Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud

Herbert Marcuse's Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (1955) critiques capitalism by examining Sigmund Freud's theories on instinctual drives. Marcuse argues that these drives express longings unfulfilled by capitalist social structures. He suggests that capitalist society imposes psychological constraints that prevent the satisfaction of these fundamental human desires.1

Freud, in contrast, believed instincts should be sublimated for constructive social ends. Marcuse's analysis anticipates later ideas that link political and sexual emancipation. His work posits that the inherent tension between instinctual drives and societal repression, a core concept in Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents, is exacerbated by capitalist systems.12