Blackwell Reference Online

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The term elective affinity is currently associated with Weber's thesis concerning modern capitalism. A key aspect concerns the linkage, attraction, or inner “affinity” between “the Protestant Ethic/Protestant sects” and the “spirit” of modern capitalism. The idea of an affinity could be indicated by any two factors seeming to go together – to be “connected.” Weber argues that there is an “inner affinity” ( innere Verwandtschaft ) between several things, especially between (1) a this-worldly asceticism of sects (e.g., Quakers, Mennonites) and (2) the underlying “spirit” ( Geist ) of modern capitalism. Rather than hedonism, among Protestants there is an ascetic outlook, an estrangement from joy, as indicated by Benjamin Franklin's maxims. The modifier “elective” is a vestige from Albertus Magnus, Scholasticism, Galileo and the Latin of chemists like T. O. Bergman: attractio electiva simplex or affinitas electiva . The German term Verwandtschaft alone means “affinity,” but the classical Latin phrase “elective affinity” had an impact on Goethe ( Adler 1990 ). The term Elective Affinity ( Wahlverwandtschaft ) became a title for one of Goethe's romantic novels about marriage and “chemical” erotic attraction. Weber greatly admired Goethe and accepted an epistemology that stresses complexity rather than reductionism in the study of social action. Weber does not presuppose the same ... log in or subscribe to read full text