According to Homans, the rewards and costs experienced by human actors are the basis of all sociological explanations. The theory of bounded rationality posits that optimization is impossible, therefore actors' choices are not strictly rational, they are bounded. This theory has influenced much of the writing in the renaissance of utilitarian thinking. The individual is stripped of religious meaning and moral value and increasingly subject to bureaucratic regulation and government regulation. For example, the organization of the factory by bureaucratic means and the systematic calculation of profit affects economic organization.
Rationalization affects politics by replacing the charasmatic leader with the party machine.
The individual innovator is increasingly being replaced by the development of research teams and state-directed science policies in the realm of science. Much like Marx's concept of alienation, Weber's rationalization implies that the individual is separated from community, family, and church, becoming subordinated to legal, political, and economic regulation in these spheres. If self-interested persons calculate their own advantages, then it is not usually rational for these persons to contribute to a group that produces a shared good. Although not all his theories have turned out right or been fruitful, he provided many of the classic insight breakthroughs of sociology. Durkheim explored areas such as social solidarity, the collective conscience, the social nature of humans, social rituals and sacred objects.