To Have or to Be? cover art

To Have or to Be?

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

€0.00/month for the first 3 months
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

To Have or to Be?

By: Erich Fromm
Narrated by: Adriel Brandt
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

To Have or to Be? is one of the seminal books of the second half of the 20th century. Nothing less than a manifesto for a new social and psychological revolution to save our threatened planet, this book is a summary of the penetrating thought of Erich Fromm. His thesis is that two modes of existence struggle for the spirit of humankind: the having mode, which concentrates on material possessions, power, and aggression, and is the basis of the universal evils of greed, envy, and violence; and the being mode, which is based on love, the pleasure of sharing, and in productive activity. To Have or to Be? is a brilliant program for socioeconomic change.

©1976 The Estate of Erich Fromm (P)2020 Upfront Books Consciousness & Thought Movements Philosophy Society Sociology Socialism Capitalism

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Escape from Freedom cover art
You Shall Be as Gods cover art
Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism cover art
Greatness and Limitations of Freud's Thought cover art
Man for Himself cover art
The Sane Society cover art
The Art of Being cover art
The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged cover art
The Meaning of Anxiety cover art
The Human Condition (Second Edition) cover art
Decoding Jung's Metaphysics cover art
A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the Evolution of Consciousness cover art
Heidegger cover art
A Political Philosophy cover art
The Courage to Be cover art
A Handbook of Traditional Living cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Erich Fromm is an amazing theoretician and portrays his views so eloquently. The read was clear and enjoyable.

Great book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Erich Fromm is profound in his understanding of the forces keeping our societies stuck, unhappy, hopeless, corrupt and alienated. This man’s thinking is like a cold compress on the wounds created by the heartless, systematic indoctrination we are exposed to since our earliest years of life and that we then have to play out, virtually living as strangers to ourselves and others. This book, along with ‘The art of loving’ and ‘The art of being’ offers excellent perspectives and actual avenues for changing your life into one that is based on being genuine, warm, heart-driven, but also reasonable. I’d recommend combining Erich Fromm’s thinking with Alan Watts’ for an even deeper effect in this direction.

In short, I feel genuinely empowered to live a better, more true-to-self life, as well as to educate others in doing so. Much recommended.

Yet another incredible, visionary work

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Amazing prophetic book, still valid although it was written in 1976. A sort of philosophical, psychological, sociological manual for our times, in few words a classic!

To have or to be

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A detailed exploration and analysis of these two ways of living, both from an individual perspective and from the societal perspective.
I found it valuable in raising my awareness regarding these two approaches, and stimulating my thinking.
I will read it again at some point as I feel there is more to learn from it than i gathered from the first read, and it is a subject that is of key importance.

Excellent analysis of a very important subject

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.