Erich Fromm and the Critical Theory of Communication

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a Marxist psychoanalyst, philosopher and socialist humanist. This paper asks: How can Fromm’s critical theory of communication be used and updated to provide a critical perspective in the age of digital and communicative capitalism? In order to provide an answer, the article discusses elements from Fromm’s work that allow us to better understand the human communication process. The focus is on communication (section 2), ideology (section 3), and technology (section 4). Fromm’s approach can inform a critical theory of communication in multiple respects: His notion of the social character allows to underpin such a theory with foundations from critical psychology. Fromm’s distinction between the authoritarian and the humanistic character can be used for discerning among authoritarian and humanistic communication. Fromm’s work can also inform ideology critique: The ideology of having shapes life, thought, language and social action in capitalism. In capitalism, technology (including computing) is fetishized and the logic of quantification shapes social relations. Fromm’s quest for humanist technology and participatory computing can inform contemporary debates about digital capitalism and its alternatives

Quantum Complexity of Integration

It is known that quantum computers yield a speed-up for certain discrete problems. Here we want to know whether quantum computers are useful for continuous problems. We study the computation of the integral of functions from the classical Hoelder classes with d variables. The optimal orders for the complexity of deterministic and (general) randomized methods are known. We obtain the respective optimal orders for quantum algorithms and also for restricted Monte Carlo (only coin tossing instead of general random numbers). To summarize the results one can say that (1) there is an exponential speed-up of quantum algorithms over deterministic (classical) algorithms, if the smoothness is small; (2) there is a (roughly) quadratic speed-up of quantum algorithms over randomized classical methods, if the smoothness is small.Comment: 13 pages, some minor correction

Economic Freedom and the Advantages of Backwardness

According to econometric studies, economic freedom and its improvement increase growth rates. But their effects are dominated by the effects of the level of economic development and human capital. Do these findings imply that defenders of capitalism and economic freedom exaggerate their case? Not at all.Consider the level of economic development that determines the potential advantages of backwardness. Economists usually discuss the reasons for the existence of these potential advantages: less developed economies can borrow technologies, business models, and marketing procedures from more advanced economies; and imitation may be easier and faster than innovation on which the leading economies have to rely.Plausibly, these advantages are greater at moderate levels of backwardness where the level of human capital formation permits the exploitation of the opportunities of backwardness. Or, less developed economies have more scope for reallocating labor from less productive work in agriculture to more productive work in industry or services. Or, it is probably easier to find profitable investments in developing countries -- say, in transport infrastructure -- than in highly developed economies where many of the obvious investments have already been made. I do not want to join the debate about the relative merit of these arguments. Nor do I want to add arguments from other social sciences according to which the process of economic development implies value changes that feed back to undermine prospects for later economic growth