Social Structure and Anomie
Author(s): Robert K. Merton
Source:
American Sociological Review,
Vol. 3, No. 5 (Oct., 1938), pp. 672-682
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2084686
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SOCIAL STRUCTURE
AND ANOMIE
ROBERT K.
MERTON
Harvard
University
T
HERE persists a notable
tendency
in sociological theory
to attribute
the malfunctioning
of social
structure
primarily
to those
of man's
imperious
biological
drives which
are not adequately
restrained
by
social control.
In this view,
the social order
is solely a device
for "impulse
management"
and the "social
processing"
of tensions.
These impulses
which break
through social
control, be it noted,
are held to
be biologically
derived. Nonconformity
is
assumed to be
rooted
in
original
nature.' Con-
formity is by
implication the
result of an utilitarian
calculus
or unreasoned
conditioning.
This point
of view, whatever
its other deficiences, clearly
begs
one
question.
It provides
no
basis
for determining the
nonbiological
conditions
which induce deviations
from
prescribed patterns
of
conduct.
In
this paper,
it will be suggested
that certain
phases of
social structure
generate the
circumstances in
which infringement
of social
codes constitutes
a "normal" response.2
The conceptual
scheme to
be outlined is
designed to provide
a coherent,
systematic
approach to the
study
of socio-cultural
sources
of
deviate
behavior. Our
primary aim
lies in discovering
how some
social structures
exert
a
definite
pressure upon
certain persons
in the society
to engage
in
nonconformist
rather than
conformist conduct.
The many
ramifications
of
the scheme
cannot
all be discussed; the
problems
mentioned
outnumber
those
explicitly
treated.
Among the
elements of social
and cultural
structure, two
are important
for our purposes.
These are
analytically
separable although
they merge
imperceptibly
in concrete situations.
The
first consists
of culturally defined
goals, purposes,
and interests.
It comprises
a frame of
aspirational refer-
ence.
These
goals are more
or less integrated
and involve
varying degrees
of
prestige
and sentiment.
They constitute
a basic, but
not the
exclusive,
component
of what Linton
aptly has called
"designs
for group living."
Some of these
cultural aspirations
are related
to the original
drives of
man,
but
they
are not determined
by them.
The second phase
of the social
1
E.g., Ernest Jones, Social
Aspects of Psychoanalysis, 28,
London, I924. If the Freudian
notion is a variety of the "original
sin" dogma, then the interpretation
advanced in this
paper
may be called the doctrine of
"socially derived sin."
2
"Normal" in the sense of
a culturally oriented, if not approved,
response. This
statement
does not deny the relevance of
biological and personality differences
which may be
significantly
involved in the incidence of
deviate conduct. Our focus of interest
is the social and cultural
matrix; hence we abstract from
other factors. It is in this sense,
I take it, that James S.
Plant
speaks of the "normal reaction
of normal people to abnormal
conditions."
See his
Personality
and the Cultural Pattern, 248,
New York,
I
937.
672
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ANOMIE 673
structure
defines,
regulates, and
controls
the
acceptable
modes
of
achieving
these
goals.
Every
social
group
invariably
couples
its
scale of
desired ends
with moral or
institutional
regulation
of
permissible and
required
procedures
for
attaining
these ends.
These
regulatory
norms
and moral
imperatives
do
not
necessarily
coincide with technical
or
efficiency
norms.
Many pro-
cedures
which
from the
standpoint of
particular
individuals
would
be
most
efficient
in
securing
desired
values, e.g.,
illicit oil-stock
schemes, theft,
fraud, are
ruled out of
the
institutional
area
of
permitted
conduct. The
choice of
expedients
is
limited by
the institutional
norms.
To say that
these two
elements, culture
goals and institutional
norms,
operate
jointly is not to
say that
the ranges
of alternative behaviors
and
aims bear
some constant relation
to
one
another.
The
emphasis upon
certain
goals may
vary
independently of
the degree
of emphasis
upon
institutional
means. There
may
develop
a
disproportionate,
at
times,
a
virtually
ex-
clusive,
stress
upon the value of
specific
goals,
involving
relatively slight
concern with
the
institutionally
appropriate
modes
of
attaining
these
goals.
The
limiting
case
in
this
direction
is reached when the
range
of
alternative
procedures is
limited
only by
technical rather
than
institutional
considera-
tions. Any
and
all
devices
which
promise
attainment of the
all
important
goal
would be
permitted
in
this
hypothetical
polar case.3
This
constitutes
one
type of
cultural
malintegration.
A
second polar type
is found
in
groups
where activities
originally
conceived as
instrumental
are
transmuted into
ends
in
themselves. The
original
purposes
are
forgotten and
ritualistic
adherence to
institutionallyprescribed
conduct becomes
virtually
obsessive.4
Stability is
largely
ensured while
change is
flouted. The
range
of
alternative
behaviors is
severely
limited.
There
develops a
tradition-bound, sacred
society
characterized
by neophobia. The
occupational
psychosis
of
the
bureaucrat
may be
cited as a
case in point.
Finally,
there are
the inter-
mediate
types
of
groups
where
a
balance
between culture
goals
and
institu-
3Contemporary
American
culture
has
been
said to
tend
in
this
direction. See
Andre
Siegfried,
America
Comes of
Age,
26-37,
New
York,
I927. The
alleged
extreme(?)
emphasis
on
the
goals of
monetary
success
and
material
prosperity leads to dominant
concern
with
technological
and
social
instruments
designed
to
produce
the
desired
result,
inasmuch
as
in-
stitutional
controls
become of
secondary
importance. In
such a
situation,
innovation
flourishes
as
the
range of
means
employed is
broadened. In a
sense,
then,
there
occurs
the
paradoxical
emergence
of
"materialists" from
an
"idealistic"
orientation.
Cf.
Durkheim's
analysis
of
the
cultural
conditions which
predispose
toward
crime
and
innovation, both
of
which
are aimed
toward
efficiency,
not moral
norms.
Durkheim was
one
of
the first to
see
that
"contrairement
aux
idees courantes le
criminel
n'apparait
plus
comme un
8tre radicalement
insociable,
comme
une
sorte
d'element
parasitaire, de
corps
stranger
et
inassimilable,
introduit au
sein
de la
society;
c'est
un
agent
regulier de la
vie
sociale."
See Les
Regles
de la
Methode
Sociologique,
86-89,
Paris, I927.
4Such
ritualism may
be
associated
with
a
mythology
which
rationalizes
these actions so
that
they
appear to
retain
their
status
as
means, but
the
dominant
pressure is in
the direction
of
strict
ritualistic
conformity,
irrespective
of such
rationalizations. In
this
sense,
ritual
has
proceeded
farthest
when
such
rationalizations are
not
even
called forth.
674
AMERICAN
SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
tional
means is
maintained. These are
the significantly
integrated
and
relatively stable,
though changing,
groups.
An
effective
equilibrium between the
two phases of the
social structure
is
maintained as long
as satisfactions
accrue to
individuals who
conform
to both
constraints,
viz., satisfactions
from
the achievement
of
the
goals
and satisfactions
emerging directly
from the
institutionally canalized
modes of striving to
attain these ends.
Success, in such
equilibrated cases,
is
twofold. Success is
reckoned in terms
of the product and
in terms of
the
process, in terms of
the outcome and
in terms of
activities. Continuing
satisfactions must
derive from sheer
participation
in a
competitive order
as
well as from
eclipsing one's
competitors if the order
itself is to
be sus-
tained. The occasional
sacrifices involved
in
institutionalized conduct
must
be
compensated by
socialized rewards.
The distribution
of statuses and
roles through
competition must be so
organized that
positive incentives
for
conformity to
roles and adherence
to status
obligations are provided
for
every position
within the
distributive order. Aberrant
conduct,
there-
fore, may be viewed as
a symptom of
dissociation between
culturally defined
aspirations and
socially structured means.
Of the types of
groups which result from
the
independent variation
of
the two
phases
of
the social
structure,
we
shall
be
primarily
concerned
with the
first,
namely, that involving
a
disproportionate
accent
on
goals.
This statement must
be recast in a
proper perspective.
In no
group
is
there an
absence of
regulatory codes
governing conduct, yet
groups
do
vary
in
the degree to
which these folkways,
mores, and institutional
controls
are
effectively
integrated with the more
diffuse goals
which are
part
of
the
culture matrix. Emotional
convictions
may
cluster
about
the
complex
of
socially acclaimed
ends,
meanwhile
shifting
their
support
from the cultur-
ally defined implementation
of these ends.
As we shall
see,
certain
aspects
of the
social structure
may generate
countermores
and
antisocial behavior
precisely because of
differential
emphases on goals and regulations.
In
the
extreme
case,
the latter
may
be so vitiated
by
the
goal-emphasis
that
the
range of behavior is
limited only by
considerations of technical
expediency.
The
sole
significant
question then
becomes,
which available means is most
efficient
in
netting the
socially approved
value?' The
technically
most
fea-
sible
procedure, whether
legitimate
or
not,
is
preferred
to
the
institutionally
prescribed conduct.
As this process
continues, the integration of
the society
becomes
tenuous and
anomie ensues.
5
In
this connection, one may
see the relevance of Elton Mayo's paraphrase of
the title
of
Tawney's well known book.
"Actually the problem is not that of the sickness of
an acquisitive
society; it is that of the
acquisitiveness of a sick society." Human Problems of an Industrial
Civilization, I53, New York,
I933. Mayo deals with the process through which
wealth comes
to
be
a
symbol of social
achievement. He sees this as arising
from
a
state of anomie.
We are
considering the unintegrated
monetary-success goal
as
an
element
in
producing
anomie.
A
complete analysis would
involve both phases of this system of
interdependent variables.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ANOMIE
675
Thus,
in
competitive
athletics, when
the aim of
victory
is shorn of
its
institutional
trappings and
success
in
contests
becomes
construed as
"win-
ning the game"
rather than
"winning
through circumscribed
modes
of
activity,"
a
premium
is implicitly set upon
the use of illegitimate
but tech-
nically efficient
means.
The star of the
opposing football
team is surrepti-
tiously slugged;
the wrestler furtively
incapacitates
his opponent through
ingenious
but
illicit techniques;
university
alumni covertly subsidize
"students"
whose talents
are
largely
confined
to
the
athletic
field.
The
emphasis
on the
goal
has so
attenuated
the satisfactions deriving from
sheer
participation
in
the
competitive
activity
that
these
satisfactions
are
virtually
confined
to
a
successful outcome.
Through
the same
proc-
ess,
tension generated by
the desire to
win in a
poker game
is relieved
by
successfully
dealing
oneself four
aces, or,
when
the
cult
of success has
be-
come
completely
dominant,
by sagaciously
shuffling
the
cards
in a
game
of
solitaire.
The
faint
twinge
of uneasiness
in
the last instance
and
the
sur-
reptious nature
of public delicts
indicate
clearly that the
institutional
rules
of the game
are
known to
those
who
evade them,
but that the emotional
supports
of these rules
are
largely
vitiated by
cultural
exaggeration
of
the
success-goal.'
They
are microcosmic images
of the social macrocosm.
Of course,
this process is
not
restricted
to the realm
of
sport. The process
whereby
exaltation of the end generates
a literal demoralization,
i.e.,
a
deinstitutionalization,
of the
means
is one which
characterizes
many7
groups
in
which the two phases
of the social
structure
are not highly inte-
grated. The
extreme emphasis
upon the
accumulation
of wealth
as a
symbol
of success8
in
our own
society
militates
against
the completely
effective
control
of
institutionally regulated
modes
of
acquiring
a
fortune.9
Fraud, corruption,
vice, crime,
in short,
the entire catalogue
of proscribed
6
It
is
unlikely
that
interiorized
norms are completely
eliminated. Whatever
residuum
persists will
induce
personality
tensions and conflict. The
process
involves
a
certain degree
of
ambivalence.
A manifest
rejection
of
the
institutional norms is coupled
with some
latent
retention
of
their
emotional correlates.
"Guilt feelings," "sense
of sin," "pangs
of conscience"
are obvious
manifestations
of this unrelieved
tension;
symbolic
adherence
to the nominally
repudiated
values
or
rationalizations constitute
a
more subtle
variety of tensional
release.
7
"Many,"
and not
all,
unintegrated groups,
for
the reason
already mentioned.
In groups
where the primary
emphasis
shifts to
institutional means,
i.e., when the
range of alternatives
is
very
limited, the
outcome
is
a
type
of
ritualism rather
than anomie.
8
Money
has several
peculiarities
which
render
it
particularly
apt
to
become
a
symbol
of
prestige divorced
from
institutional
controls.
As Simmel emphasized,
money
is highly abstract
and impersonal.
However acquired,
through
fraud or institutionally,
it can be
used to purchase
the same
goods
and
services.
The
anonymity
of metropolitan
culture,
in conjunction
with
this
peculiarity
of
money, permits
wealth,
the sources
of
which
may be
unknown to the
community
in which the plutocrat lives,
to
serve
as
a
symbol
of status.
I
The emphasis
upon wealth
as
a
success-symbol
is possibly
reflected
in the use
of
the
term
"fortune"
to refer
to a
stock
of accumulated wealth.
This
meaning
becomes
common
in the
late sixteenth century (Spenser
and Shakespeare).
A
similar
usage
of the
Latinfortuna
comes
into prominence
during the
first century B.C.
Both these periods
were
marked by the
rise
to
prestige
and power of the
"bourgeoisie."