Abstract
The rationalization of economic activity shall ultimately have already had the occasion to emphasize the historical dynamic of rationalization which is characteristic of the West in all its dimensions. Similarly it shall defend itself explicitly as wanting to support "an absurdly doctrinaire thesis as that, for example, which suggests that 'the capitalist spirit' (always in the sense that this word is used here temporarily) could have originated only as an offshoot of the Reformation, or even that capitalism as an economic system is a product of the Reformation ". But Weber is already significantly less accurate when he proposes to establish positive relationships between three terms articulated by his analysis: Protestant ethic, "spirit of capitalism and modern capitalism ("rational"). To characterize these reports, he uses a rather vague notion, borrowed from Goethe, that of "elective affinity" it is on one side, "consider first whether and on what points we can detect 'elective affinities' between certain forms of religious faith and ethics of the profession-oriented and, on the other, considering that "the attitude or the different possible attitudes that we designate as "under the concept? of spirit of capitalism?. These forms of organization will appear exactly as specifically 'adequate' in one way or another, [that of the modern capitalist economy], i.e. as in 'elective affinity' with these forms of organization, for internal reasons ".
