ABSTRACT
Most contemporary psychologists find it difficult to move out of their comfort zone and engage with those areas of life ‘outside their expertise’. Erich Fromm bucks the trend because he was courageous enough to analyse any topic he deemed worthy of humanity’s attention. Fromm’s critique of bureaucratic state capitalism is reminiscent of that of Cornelius Castoriadis, the Turkish-Greek-French co-founder of Socialisme ou Barbarie. Alzo David-West has applied Frommian concepts to the social psychology of the Democratic Republic of Korea. When capitalism is in crisis or there is a dire need for reorganisation, one common strategy is to displace the ruling elite’s anger onto outgroups which are then scapegoated as dangerous. In The Fear of Freedom, Fromm argues that capitalist modernity dissolves ‘medieval ties’ such as clan, tribe, sect, guild and neighbourhood ties.
