Having or Being: Erich Fromm's Two Modes of Existence

Erich Fromm’s To Have or To Be? distills a lifetime of thought into a single, profound distinction between two fundamental modes of human existence. We can orient our lives, Fromm argues, around having, defining ourselves by what we possess, acquire, and control, our property, our status, our accomplishments, even our knowledge and relationships held as possessions; or around being, defining ourselves by what we genuinely are and do, by our authentic experience, our love, our creative activity, our living engagement with the world. Modern society, Fromm argues, is dominated by the having mode, and this orientation, for all its material success, leaves us anxious, unfulfilled, and estranged from life. The book is both a critique of our acquisitive culture and a vision of a more genuinely human way to live.

Here is what To Have or To Be? taught me about the two modes of existence, about the costs of the having mode, and about the meaning of being.

Key takeaways

• Two modes of existence: orienting life around having (possessing) or being (living).
• The having mode defines the self by possessions and breeds anxiety and emptiness.
• The being mode finds fulfillment in authentic experience, love, and creative activity.
• Modern society is dominated by having, at great cost to genuine life.
• To be is to shed the need to possess and to fully engage with life.

The two modes of existence

Fromm’s central distinction is between the having mode and the being mode, two fundamentally different ways of relating to ourselves and the world. In the having mode, our sense of identity and security rests on what we possess: I am what I have. We accumulate possessions, money, status, but also try to “have” experiences, relationships, even knowledge, as things to be acquired, held, and controlled. In the being mode, by contrast, our identity rests on what we genuinely are and do: I am what I authentically experience, love, and create. Here the focus is not on possessing but on living, on active, engaged, authentic experience. Fromm illustrates the difference with telling examples, the student who “has” knowledge as notes to be memorised versus the student who genuinely thinks and is changed by learning; the love that “has” and possesses a partner versus the love that actively loves. The distinction reframes the deepest question of how to orient a life, and once seen, it is hard to unsee.

The costs of having

Fromm, both a psychoanalyst and a social critic, argues that modern industrial-consumer society is dominated by the having mode, and that this domination, for all its material abundance, comes at enormous human cost. When our identity and security depend on what we possess, we are perpetually anxious, because possessions can always be lost, and we are driven to acquire ever more, in an endless, unsatisfiable pursuit. We come to relate to everything, objects, people, even ourselves, as things to be possessed and controlled, which estranges us from genuine, living relationship. The having mode, Fromm argues, lies behind much of modern unhappiness: the anxiety, the greed, the emptiness, the sense that no amount of acquisition ever satisfies, the treating of people as objects, the loss of authentic experience. This connects to insights I have met across Fromm’s work and others’, Veblen on conspicuous consumption, the Buddhist diagnosis of craving: that defining ourselves by what we have is a trap, a road to anxiety and estrangement rather than fulfilment.

The meaning of being

Against the having mode, Fromm offers a vision of the being mode as the path to genuine fulfilment and a truly human life. To live in the being mode is to shed the compulsive need to possess and control, and instead to fully engage with life: to experience deeply, to love actively (as he described in The Art of Loving), to create, to grow, to be present and alive in genuine relationship with the world and other people. In the being mode, joy comes not from acquiring but from the activity of living itself, from authentic experience and creative engagement, which, unlike possessions, cannot be lost and do not breed anxiety. Fromm grounds this vision in the great spiritual and philosophical traditions, the Buddha, the prophets, Eckhart, Marx, and even sketches the outlines of a society organised around being rather than having. Whether or not one accepts his social program, the personal vision is compelling: that a genuinely fulfilling life is found not in what we possess but in how fully and authentically we live, love, and create.

What I’m taking with me

To Have or To Be? distills a profound and clarifying distinction, and it speaks directly to the deepest questions of how to live. What I am taking from Fromm is the fundamental contrast between the having mode and the being mode, two ways of orienting a whole life; his penetrating diagnosis of how the having mode, dominant in our acquisitive culture, breeds anxiety, greed, and estrangement; and his inspiring vision of the being mode, of fulfilment found in authentic experience, love, and creative activity rather than in possession. The book leaves me with a question to bring to my own life, again and again: am I living, in this moment, in the mode of having or the mode of being, defining myself by what I possess, or by how fully and genuinely I am alive?

Frequently asked questions

What is To Have or To Be? about?

It is Erich Fromm’s exploration of two fundamental modes of human existence: “having” (defining ourselves by possessions and control) and “being” (defining ourselves by authentic experience, love, and creative activity), and a critique of our having-dominated society.

What is the difference between the “having” and “being” modes?

In the having mode, identity rests on what we possess and control, breeding anxiety and emptiness. In the being mode, identity rests on what we authentically are and do, finding fulfillment in living, loving, and creating.

Why does Fromm criticize the “having” mode?

Because defining ourselves by possessions makes us perpetually anxious (possessions can be lost), drives endless unsatisfiable acquisition, and leads us to treat people and experiences as things to possess, estranging us from genuine life.

References & further reading

1. Fromm, Erich. To Have or To Be? Harper & Row, 1976.
2. Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. Harper & Row, 1956.
3. Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. Farrar & Rinehart, 1941.