An Essay on Freedom

The book of Herbert Marcuse, one of the founding members of the Frankfurt School and one of the cornerstones of the 20th century critical thought world, An Essay on Freedom, published in 1969, during the hot days when the whole world was shaken by popular uprisings and social movements, still maintains its importance today with the topics it deals with and its findings. This short but striking article is one of the works that must be read and examined and discussed in depth in terms of the theoretical and practical reconstruction of the Left and ensuring the advancement of critical thought in the right channels.

The socialist bloc, which competed with the advanced industrial society, as a result of this competition, deviated from its own goals and shifted to a system dominated by the values of the system it competed with. According to Marcuse, this shift invalidated the traditional understanding of freedom. We are now at a stage where the principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" will not work, since people's needs are not freely developed by themselves. So much so that the society can be an oppressive society even when the means of production are owned by the workers, unless they have the needs that they develop freely. Therefore, the possibilities of freedom must be sought elsewhere. Marcuse, in his book An Essay on Freedom, searches for new possibilities of freedom in this new situation.



Number of Pages: 96

Year of Printing: 2013


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Printing Year: 2013

Number of Pages: 96

Language Turkish