On Disobedience_ Why Freedom Means Saying _No_ to Power - Erich Fromm [19]
The leaders of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union interpreted socialism in the same purely economic way. But living in a country much less developed than western Europe and without a democratic tradition, they applied terror and dictatorship to enforce the rapid accumulation of capital, which in western Europe had occurred in the nineteenth century. They developed a new form of state capitalism which proved to be economically successful and humanly destructive. They built a bureaucratically managed society in which class distinction—both in an economic sense and as far as the power to command others is concerned—is deeper and more rigid than in any of the capitalist societies of today. They define their system as socialistic because they have nationalized the whole economy, while in reality their system is the complete negation of all that socialism stands for—the affirmation of individuality and the full development of man. In order to win the support of the masses who had to make unendurable sacrifices for the sake of the fast accumulation of capital, they used socialistic, combined with nationalistic, ideologies and this gained them the grudging cooperation of the governed.
Thus far the free-enterprise system is superior to the communist system because it has preserved one of the greatest achievements of modern man—political freedom—and with it a respect for the dignity and individuality of man, which links us with the fundamental spiritual tradition of humanism. It permits possibilities of criticism and of making proposals for constructive social change which are practically impossible in the Soviet police state. It is to be expected, however, that once the Soviet countries have achieved the same level of economic development that western Europe and the United States have achieved—that is, once they can satisfy the demand for a comfortable life—they will not need terror, but will be able to use the same means of manipulation which are used in the West: suggestion and persuasion. This development will bring about the convergence of twentieth-century capitalism and twentieth-century communism. Both systems are based on industrialization; their goal is ever-increasing economic efficiency and wealth. They are societies run by a managerial class and by professional politicians. They are both thoroughly materialistic in their outlook, regardless of lip service to Christian ideology in the West and secular Messianism in the East. They organize the masses in a centralized system, in large factories, in political mass parties. In both systems, if they go on in the same way, the mass-man, the alienated man—a well-fed, well-clothed, well-entertained automaton-man governed by bureaucrats who have as little a goal as the mass-man has—will replace the creative, thinking, feeling man. Things will have the first place, and man will be dead; he will talk of freedom and individuality, while he will be nothing.
Where do we stand today?
Capitalism and a vulgarized, distorted socialism have brought man to the point where he is in danger of becoming a dehumanized automaton; he is losing his sanity and stands at the point of total self-destruction. Only full awareness of his situation and its dangers and a new vision of a life which can realize the aims of human freedom, dignity, creativity, reason, justice, and solidarity can save us from almost certain decay, loss of
freedom, or destruction. We are not forced to choose between a managerial free-enterprise system and a managerial communist system. There is a third solution, that of democratic, humanistic socialism which,