Book
Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics
What it shows
- 1947
Erich Fromm introduced Character orientation
In Man for Himself (1947) Fromm classified character by its orientations, the receptive, exploitative, hoarding and marketing, which are nonproductive, and the productive.
- 1947
Erich Fromm introduced Marketing orientation
Fromm added the marketing orientation in Man for Himself (1947) as the character type proper to a market economy, in which the person is experienced as a commodity.
- 1947
Erich Fromm introduced Productive orientation
In Man for Himself (1947) Fromm described the productive orientation, the use of one's own powers in reason, love and work, as the goal of human development and the basis of a humanistic ethics.
Productive orientation opposes Marketing orientation
Fromm set the productive orientation against all the nonproductive ones, and against the marketing orientation in particular, whose self is an exchangeable commodity rather than the expression of a person's own powers.
Character orientation diverges from Psychosexual development
Fromm acknowledged that his receptive, exploitative and hoarding orientations correspond to Freud's oral and anal character types, but grounded character in a person's ways of relating to the world and to others rather than in the stages of libidinal organization.
Sigmund Freud influenced Erich Fromm
Fromm took from Freud the dynamic concept of character and the method of unconscious motivation, while rejecting the libido theory and Freud's picture of the individual as essentially opposed to society.