Abstract

The author investigates the Weberian account of community as a form of emotionally founded social link in light of the interpretative idea that community links - perfectly desubstantiated - far from being simply destroyed by Western rationalization, have had a decisive role in the origin of its institutions, the capital and the State, as it is well testified by the Puritan sect and the 'politischer Verband'; and also in overcoming its intrinsic sense deficit, as it emerges from the Weberian proposal of a plebiscitarian democracy. Community is thus situated at the heart of the process of rationalization and contributes to the process of individuation of modern subject as well as to the coercitive regulation of his/her life conduct inside the objective world of perfectly rationalized forms.