Erich Fromm reformulates the already traditional opposition between having and being, and raises in a very timely manner the deficit of sensation of being that causes the obsession with having. The myth of Progress as hoarding, of bourgeois origin, has permeated society as a whole, becoming, as Fromm points out, "the hope and faith of the people since the beginning of the industrial age."
Mercantilist morality tends to reduce us to exchange value: you have so much, you are worth so much. In our class society, the scarcity of possessions is identified with a qualitative inferiority, as if possessing depended exclusively on the diligence or capacity of the person, and wealth had not generated its own mechanisms to perpetuate itself and make access to it difficult. to those who start with a disadvantage.
Along with this morality of crude capitalism, another has evolved, from the humanist tradition, which, without openly questioning its dictates, strives to emphasize the priority of being over having, of virtue over mere possession. Its inspiration is Judeo-Christian, let's remember the sentence of the camel through the eye of a needle (enigmatic where they exist, if it is not the result of a misinterpretation). But let us keep in mind that, in fact, Christianity does not question social classes, it limits itself to making a call for solidarity. Love for one's neighbor is expressed through help and almsgiving, it is a private attitude that ignores the public (“Leave to Caesar what is Caesar's”) and therefore does not intend to change society, but only to mitigate its injustices. The entire international cooperation movement, donation marathons, food donations, ecclesiastical charities and even NGOs are based on this privatization of aid.
Since the Marxist project was abandoned, nothing questions the framework of triumphant capitalism. The parties that call themselves left do not intend to change the system, but rather - when they are honest - nibble the crumbs that get close to the edges. The public powers and the laws are there to grease the proper functioning of that monstrous machinery that private property (increasingly minority and monopolistic) has become, trying, at best, that it does not devastate the growing masses that are left stranded in the ditch. At the end of the day, a good part of these are the ones that sustain, with their precarious work and their consumption, the flourishing of that one.
And that's where we are. Cyclical crises and evidence of environmental deterioration have clearly revealed that capitalism itself is fragile and limited. It is a question, then, of persisting, each one as he can. Utopia perishes in the quagmire of individualism. Being is diluted in a having that is increasingly insecure, more precarious, and therefore more dramatically anxious. Perhaps that is why it acquires almost magical overtones: "Think and grow rich." "Formulate your desires and the universe will conspire to fulfill them." But neither knowledge, nor work, nor the fight are guarantees of anything. There is no longer a project, there is no future, just a present that is held with tweezers and that does not know where it can fall apart on the least expected day. Each one resignedly holds their breath and asks the Virgin to leave him as she is. We live in an extension of time, leaning on neuroleptics and self-help formulas, trying to distract ourselves before the screen from the questions that torment us on sleepless nights: until when?, how far?
Perhaps until we lack having and, dispossessed like our grandparents, we are forced to reinvent being.
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