Every society has its own distinctive libidinal structure, even as it has its own economic, social, political, and cultural structure. This libidinal structure is the product of the influence of socio-economic conditions on human drives; in turn, it is an important factor conditioning emotional developments within the various levels of society, and the contents of the „ideological superstructure.“ The libidinal structure of a society is the medium through which the economy exerts its influence on man’s intellectual and mental manifestations. Of course, the libidinal structure of a society does not remain constant, no more than does its economic and social structure. But it remains relatively constant so long as the social structure retains a certain equilibrium (…).
What I have called here the „libidinal structure of society, using Freudian terminology, I have in my later work called the „social character“; in spite of the change in the libido theory, the concepts are the same. ― (1932a, The Method and Function of an Analytic Social Psychology, in: E. Fromm, The Crisis of Psychoanalysis, New York (Holt, Rinehart and Winston) 1970, p. 132f.)