Weber explains ideology’s role through structural homologies rather than direct economic determination.

Evidence

The essay works by means of what Weber calls an “elective affinity” between the structure of Puritan ideas (above all, of the Calvinist variant) and the structure of the rationalization of capital accumulation necessary to the development of capitalism. That is, it opposes any notion that economic change directly provides the content of capitalist ideas. Instead, it suggests that what is important is the “homology” between what capitalism needed in order to become a sanctioned system of regulated economic activity, and the impulse to planned and routinized “activity” in Puritanism. It adds to this a middle, mediating term: the Puritan/capitalist “character structure.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 338

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘elective affinity’ and ‘homology of structures’ as Weber’s alternative to the Marxist view that economic change directly supplies the content of ideas.
• XREF: Links to Goldmann’s Hidden God and later Frankfurt School / Reich attention to character structure, which the reader has covered in Wickham’s Frankfurt School history.