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Written on 29 February 2024
Preamble: This was my essay for one of my modules and frankly, as much as I ABHOR Freud, this essay was really fun to write! Heads up that it is going to be more of an explainer for his ideas than it is arguing for anything!
Introduction
Sigmund Freud is highly critical of socialism as it is incompatible with his account of instinctual necessity. He explores this heavily in his seminal work “Civilization and its Discontents”, where he delves into the human psyche and delineates what he believes to be human instincts, and how they are managed within society. Put simply, Freud posits that humans are driven by innate, biological instincts, primarily the Life instinct (Eros) and the Death Drive (Thanatos). Eros encompasses survival instincts, including our sexual instincts, while Thanatos represents the destructive forces within humans, including our aggressive instincts. Civilization imposes restrictions on these instincts as it requires us to renounce them to promote social unity, but at the cost of individual happiness. Based on this Freudian conception of instincts, he establishes a three-fold critique of socialism: that socialism has misplaced the source of aggression, that socialism would not remove the discontent in civilizations, and that socialism may even remove a productive expression of aggression.
Misplaced Source of Aggression
First, Freud contends that socialism has misplaced the source of aggression. Socialists tend to attribute aggression to economic structures and factors, such as the inequality and exploitative relationships engendered by private property ownership. “Man is whole-heartedly good and friendly to his neighbour, they say, but the system of private property has corrupted his nature.” (Civilization and Its Discontent 71). The socialist logic is as follows: in a capitalist system, individuals are pitted against one another in a struggle over private resources, and class divisions manifest in aggression and conflict. Hence, by abolishing private property and establishing a system of collective ownership, the root causes of aggression would be removed.
For Freud, however, aggression is not dependent on the social economic system but rather stems from a psychological root. He proposes that the id is the source of all our primary wants and desires and it is entirely unconscious. It operates on the pleasure principle, which seeks immediate gratification of its desires (Civilization and Its Discontent 21). Instinctual necessity hence dictates the compulsion to take action in order to achieve this satisfaction.
One of these instincts is the Death Drive (Thanatos). Thanatos is the destructive forces in us that lead us towards death: the ultimate undifferentiated, tensionless, inorganic state (Ögretir Özcelik). Freud sees a manifestation of this instinct in the “compulsion to repeat” of soldiers, replaying terrible war events in their dreams over and over after the first world war (Beyond the Pleasure Principle 19, 35).
Thanatos primarily manifests itself through aggression. Freud asserts that “Men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creates among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness” (Civilization and Its Discontent 69). He holds a pessimistic and deterministic view – that we are tempted to exploit or harm our neighbours, even if just to gratify ourselves (Civilization and Its Discontent 69).
Importantly, this instinct “did not arise as the result of property; it reigned almost supreme in primitive times when possessions were still extremely scanty”; it is seen even from our infancy (Civilization and Its Discontent 71). Freud associates the concept of instinctual drive with the idea of a stimulus and the pattern of a reflex arc, as modelled in his previous studies on nerve cells (Bott). In other words, these instincts are a biological reality for us (Instincts and Their Vicissitudes 118). Hence, abolishing private property does not “[alter] the individual differences in power and influence” nor “change the nature of the instinct in any way” (Civilization and Its Discontent 71). For example, “there still remain prerogatives in sexual relationships” which can evoke intense hostility and violence between people (Civilization and Its Discontent 72).
Hence, every civilization, including a socialist one, would have to contend with human aggression. Freud writes, “Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another. Their interests in their common work would not hold them together; the passions of instinct are stronger than reasoned interests.” (Civilization and Its Discontent 70). As seen, aggression constantly threatens social stability and has the propensity to thrust humanity into turmoil and violence. Further, there will always be a need of some enemy or outlet. He wonders aloud on “how the Soviets will manage when they have exterminated their bourgeois entirely” (Civilization and Its Discontent 73). Thus, Freud fundamentally disagrees with socialism as he believes it to be idealistic to assume some sort of fundamental human goodness, when in fact aggression is the unsavoury reality for us.
Doubtful of Socialist Proposition of Happiness
Second, Freud believes that socialism is too optimistic in believing that individuals can truly be satisfied by simply changing the economic or even social structures. Socialists may contend that in their system “all needs would be satisfied, none would have any reason to regard another as an enemy; all would willingly undertake the work which is necessary” (Civilization and Its Discontent 71). However, Freud argues that insofar as we live in a civilisation, the renunciation of our instincts will always be required, leading to a perpetual state of discontent.
This discontentment results from the timeless tension between individual happiness and social unity. As mentioned earlier, the individual pursuit of pleasure is dictated by the pleasure principle and the id, which aims to realise our instinctual desires to the maximum potential possible. However, the ego recognises that this immediate gratification is not possible for human life and hence moderates the pleasure principle with the reality principle (Civilization and Its Discontent 22). This moderation controls our impulses and subordinates it to the demands of society, either through renouncing or delaying our quest for pleasures. Liberty, Freud says, “was greatest before there was any civilization” (Civilization and Its Discontent 47). This suppression of our instincts will cause some amount of psychological distress, which is why unhappiness is a perpetual condition of human life (Civilization and Its Discontent 74). He writes, “The essence of it lies in the circumstance that the members of the community have restricted their possibilities of gratification, whereas the individual recognized no such restrictions” (Civilization and Its Discontent 46).
One of these restricted instincts is the Life instinct (Eros). Freud writes that civilization is a process “in the service of Eros, which aims at binding together single human individuals, then families, then tribes, races, nations, into one great unity, that of humanity.” (Civilization and Its Discontent 82). However, in order to establish this strong identification between members of society, culture imposes restrictions on our sexual instincts to “obtain a great part of the mental energy it needs” (Civilization and Its Discontent 59). It leverages on “libidinal ties” to strengthen communities, but in so doing “exacts a heavy toll [of] libido” (Civilization and Its Discontent 65). For example, the desexualised libido can be redeployed as civic friendships, but in so doing, necessitates an inhibition or moderation of sexual love, which Freud deems to be the “greatest gratification” to humans (Civilization and Its Discontent 55).
The other of these instincts is the Death Drive, which has been previously mentioned. Our aggressive instinct also needs to be renounced in order to neutralise its devastating effects. Freud writes, “the passions of instinct are stronger than reasoned interests” (Civilization and Its Discontent 70), arguing that aggression cannot be reasoned out of with socialist ideals; a civilisation will still need to impose restrictions. He says, “Culture has to call up every possible reinforcement in order to erect barriers against the aggressive instincts of men and hold their manifestations in check by reaction-formations in men’s minds” (Civilization and Its Discontent 70). If this inhibition was removed, aggression “manifests itself spontaneously and reveals men as savage beasts to whom the thought of sparing their own kind is alien” (Civilization and Its Discontent 69).
Therefore, for humans to coexist, civilisations require a renunciation of both our Life and Death instincts. The culture ‘wins’ but at the expense of reduced individual freedom and gratification, creating unavoidable antagonism towards civilisation (Civilization and Its Discontent 47, 49). Society will only ever be able to provide a small quantum of the happiness our id desires, and hence there will always be an amount of psychological repression and denial of our primal pursuits. Consequently, no matter the collective interest of socialism, there will always exist an inherent conflict with individual desires, which cannot be completely reconciled with these communal goals.
Removing an Outlet for Aggression
Perhaps, Freud may even make the argument that socialism mistakes the symptom for cause in competitive economic systems. It is not that humans are aggressive because of the economic system, but rather, it presents a way for humans to express their innate aggression. Since aggression is fundamentally biological, it cannot be fully removed but can be rechannelled into a new direction. Doing away with this system, then, may remove a useful outlet for human aggression.
Freud terms this diversion of libidinal energy into socially valued objects as “sublimation”. He defines it as “a process that concerns object-libido and consists in the instinct’s directing itself towards an aim other than, and remote from, that of sexual satisfaction; in this process the accent falls upon deflection from sexuality.” (On Narcissism 94). Essentially, it is the redirection of a repressed sexual drive into a nonsexual and more productive aim, and it is seen as a crucial condition for complete psychic wellbeing (Gemes).
As such, competitive economic behaviour is one of the primary ways in which human aggression can be sublimated into something socially productive, such as in the form of chasing professional achievements. Through private property, human aggression can be redirected into a fight for wealth and success and yet still fulfil a feeling of ‘domination’ over others. Arguably, this form of domination would be better than certain other ‘substitute formations’ of aggression, which is sure to return in some way or another (Repression 154). Take, for example, the funnelling of these instincts into violence against marginalised groups in the Nazi Regime. Or that of many a war, where humans murder one another and destroy the precious products of “the labours of humanity” (Why war? 204).
Further, this externalisation of an ‘enemy’ in competitive economic systems also direct Thanatos towards an outside object rather than oneself, which safeguards individuals against unconsciously harming ourselves. This self-harm may manifest through self-inflicted diseases, anxiety, addiction, hysteria, neurosis, and suicide (Ögretir Özcelik). Freud writes, “any cessation of this flow [of aggression] outwards must have the effect of intensifying the self-destruction which in any case would always be going on within.” (Civilization and Its Discontent 78). The human aggressiveness “is introjected, internalized… sent back where it came from, i.e., directed against the ego. It is there taken over by a part of the ego that distinguishes itself from the rest as a super-ego, and now, in the form of conscience, exercises the same propensity to harsh aggressiveness against the ego that the ego would have liked to enjoy against others.” (Civilization and Its Discontent 85). Freud’s conception of the superego is that which internalises societal expectations and controls our aggressive impulses by inducing guilt; but having too much unexpressed aggression would heighten our self-criticism and lead to psychological distress. Hence, by having the competitive economic system as an outlet for aggression to be sublimated, some internal conflict may be mitigated, such that the superego does not become excessively harsh to oneself.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Freud is greatly critical of socialism because of his conception of instinctual necessity, which can be summed up as a hydraulic model (Ögretir Özcelik). For him, the socialists fail to see that our drives come from the unconscious internal (id), rather than some external private property or economic system. Hence, any society, even those aimed towards communal goals, will always face a tension with individual pursuit of happiness, and the individual in a civilisation can never fully be satisfied. Further, the necessary repression on our instincts (both Eros and Thanatos) is like blocking an outlet for a reservoir filling with water. If it is not given a socially productive outlet, such as in the form of economic competition, the pressure in the tank will only continue to build. Eventually, it is bound to explode, whether through outward aggression in war and violence, or through internal implosion into our psyche and mental health. As such, Freud fundamentally sees socialism as an “untenable illusion”; something too idealistic to be true (Civilization and Its Discontent 71).
References
Bott, James. The Concept of Aggression in the Work of Freud, Klein and Winnicott. 2005.
Freud, Sigmund. “Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, by Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1976, Vol. 18, p. 1-64.
---. “Civilization and Its Discontents.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, by Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1976, Vol. 21, p. 57-145.
---. “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, by Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1976, Vol. 14, p. 109-140.
---. “On Narcissism.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, by Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1976, Vol. 14, p. 67-102.
---. “Repression.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, by Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1976, Vol. 14, p. 141-158.
---. “Why War?” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, by Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1976, Vol. 22, p. 195-215.
Gemes, Ken. “Freud and Nietzsche on Sublimation.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no. 38, 2009, ssrn.com/abstract=2528495.
Ögretir Özcelik, Ayşe Dilek. “Explanation and Understanding of Human Aggression: Freudian Psychoanalytical Analysis, Fromm’s Neo-Freudian Perspective and Bandura’s Social Learning Theory.” International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2017, p. 2151–2164.
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