nomic system may have once been desirable, Weber now labels it an “iron cage.” In essence, the conscience of society has superceded that of the individual. “The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order.” (Weber, 181.) But what this “Protestant ethic” has really done is force the individual to embrace capitalism and the morals which surround it as a way of life. Society has dictated that in order to succeed we must be employed and we must earn as much money as possible, even if it does not coincide with our own happiness. So, in essence, Weber is portraying society in much the same way as Freud. Weber concludes that the Protestant Ethic that society has enveloped has succeeded today in reducing employment to strictly a means of acquisition. “Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved” (Weber, 182.) Capitalism has been absorbed into the mainstream of society and accepted not only as a norm, but the only acceptable mode of acquisition. The question of the exact nature of the relationship between the individual and society exists even today. Regardless of whether we are talking about the individual’s psyche or about his sociological development it appears that man may not have been all that difficult to master; that perhaps we can simplify our existence into terms of sexual urges or economic needs. Whether or not one subscribes to the complete hypotheses of Weber and Freud though, there is no doubt that both authors describe a society that exercises considerable control over the individual. Now as we approach the turn of the century and again experience another surge of technolog...
