Karl Marx, (1818-1883) saw people working in filthy, unsafe factories, who at night went home to crowded nasty slums, that had been built up around the workplaces. Marx reacted to the social conditions created by the Industrial Revolution. Marx saw exploitation and misery. Marx believed that the organization of the economy is basic to society, and that political, social, and religious beliefs grow out of the economical structure. Marx view society as two groups, those who control the economy, and those who don’t. Workers became victims of factory owners. Marx believed that eventually the whole capitalistic system would disappear, and a new communist system would take its place. Emile Durkheim, (1858-1917) Durkheim was a professor at the University of Bordeaux in France. He was interested in questions of order, such as “What forces keep a society together?” and “What influences pull society apart?” Durkheim thought of answers to these questions in terms of function. If an element of society fulfills a true function it must be important in keeping things orderly. Likewise, its removal would cause disorder. To Durkheim, the best way to analyze society was by examining the functions different institutions serve. He was particularly interested in the function of religion in society, because he believed that shared beliefs and values hold society together. Robert Merton, (1910-2003) Mertonwas a distinguished American sociologist and a professor at Columbia University. Merton coined phrases like; fulfilling prophecy, role model, and unintended consequences. Merton also believed in middle range theories, applicable to limited ranges of data transcend sheer description of social phenomena. Merton argued that the central orientation of functionalism is in interpreting data by their consequences for larger structures, in which they are implicated. The American Marx scholar Hal Draper once remarked, “there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly...