Kieran Durkin is a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of York, UK. He is the author of The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm and coeditor of Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future.
Some critics have accused Karl Marx of forcing world history into a narrow framework that presented European capitalism as a universal development model. A closer look at Marx’s late writings show how far removed that stereotype is from the truth.
The German socialist philosopher Erich Fromm sought to explain the social psychology of right-wing authoritarianism after the Nazis drove him into exile. His work is full of valuable insights that can inform struggles for political and economic freedom today.
The German socialist thinker Erich Fromm developed a powerful critique of authoritarian culture in response to the rise of Nazism. Today’s Left has much to learn from that critique, and from his defiant political optimism in the face of dark times.