Needs, freedom and liberation. The issue of needs, desires and preferences in H. Marcuse and F. Hinkelammert: Approaches

Abstract

This text is a first approach to the tension existing between needs and preferences derived from the opinion of two significant Critical Theory thinkers: Herbert Marcuse, member of the first generation of the Frankfurt School, and Franz Hinkelammert, referent of the renewed Critical Theory borned and creatively continued in Latin America.  Both thinkers will provide enlightening elements to deepen a problem which has been concerning us for some time already: the co-opting of the wishes and their metamorphosis into needs as a domination mechanism that operates, not any more in consciousness, but in the very human sensitivity.