ABSTRACT
The concept of anomie, re-introduced into sociological parlance in 1893 by Durkheim (1964) in pretty much the same sense as it was used in the late sixteenth century (Merton 1949), has proven itself extremely heuristic for modern sociological analysis, from Merton’s own seminal essay on non-conformity, to Duvignaud’s theory of anomie and mutation (1970). Indicative that new wine may continue to pour out of the venerable Bordeaux cask from which Durkheim first drew his conceptualization is the perspective recently provided by Simon and Gagnon (1976). They argue that the Mertonian approach, formulated first in the 1930s, was imprinted by a period of general scarcity; consequently this has to be complemented by an “anomie of affluence” which would recognize the capacity of advanced industrial societies to sustain long periods of affluence and technological growth. Their provocative analysis has been most recently extended by Abrahamson whose study of sudden wealth found an inverse relationship between anomia and acceptance of gratification; that is, unlike what Durkheim had posited, larger amounts of sudden wealth “lead to lower anomia” (1980:56).
