Explicating Institutional-Anomie theory relative to the sociologies of Durkheim, Merton and Polanyi, I find that this theory goes beyond Merton by using a strain of thought that is critical of liberal society. By bringing in the notion of the disembedded market economy, a central notion in the institutionalism of Polanyi and Durkheim, this theory links crime, anomie, and contemporary social change. I also discuss some of the limitations of linking crime with societal level processes in a Durkheimian rather than Mertonian manner. The classical sociological notion of anomie has long been a conceptual tool to under stand the relationship between social structure, culture and deviant behaviour. Central to different versions of anomie theory is the premise that humans are normative beings. People act and think on the basis of commonly shared definitions and traditions. To a greater and lesser extent the common meanings that emerge in social life have senti mental value for people; they constitute morality and ethics. Shared cultural values define and sanction people's goals and the means they use in reaching the goals. Anomie results when the power of social values to regulate the ends and the means of human conduct is weakened. But anomie perspectives are not a unified body of theory. While Durkheim is usually seen as the founder of the sociological tradition of anomie theory, his notion of anomie changed fundamentally in the hands of American sociology (Orru 1987; Besnard 1990). Durkheim's (1951) understanding of anomie derives from his concern about the disruptive tendencies of fundamental features of modern, industrial society. Durkheim argues that specific features of industrial society, particularly in the sphere of economic activity, produce a chronic state of normative deregulation. As a result, valued goals become ill conceived and the society fails to provide people with normative limits on their desires. In contrast, American anomie theorists have not emphasized anomie as the widespread lack of socially valued goals. Thus Merton's (1967/1994) influential essay, Social Structure and Anomie, does not cast in doubt the fundamental cultural ends of the society, that is, the normative ends of action. In Merton's theory social values are clearly defined in the mainstream egalitarian ideology and in the universal emphasis on monetary success. On the cultural level, Merton emphasizes the lack of equilibrium between socially described means and ends of action. Anomie is caused by the imbalance