The interpretation of Erich FROMM's work by Herbert Marcuse as essentially conformist in nature is challenged; it is claimed that this view distorts the general tenor and specific content of FROMM's writings. FROMM's rejection of Sigmund Freud's libido theory does not indicate a transition from radical to conformist theories. Instead, it is argued that he developed a consistently critical social psychology, even after rejecting libido theory. FROMM's Marxist social psychology is analyzed, as is Marcuse's critique. Because of Marcuse's criticism, FROMM came to be regarded as a conformist thinker; and Russell Jacoby adopted essentially the same position. In conclusion, it is acknowledged there is some validity to the Marcuse-Jacoby criticism of FROMM's work, but rejecting FROMM as a socially critical thinker is not justified.
>The Fromm-Marcuse Debate Revisited<: After his polemic with Herbert Marcuse in the fifties, Erich Fromm came to be regarded by the intellectuals of the >New Left< as an essentially conformist thinker, although it was indeed Fromm who was initially responsible for drawing attention in the US to the early writings of Marx and who, together with C.W. Mills, was long the best known critic of capitalist society in that country. The fact that Fromm’s work was falsely assessed for a long time was in no small sense due to the massive attacks Marcuse launched against his former colleague from the Institut für Sozialforschung, whom he charged with undermining the critical potential of psychoanalysis in favor of an ideologically glossed over menschenbild in the service of conformist values. Marcuse’s critique, however, is untenable since he wildly overestimates the importance of the libido theory; moreover, Marcuse fails to see that Fromm’s social psychology consistently (i.e. even after his turning away from orthodox psychoanalysis) aims at a critique of the prevailing social character and that his ethical commitment to a >productive< life is no easy bedfellow of capitalist productivity increases. In no less measure, the charge of >sociologism< leveled by Adorno and R. Jacoby – by which is meant a harmonization between personality structure and society – is far wide of the mark, since it overlooks Fromm’s postulate of the need for disobedience and creative non-adaptedness in the face of the omnivorous tendencies of society. From today’s critical perspective on the debate waged at that time, it clearly emerges that Erich Fromm has been unjustly consigned to oblivion as protagonist of the >left<.