The relationship between man and society has long attracted philosophers who have sought to determine which of the elements of this binary opposition is primary. Is the individual antisocial by nature, as S. Freud argued, or, on the contrary, is man a social animal, as K. Marx believed? An attempt to reconcile these opposing points of view was made by the founder of “humanistic psychoanalysis” Erich Fromm. Society is infected with the depersonalization of the individual: mass culture, mass art, mass politics are determined by the totality of all living conditions of modern industrial society. This disease can be cured only through the acquisition of positive freedom, freedom not in itself, not destructive, but “freedom for something”, through the transition from the state of “having” to the state of “being”. And only a society whose members have positive freedom can be called healthy.The book’s text has been translated from the original language using an artificial intelligence system. In most cases, the translation is accurate and clear, but occasionally there may be incorrect phrasing or individual words left untranslated.