Change in Society

Abstract

The following selection from Robert Merton is an extract from a long essay called Manifest and Latent Functions’. It was originally published in the ‘American Journal of Sociology’ in 1945. The ‘corrupt’ political machines to which Merton is referring are those which operated in many large American cities during the Prohibition era and the depression of the 193os. In this period a much higher proportion of Americans than today were either themselves foreign-born or were children of people born abroad — many in eastern or southern Europe.