1. Sigmund Freud and Max Weber offer contrasting views of the motivations of the social actor and the social institutions that actor confronts. Freud sees the social actor as being ruled by his irrational or unconscious impulses, and the task of the social institutions is to control, shape and channel these impulses so that complete catastrophe does not ensue. The psychoanalyst's role can be seen in this context as a means of discovering the roots of the individual the actor's traumas in order to free him to act consciously and responsibly, to help that actor to learn to adapt successfully to society and to the problems society presents, and to act more effectively with the institutions of society. Without social institutions controlling the individual actor who is ruled otherwise by unconscious forces beyond his knowledge and his control, that actor will respond mechanically and without real freedom to social conflict. The social relationship with the analyst, then, can be seen as a means whereby the client learns to become an effective social actor.
To Weber, the individual is a social creature who has more freedom than Freud posits, and more power to act in society as an independent person. However, Weber does not believe that the individual, although more conscious, free and rational than Freud would have it, is often successful in bringing about the results he seeks through his selected actions. This is because there are powerful forces at work which restrict that freedom, including the bureaucracy, religion, and a distorted form of capitalism (Weber 19).
Weber sees the role of Puritanism and its related "calling" as a crucial factor in the development of the value placed on the accumulation of wealth which is the soul of capitalism. Weber was interested in why the capitalist accumulated wealth for its own sake rather than for the pleasure which would come from spending it. He located the answer in the changes brought by t...