The Productive and Nonproductive Character Types

Nonproductive orientation

According to Fromm, there are four nonproductive orientations that are unhealthy ways of relating to the world.

Receptive orientation;
The person with receptive character expects to get whatever they want. This receptive character is similar to Freud’s oral incorporative personality and Horney’s compliant personality type.

Exploitative orientation
The exploitative character type only wants to belong and is valued by others, whether it is a spouse, an object, or an idea. This type is similar to Freud’s oral aggressive type.

Hoarding orientation
In the hoarding type, the person derives security from what he or she can hoard and save. This parallels Freud’s anal retentive type and Horney’s detached type (moving away from people).

Marketing orientation
The marketing character type develops through capitalist societies, according to Fromm. This type has a set of values the same for personalities as for goods; one’s personality becomes simply a commodity to be sold.





Productive orientation

The productive character type is the ideal and represents the ultimate goal of human development. Fromm believed that through social and cultural change, the productive orientation could become dominant. Fromm also outlined other productive and non-productive types, of which several of these types could be combined.

Necrophilous orientation
The necrophilous character type (a nonproductive orientation) is attracted to death, corpses, decay, feces, and dirt. These types may also have a passion for technology and tend to surround themselves with appliances, computers, and stereos just to manipulate them.

Biophilous orientation
The opposite productive type would be biophilous. These people are in love with life and are attracted to growth, creation, and construction.

Having orientation
The having character type is defined by what the person owns and possesses. This could mean the idea of owning people and even ideas. Fromm believed that this character type was similar to Freud’s anal retentive personality.

Being orientation
Being types are not as competitive as the having types and participate in life, experience living in the present, and being at one with their self and society.

Fromm also proposed an ideal society, which he called humanistic communitarian socialism; where love brotherhood, and solidarity characterize all human relationships.

Humanistic communitarian socialism;
He proposed an ideal society, which he called humanistic communitarian socialism, and described it as one in which love, brotherhood, and solidarity characterize all human relationships. The productive orientation will become dominant, and all feelings of loneliness, insignificance, and alienation will disappear.