Erich Fromm, in his 1955 book The Sane Society, warned against developing a marketing orientation: “[When someone’s] body, mind, and soul are his capital, and his task in life is to invest it favorably, to make a profit of himself. Human qualities like friendliness, courtesy, kindness, are transformed into commodities, into assets of the ‘personality package,’ conducive to a higher price on the personality market. If the individual fails in a profitable investment of himself, he feels that he is a failure; if he succeeds, he is a success.”
