Chapter VI, "Social Structure and Anomie," was first published
in 1938, but has been more recently extended and revised. It exemplifies
the theoretic orientation of the functional analyst who considers socially
deviant behavior just as much a product of social structure as conformist
behavior. This orientation is directed sharply against the fallacious
premise, strongly entrenched in Freudian theory and found also in the writings
of such Freudian revisionists as Fromm, that the structure of society primarily
restrains the free expression of man's fixed native impulses and that,
accordingly, man periodically breaks into open rebellion against these
restraints to achieve freedom (1968, p. 175).