ABSTRACT
Psychoanalyst, sociologist and philosopher Erich Fromm takes the notion of rational response to societal fault to its logical conclusion. He postulates that virtually the entire population of the Western world is insane because Western society is itself insane. Fromm's 1955 book titled The Sane Society has sold millions of copies throughout the world. Fromm takes his intellectual inspiration from Karl Marx alongside Freud. A tenet of postmodern theorising is that there is in mature capitalist economies the freedom to make choices about lifestyle. Material ownership ostensibly is pursued willingly and displayed freely in order to feel and project distinctiveness. For Baudrillard, however, the deeper and mostly unconscious reason for embracing consumerism is the attempt to avoid social isolation. Fromm's raised consciousness about how the economy of the Western world is responsible for pervasive and embedded derangement arose from a particular strand of Marxism. This strand was founded in the 1920s and became known the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.
