Modern society was heavily influenced by early Protestantism, which occurred through many reciprocal events. In order to understand the events that changed society into what it is today, one must first look at an individual and what makes up this individual, his drives and also his subconscious tendencies. After understanding the individual, their acceptance of revolutionary ideas of the time and their utilization of new progressive ideas become clear. The dogma of Protestantism supported the evolution of medieval society into capitalistic society. The protestant religion leads, through the anxiety created due to individuality, religion, and capitalism, to a new modern society based upon market capitalism.
Individuation is a process, according to Fromm, that creates the individual. The individual undergoes certain changes mentally, emotionally, and physically within the process of separation. Such as how an infant sees the world as an extension of itself. Everything the infant perceives within the world is part of itself, its mother, its father, the TV, and everything else, is the infant. However, the infant grows, and at one point in time eventually realizes that it is its own entity. The infant has moving limbs of its own, is capable of its own thought, and is no longer attached to the primary ties, which it had viewed as a part of itself. An individual formed through the process of separation becomes an individual but this individuality suffers two causal aspects. The child grows stronger physically, emotionally, and mentally . This is to say, “the one side of the growing process of individuation is the growth of self-strength. ” The self-strength that is created allows the individual the freedom to make choices, to determine its own direction.
The other aspect of individuation, however, is the growing aloneness of the individual . This is because the “separation from ones world, which in comparison with ones own individual existence is overwhelmingly strong and powerful, and often threatening and dangerous, creates a feeling of powerlessness and anxiety. ” The individual has the feeling of being alone, with nothing to grasp or cling to for protection from the harsh world. The primary ties that had comforted it originally are no longer existent. This newfound individuality produces anxiety, which causes the individual to attempt to return to the original unity, to the primary ties.
The anxiety produced by this individualization process causes people to attempt to return to the primary ties. A child, even though they have become an individual will remain attached to the unity they had had with their mother and be submissive to her. The return to the unity cannot occur, because the process of individuation in irreversible. “Attempts to do so necessarily assume the character of submission. ” This is seen when a child submits to the mother in order to avoid the aloneness and anxiety caused by the world. This need for submission is not abandoned when one “grows up” but instead remains, albeit subconsciously. The need for submission is maintained throughout life and is an attempt to return to the original unity with the primary ties. However, this need for submission manifests itself in other forms.
The need for submission that individuals maintain throughout life comes out in other forms, such as submission to a higher power. Fromm discusses that there are different types of people, and those who submit to these higher powers are masochistic. The people who are masochistic do not necessarily enjoy pain but instead have a tendency to see ones self as useless, or have a feeling of powerlessness. This is because of a strong isolation fear. Masochistic people need to submit to a power, which will allow them to feel powerful; they will inherit the power of the movement or institution of which they are a member. An institution for which to submit themselves was needed and existed in Protestantism. “Luther’s ‘faith’ was the conviction of being loved upon the condition of surrender, ” in the form of faith in god’s will. This evolutionary dogma was different from that of Catholicism in that it allowed them to be submissive and gave an answer to the anxiety produced from being an individual. The dogma of this new church and its decisionistic god leads the parishioners of this religion, in order to guarantee their position in the kingdom of heaven, to practice capitalism.
This idea of a decisionistic god within the protestant religion leads to the creation of capitalism. The decisionistic god was dogmatized through pre-destination, a central belief of Protestantism and “by complete submission and self-humiliation he could hope to find security. ” When one is born, the decisionistic god decided if you would go to heaven or hell. According to Calvinist doctrine, how one leads their life has no bearing on their destination in the afterlife. It was not known where one was destined to go and this created anxiety among the parishioners. The “theory of predestination has one implication…the principle of the basic inequality of men. ” It was thought those who were successful were the “chosen ones” who were allowed into heaven. People combated this anxiety with the display of possessions, or success in life, which showed others they were indeed a member of the “chosen.” This was the birth of competitive capitalism because there was now reason to fight to be more successful, the right to be in heaven depended on it.
Competitive capitalism also brought its own form of anxiety: direct competition. According to Fromm, “one outstanding consequence of the economic changes …affected everyone. The medieval social system was destroyed and with it the stability and relative security it had offered the individual. Now with the beginning of Capitalism all classes of society started to move. There ceased to be a fixed place in the economic order which could be considered a natural, an unquestionable one. The individual was left alone; everything depended on his own effort, not on the security of his traditional status. ” The change from having a specific concrete social standing to one in which there is capitol and floating social standing. “The increasing role of capitol, of the market, and of competition, changed their personal situation into one of insecurity, isolation, and anxiety. ” This isolation and insecurity coupled with anxiety from individuation, Protestantism and now capitalism, lead to the growth of a middle class.
The Protestants were also full of anxiety because they felt they were in the middle of a class conflict. They were stuck in-between the landed aristocracy and the peasants and “one possible way to escape this unbearable state of uncertainty and the paralyzing feeling of one’s own insignificance is…the development of a frantic activity and a striving to do something. ” yet they maintained the morals of the wealth. One of the morals was that the wealthy were “good,” because success in life showed that one was “chosen.” The middle class looked down upon themselves because success in life was morally good, success would get you into heaven, yet they were not successful.
In addition, anxiety was caused because members of the middle class could make a mistake and would become just another peasant, which gave them the drive to make more money and work more hours, to do “something.” Further anxiety was created because religion became faith based. Until this time, faith had not been a concern but because god had become decisionistic, one now needed to have faith in god and that god was going to save them. Protestantism created economic freedom within religion by encouraging competitive capitalism, but also created an increased anxiety among practitioners. The naturally submissive nature of people would lead them to submit to this new god, the decisionistic god. They would feel some sense of increased power because of their membership to an institution greater than themselves, an institution that would aid them in partially returning to the primary ties, which they lost through individuation. The joining of this institution would be a catalyst of anxiety production. They would know what was needed to get them into heaven, being successful, and this would fuel their efforts to be such. The protestant religion was able to sooth the anxiety of these individuals but while doing so created competitive capitalism, but also a sense of materialism. Modern society today is very similar in the comparison to Protestantism originated. People still submit to anxiety and there is a plentiful amount to react to within modern society.
Early Protestantism created competitive capitalism, which produced a delineation of classes: Landed aristocracy, middle class, and peasants. However, modern society has a similar delineation of classes: Monopolists, Middle Class, and Working Class. There is still a god that produces anxiety because this god demands total faith, total submission of the individual. People still have reservations about the world, are still anxiety ridden because of their being alone within the world. Protestantism formed the basis of modern society, from the drive to succeed to our materialistic nature. Anxiety still is the motivating factor of our hurried existence. The Protestant religion melded with the anxiety of humans allowing the formation of market capitalism. It is quite visible, the mark that Protestantism has left upon our society from the religion itself to the capitalistic society created in its wake. Protestantism has lead the world to where we are today.
Fromm makes the argument that the god of Protestantism was the cause of much anxiety, yet Fromm states that “Luther’s ‘faith’ was the conviction of being loved upon the condition of surrender ” which was faith in god. However, I disagree with this being a cause of additional anxiety. I believe that this idea of faith gave the people an easy answer. They were allowed to believe they would be allowed into heaven if they just have faith in the lord. This is still seen today by Lutherans and is still as much of an aid to this anxiety as it would have been then. If the masochistic person were to submit as Fromm says Luther demanded, they would feel as if they had been partly returned to the primary ties. Since the separation from the Primary ties was a cause of anxiety, then there would have been a decrease in the level of anxiety within the parishioners of the religion. Instead, Fromm argues that it instead increases the anxiety, which seems contradictory to his explanation of how the Masochistic person would act. This flaw is not enough to discredit what is being said because there are other influences weighted upon the masochistic person other than just Protestantism.
Fromm discusses individuality and how this is a cause of anxiety because individuals are alone in the world. He says that there is a drive to return to the primary ties, which is a form of submission. The masochistic personality is the submissive personality and is a prime candidate to be submissive to Protestantism. This person will also feel pressure from the class conflict of the times, the middle class being bombarded by both ends of the class hierarchy. This all causes anxiety, and makes Protestantism a safe haven away from the world. Submission to the god who demands total submission in the form of faith is going to win followers. In addition, the people who follow the religion will also be inclined to fight to be successful because those who are successful are those who are chosen to enter the kingdom of heaven. The necessary work required to appear as a chosen one is going to produce anxiety among those parishioners and lead them to even more anxiety. The influence that Protestantism had on medieval society changed the direction of its movement and lead the world to a competitive capitalistic society. We live in a market economy today because of Protestantism and its ability to generate large quantities of anxiety and direct people to work to get into heaven, or material significance.

The film Commanding Heights—The Battle of Ideas expressed very clearly the differing ideas of Hayak and Keynes. Keynes economic theory represented fairness and collectivism whereas the ideas presented by Hayak stood for individualism, freedom and the market. The concepts of fairness and freedom are used to describe the changing social atmosphere, such as Roosevelt’s New Deal and Thatcher’s deregulation campaign.
Over the course of the 20th century, the economic position of the world changed. At the beginning, the economic policies were based upon individualism, capitalism and the market. The stock market crash began an evolution in economic thought with two distinct thought camps, freedom vs. fairness. Hayak’s great ideas about individualism, freedom and the market were considered cold, heartless and unfair compared to the economic, socialistic ideas of Keynes, who preferred to see an increase in fairness through government regulation. The climate of our world changed much throughout the century and the ushering in of new conflicts and crisis changed the economic policies of many nations.
Roosevelt’s New Deal was an enactment of Keynes’ economic theory of fairness. Keynes supported governmental control and restriction on the market. If government controls the market, government can effectively aid the people, creating the best system for the most people. The New Deal “built dams, highways, and National Parks*.” However, “they instituted a program of regulating capitalism in a way that had never been done before in order to protect people from what they saw as the recklessness of the unfettered market*.” Roosevelt feared the market system had failed, and created multiple agencies “to regulate banks, the stock market and capitalism itself*.”
The New Deal was to do what regulating the airline industry had done, create an atmosphere of non-competitiveness. The regulations removed competing airlines from the market so one airline could operate without lower cost carriers. When the regulations stopped, the market took over. The cost of flights lowered, the amount of traffic tripled. The market set the price; the free market increased efficiency, increased availability and increased service of the airline industry. These were things that Hayak had discussed in his theory, which had been ignored in place of the terrible idea of fairness.
Hayak proposed that the individual should be allowed to make choices for himself, that an individual should have the freedom to spend his money however he liked. Hayak proposed that the hands of the governmental regulators should not control the market. Margaret Thatcher saw these ideas presented by Hayak and was able to stand tall and fight for what is fair, freedom. The free market allows choice and Thatcher’s deregulation campaign lead to a few years of hardship for her nation, however, just as Reagan’s policies of deregulation tightened the pocketbooks of American’s, their use of Hayak’s economic theories pulled them out of recession and increased the hold of capitalism upon our two nations.
Hayak and Keynes have very different opinions of what is fair. Hayak finds fairness to be the ability to have choice and control over your own life and the direction it can take as well as your chances to compete in the market economy. Keynes thought that fair was to have the government control the market, which is very similar to the controls seen in Russia during the times of Stalin. Keynes wanted to kill individualism for collectivism with his economic philosophies, however fair that may be to the individual.
* Quote from Commanding Heights—The Battle of Ideas