Two Authors on Authoritarianism
In 1941 Erich Fromm wrote a book titled Escape from Freedom. Fromm, who was born in Germany in 1900, was a psychologist and sociologist. He left Germany in 1933, arrived in New York in 1934, and taught in the United States and Mexico before moving to Switzerland, where he died in 1980.
Escape from Freedom was Fromm’s analysis of the societal factors that led people in Fascist countries to give up their freedom and submit to authoritarianism. Fromm traced the beginning of the modern sense of freedom to the end of the feudal system of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance: “for the first time, the individual emerged from feudal society and broke ties which had been giving him security and narrowing him at one in the same time.” Becoming more independent also meant becoming more self-reliant, and, in Fromm’s analysis, “more isolated, alone, and afraid.”
Individuals may become what Fromm terms “automatons,” compulsively conforming, working to earn a living, “well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man,” submitting to a capitalist, consumerist society. Alternatively, Fromm wrote that individuals may submit to an authoritarian system that promises to eliminate the sources of their anxiety and restore them to their rightful status. Both paths are escapes from freedom. Fromm concludes:
The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of culture…. Nor can we compromise the newer democratic principle that no one shall be allowed to starve, that society is responsible for all its members, that no one shall be frightened into submission and lose his human pride through fear of unemployment or starvation.
In 2018, 77 years after Fromm’s book, another German-born author wrote on loss of freedom: The People vs Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is In Danger & How To Save It. Yascha Mounk, a Harvard lecturer in government, was born two years after Fromm died. Mounk identifies today’s threat to freedom in the populist movement that emphasizes democracy over liberalism. “…voters are growing impatient with independent institutions and less and less willing to tolerate the rights of ethnic and religious minorities.” Populists resist control of the political system by powerful elites who are “less and less willing to cede to the views of the people.”
Mounk targets for blame the three trends that have been recognized in much of the current political discussion: Household income that has remained flat after its period of post-World War II growth; loss of dominant racial or ethnic identity due to migration; and the rise of the Internet and social media that have brought voices of political outsiders into competition with establishment media in the battle to influence public opinion. The resulting political/economic environment tests the very validity of the post-war system.
The kind of rapid economic progress that was standard in the post-war era was enough to buy liberal democracy a lot of legitimacy….so long as the system was working for them, most people were willing to believe that politicians were ultimately on their side…. Today, by contrast, that residual reason to give politicians the benefit of the doubt has evaporated.
Mounk does not find the opponents of populism to be effective in efforts to restore more liberal values. He notes the importance of unity in opposition: “In virtually every case in which populists have taken power or been reelected, deep divisions within the ranks of their opponents have played a large role.” Like Fromm, Mounk prescribes active involvement in addressing the expressed concerns of ordinary people. He advises “focusing on a positive message rather than obsessively recounting the failings of the populists,” and above all, acknowledging the shortcomings of the status quo.
Writing 77 years apart, two German expats addressed the same decline in liberal democracy, although emanating from quite different political/economic environments. Their conclusions similarly recognize the unfinished work of perfecting liberal democracy.