It was here only the limited rich could prosper in creativity, while the masses existed in a new existential despair. And so Luther, and later Calvin, devised new forms of Christianity, existential types, to aid these new psychological needs of the masses in accepting this change from security to exploitation.

Fromm goes both into the psyche of man, the nature of societal structure, the development of western civilization and need for security and certainty to that of either authoritarian rule, internal conscious rule or the invisible rule of democratic conformity to public opinion, or automation.

Basic Masochistic/Sadistic desires of man from the extreme, to what is considered "normal" has been seen in the forfeit of the individual self into totalitarian control, capitalistic profit and religious and social concepts that attempt to fill the void of separateness without keeping the self.

Fromm ends his book in what the positive traits of what Faust would be: that of spontaneous living, not compulsive living, but in positive affirmation and movement, in the process of life, not the results, the experience of the activity of the present moment. I couldn't agree more.

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An amazing book that pieces modern society starting from the medieval to the renaissance and reformation, that is, from a well defined structured and fixed group identity, fixed meaning to life, determined purpose to life and the here after, to that of the existential, capitalistic and monopolist society that has produced radical individualism with the type of freedom producing severe loneliness, separation and the need to alleviate such emptiness, which has been fulfilled by illusionary means.

Fromm relates a major piece of Western civilization's struggle in the ability to see the correlation between the medieval, secure, self-employed society to that of the Renaissance, an elite aristocracy employing the masses as dependent employees, commodities under a new capitalistic society. It was here only the limited rich could prosper in creativity, while the masses existed in a new existential despair. And so Luther, and later Calvin, devised new forms of Christianity, existential types, to aid these new psychological needs of the masses in accepting this change from security to exploitation.

Fromm goes both into the psyche of man, the nature of societal structure, the development of western civilization and need for security and certainty to that of either authoritarian rule, internal conscious rule or the invisible rule of democratic conformity to public opinion, or automation.

Basic Masochistic/Sadistic desires of man from the extreme, to what is considered "normal" has been seen in the forfeit of the individual self into totalitarian control, capitalistic profit and religious and social concepts that attempt to fill the void of separateness without keeping the self.

Fromm ends his book in what the positive traits of what Faust would be: that of spontaneous living, not compulsive living, but in positive affirmation and movement, in the process of life, not the results, the experience of the activity of the present moment. I couldn't agree more.

This book offers insight into many everyday issues: thinking, feeling, wanting, character, individualism, politics, most of all freedom - the list goes on. You will learn what it means to have a false self including: pseudo-thinking, pseudo-feeling, pseudo-willing, etc. For example, when you have a "thought" how do you know it is yours? When you want something, how do you know it is you who "wants" it?

This book also explains the rise of Nazism from a psychological and historical perspective, making it actually seem understandable.

Fromm starts the book by talking about our experience as children from the womb to breaking away and moving into the world. The problem he describes is that people on the whole do not want to be free and want to cling to ideas that make them feel as if they were back in the womb.

This book talks much about socialization and in my opinion parallels "The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge" by Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, which I believe to be one the best books ever written.

...This book was first published in 1941, just after it started the WW2 and without having the information about it that we all know now. From this point, it gives and excellent analysis about the "mechanics" of the human interaction. To read It is a must to understand any other Fromm's publication.

...If you have been looking for what is the matrix, and would like an approximation but, for REAL, then you may take the red pill by reading this book. ...But regrets arent allowed.

Erich Fromm was not the World's Greatest Writer, nor was he the World's Greatest Historian. However, he did manage to write some pretty interesting books, one of which is "Escape from Freedom," perhaps his most famous. The idea behind the work; that man will seek comfort from the burdens from responsibility, even if it takes the form of a dictator, is an extremely intriguing one, and one which becomes ever more appalling with each successive dictator that crops up somewhere in the world. There are some factual mistakes in this book (Fromm tries to attribute the roots of this phenomenon to specific time periods, when such thoughts were present in far earlier literary works), and it can be somewhat repetitive at times. However, "Escape From Freedom" is nontheless an extremely intriguing read that I would recommend to anyone unafraid to consider some pretty frightening ideas.

This book shook me. It helped look into my own fears, and maybe changed me for the better. Fromm's tone is loving. I would have loved to have met him. Escape From Freedom also impelled me to read other authors, especially Frued, Schopenhauer, Stirner, and Sartre.

I believe the essence of "Escape from Freedom" can be found first in the chapter, "Mechanisms of Escape":

"The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self."

And second, under the chapter, "Freedom and Democracy":

"This loss of identity then makes it still more imperative to conform, it means that one can be sure of oneself only if one lives up to the expectations of others. If we do not live up to this picture, we not only risk disapproval and increased isolation, but we risk losing the identity of our personality, which means jeopardizing sanity."

"... We must replace manipulation of men by active and intelligent co-operation, and expand the principle of government of the people, by the people, for the people, from the formal political to the economic sphere."

While the book has insights into history and psychology, it is problematic in several respects. Fromm is concerned with explaining why people seek to escape from the responsibility and anxiety that personal freedom brings to them. The immediate background for this project is Hitler's Germany and WW II. Fromm was a socialist who fled from the regime, and was, for the rest of his life, under the heavy influence of that catastrophe. Based on this experience, he tends to overgeneralize about the world and makes inferences supported by nothing more than a leap of imagination. As is the case with many works of political theory, the author of this book frequently confounds intellectual history with real history,i.e., actual historical events. He tends to equate human behavior and public policy with nothing more than abstract, esoteric ideas put forth by theologians and philosophers. For him all knowledge about the past--events, actions, policies, and thoughts--is encapsulated in abstract philosophizings of a dozen or so humanistic (no rigorous scientific training) intellectuals. Fromm also tends to psychologize too much, a mark of Nietzschean and Freudian influence. He attributes various feelings and moods to individuals based on little more than conjecture and even proposes unequivocal explanations for these emotions. His thought is full of excessive abstractions of the German intellectual tradition. For example, he introduces such ghosts as "character structure" of man. He also makes vague, mind-numbing statements that could come only from that tradition: "Modern selfishness is the greed that is rooted in the frustration of the real self and whose object is the social self. While modern man seems to be characterized by utmost assertion of the self, actually his self has been weakened and reduced to a segment of the total self--intellect and willpower--to the exclusion of all other parts of the total personality" (page 117). Makes you dizzy, doesn't it? I nearly lost myself in this exploration about the self between the points of the social and individual self. This book has a few insights borrowed from Nietzsche and Freud and applied to the Nazi Germany. This is an old, worn out hat by now. And the price of reading it, is that you have to put up with Fromm's attitude that ideas are facts and philosophizing is science.

I have mixed feelings about this work. Though it does bring up many excellent and rather disturbing points, it is at times a bit redundant. It reads more like a mediocre translation of a great book than a great book in itself. The premises of this book are far greater than the prose which illuminates them. I'd still recommend this book to those with an interest in the subject matter, but I think there are other works which communicate the ideas more poignantly.

Fromm's book gives a great insight into the 'authoritarian personality,' first developed by Fromm's 'Fascist-scale' or as it is better known the 'F-scale.' This scale later became the center piece for Adorno's book 'The Authoritarian Personality'. Fromm's "main thesis concerns the twofold aspect of freedom: on the one hand freedom means the liberation from those 'primary bonds' which tied man to nature or which, in the clan or in the feudal society, tied him to the authorities of society and to his fellow men from whom he is not yet set apart as an 'individual.' Such 'freedom from' is not as yet a positive freedom ('freedom to'). Positive freedom, according to Fromm, 'is identical with the full realization of the individual's potentialities, together with his ability to live actively and spontaneously'" - Ernest G. Schachtel, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science (vol. 9 - 1941). According to Schachtel, Fromm's 'Escape from Freedom' is perhaps the most important contribution to the description and analysis of automaton conformity. It is a well written book, accessible to all.

This is probably THE Fromm opus, a productive blend of Hasidism, Marxism, existentialism, Freud, and a host of other thinkers all amalgamated into Fromm's discussion of the problem of freedom in the West.

Fromm's main achievement consisted in emphasising the Weberian view of religion in providing capitalism with its major impetus. His analysis of Calvinism and Protestatism is certianly worth considering especially if juxstaposed against other belief systems that stemmed the tide of capitalism in its earliest stages in China and 18th and 19th century Japan. Fromm's psychoanalytic background allowed him to develop further Adorno's conception of the authoritarin personality and middle-class facination with Nazi and Fascist leaders. And although the ideas are complex, fromm's style is highly accessible. His arguments are not always flawless and may sometimes reflect fromm's emotiveness in addressing issues that require objectivity. On the whole, it is a good read and provides a good introduction to anyone wishing to delve further into the thought of the Frankfurt school.

Well, take it from someone who has a degree in Philosophy from Harvard, I have to disagree with a large number of reviews. Strangely enough they often start by saying they went to some big shot college which therefore I gather is supposed to make their review more insightful, though this in itself is a basic philosophical fallacy (that of appeal to authority).

You needn't agree with Fromm's conclusions to find this an utterly worthwhile read. In fact, puncturing holes in the arguments of political philosophers is an interesting hobby in itself, and Fromm presents some tempting targets for Randian libertarians.

As a junior in college, I took a course in political philosophy at the University of Michigan, which boasts a hypothetical pre-civilization 'state of nature' (as have several other imporant philosophers over the centuries). This provide a foundation from which to argue that you must read this book. You will either find ideas that you can use to define your own world-view or you will find the weapons that others will use against your own position.

Some language may offend parents, but overall, a must read for those interested in a playful and fun approach to some kind of system that will somehow control human greed and selfishness as soon as possible.

This book analyzes the origins of controlling and submissive personalities, in their being by-products of an alienated existence, and meant to overcome the uncertainty and loneliness that results, through the means of symbiosis with another human being. He shows that people are confronted with the contsant no-win situation of choosing between submission and submersion or aloneness and insecurity. Of course, he DOES pose a SOLUTION to this problem, that of a productive, creative, spontaneous, social personality. Needless to say this personality is incompatible with modern day capitalistic society, despite a possible extreme minority. If we want to be free and secure, the only solution is interconnectedness, and to live in a HUMAN society. THIS is what Fromm teaches us.

I always vote Republican, but I'm not of the school that capitalism is WONDERFUL and flawless. This book shows the psychological cost of a hyper-competitive economic system. It's better than any other system, but, like human beings and life itself, it is flawed. Fromm is wonderfully insightful, AND accessible, no more than in this tome.

By detailing man's progression from a feudal society to our current status of individual freedom (unconnectedness), Fromm illuminates the motivating factors of man's desire to belong. This book exposes many societally accepted maneuvers we use to rejoin ourselves with nature and details painful consequences of our "freedom" and isolation.

The thesis of this highly illuminating book is that in order to escape a sense of anomie and its attendant seeming rootlessness many people resort to things in society that superimpose an identity on them, a kind of drive-up window for a world view if you will. Thus you get things like religious cults and Nazis at the extreme and Republicanism and Liberalism more toward the center. The ultimate message of this book is to think for yourself and try not to give in to the comfort of a group and its inherently limiting regulations.

There is a lack of freedom in our world, even in the best of democracy.
Unfortunately, the only reason we are not free is because we choose not to be. In fact we are trying very hard to escape from freedom just like the title says and that is a very pessimistic thought. If there was a plot to keep us from reaching our individual freedom like some people think, that would be optimistic - In that case we could have a revolution. But the way things are we need billions of inner revolutions, and that's an implausible scenario.
All essential problems of human situation are thoroughly and clearly described in one place. If you are unhappy with your life, your surroundings, or feel weltschmerz of some kind, you'll find all the answers right here. It is incredible that book which is read so lightly almost like some novel, is so filled with wisdom and deepest understanding of human mind and it's problems.
In my opinion Erich Fromm and his entire opus are by far the most important event in Psychology and Sociology in this century.