“This striving becomes understood completely as an end in itself—to such an extent that it appears as fully outside the normal course of affairs and simply irrational, at least when viewed from the perspective of the "happiness" or "utility" of the single individual. Here, people are oriented to acquisition as the purpose of life; acquisition is no longer viewed as a means to the end of satisfying the substantive needs of life. Those people in possession of spontaneous, fun-loving dispositions experience this situation as an absolutely meaningless reversal of a "natural" condition (as we would say today). Yet this reversal constitutes just as surely a guiding principle of [modern] capitalism as incomprehension of this new situation characterizes all who remain untouched by [modern] capitalism's tentacles.”

—  Max Weber, book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Source: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905; 1920), Ch. 2 : The "Spirit" of Capitalism

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Max Weber41
German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist 1864–1920

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