Concept
Having and being
The two basic modes of existence that Fromm contrasted in To Have or to Be? (1976). In the having mode a person relates to the world, to others, to knowledge and even to themselves as possessions to acquire and keep, and is defined by what they own; in the being mode a person is active in the sense of using their own powers, sharing, loving and growing, and is defined by what they are and do. Fromm held that industrial society had made the having mode dominant, and called for a change of character towards being as a condition of human survival.
- Introduced by
- Erich Fromm
- Key works
- 1
introduced by
- Erich Fromm 1976 To Have or to Be? (1976), published at once in English and in German as Haben oder Sein, made the contrast between the having and the being modes of existence the frame of Fromm's late social critique.