The specific conduct of the businessman is directed toward the attainment of the greatest possible monetary profit. As soon as the transition was made to the subjective theory of value, this distinction, because it contradicts the basic thought of the whole system, could not but prove totally unserviceable and indeed nothing short of absurd. Of course, it took a long time before it was recognized as such. But even if one wished to disregard this problem completely, one could not ignore the fact that human action exhibits an indissoluble homogeneity and that action involving the exchange of material goods against immaterial goods differs in no significant respect from action involving the exchange of material goods alone. First, there is the realization that the economic principle is the fundamental principle of all rational action, and not just a particular feature of a certain kind of rational action.
All rational action is therefore an act of economizing.
Secondly, there is the realization that every conscious, i.e., meaningful, action is rational. Only the ultimate goals the values or ends at which action aims are beyond rationality and, indeed, always and without exception must be. Nor was it henceforth possible to call an action irrational in which values like honor, piety, or political goals are taken into consideration. Max Weber's attempt to separate rational action from other action on the basis of such distinctions was the last of its kind. It was necessarily doomed to failure.