Fluent Essays

It is often argued that American society is a meritocracy in which every individual has an equal opportunity to succeed. From this perspective, those individuals who have talent and work hard end up in higher social classes; those individuals without much talent and who dont work hard end up in the lower social classes. Each generation has a new chance to succeed, regardless of how well its parents did. The merit of individuals, then, would explain why society is unequal.  Basing yourself on the sociological arguments, data, and evidence we have studied so far this semester (not your personal opinions or experience), make an argument as to whether (or not)--or to what extent--our society is, indeed, such a meritocracy. What would be the position of Marxists and functionalists on this issue?Some Principles of Stratification Author(s): Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1944 Annual Meeting Papers (Apr., 1945), pp. 242-249 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2085643 . Accessed: 14/11/2013 13:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] . American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa http://www.jstor.org/stable/2085643?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp 242 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW less wholesome than those of children in un- broken homes. In some instances, the com- ing of a step-parent has been to the ad- vantage of the child, for the new parent has been able to enter into a more sympathetic intimacy with the child than his own parent. SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION KINGSLEY DAVIS AND WILBERT E. MooRE Princeton University IN A PREVIOUS PAPER some concepts for handling the phenomena of social in- equality were presented. In the present paper a further step in stratification theory is undertaken-an attempt to show the re- lationship between stratification and the rest of the social order.2 Starting from the proposition that no society is classless, or unstratified, an effort is made to explain, in functional terms, the universal necessity which calls forth stratification in any social system. Next, an attempt is made to explain the roughly uniform distribution of prestige as between the major types of positions in every society. Since, however, there occur between one society and another great dif- ferences in the degree and kind of stratifi- cation, some attention is also given to the varieties of social inequality and the variable factors that give rise to them. Clearly, the present task requires two dif- ferent lines of analysis-one to understand the universal, the other to understand the variable features of stratification. Naturally each line of inquiry aids the other and is indispensable, and in the treatment that follows the two will be interwoven, although, because of space limitations, the emphasis will be on the unive1 Excerpts from: The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, by Frederick Engels, Translated by Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17306/pg17306.txt Photos added. INTRODUCTION. The history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the last century, with the invention of the steam-engine and of machinery for working cotton. These inventions gave rise, as is well known, to an industrial revolution, a revolution which altered the whole civil society; one, the historical importance of which is only now beginning to be recognised. England is the classic soil of this transformation, which was all the mightier, the more silently it proceeded; and England is, therefore, the classic land of its chief product also, the proletariat. Only in England can the proletariat be studied in all its relations and from all sides. Before the introduction of machinery, the spinning and weaving of raw materials was carried on in the working-mans home. Wife and daughter spun the yarn that the father wove or that they sold, if he did not work it up himself. These weaver families lived in the country in the neighbourhood of the towns, and could get on fairly well with their wages, because the home market was almost the only one, and the crushing power of competition that came later, with the conquest of foreign markets and the extension of trade, did not yet press upon wages. There was, further, a constant increase in the demand for the home market, keeping pace with the slow increase in population and employing all the workers; and there was also the impossibility of vigorous competition of the workers among themselves, consequent upon the rural dispersion of their homes. So it was that the weaver was usually in a position to lay by something, and rent a little piece of land, that he cultivated in his leisure hours, of which he had as many as he chose to take, since he could weave whenever and as long as he pleased. True, he was a bad farmer and managed his land inefficiently, often obtaining but poor crops; nevertheless, he was no proletarian, he had a stake in the country, he was permanently settled, and stood one step higher in society than the English workman of to-day. So the workers vegetated throughout a passably comfortable existence, leading a righteous and peaceful life in all piety and probity; and their material position was far better than that of their successors. They did not need to overwork; they did no more than they chose to do, and yet earned what they needed. They had leisure for healthful work in garden or field, work which, in Family spinning and weaving in cottage http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17306/pg17306.txt 2 itself, was recreation for them, and they could take part besides in the recreations and games of their Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis Author(s): Melvin M. Tumin Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Aug., 1953), pp. 387-394 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2087551 Accessed: 19/09/2010 09:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. http://www.jstor.org http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa http://www.jstor.org/stable/2087551?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS * MELVIN M. TUMIN Princeton University T HE fact of social inequality in human society is marked by its ubiquity and its antiquity. Every known society, past and present, distributes its scarce and demanded goods and services unequally. And there are attached to the positions which command unequal amounts of such goods and services certain highly morally- toned evaluations of their importance for the society. The ubiquity and the antiquity of such inequality has given rise to the assumption that there must be something both inevitable and positively functional about such social arrangements. Clearly, the truth or falsity of such an assumption is a strategic question for any general theory of social organization. It is therefore most curious that the basic prem- ises and implications of the assumption have only been most casually explored by Amer- ican sociologists. The most systematic treatment is to be found in the well-known article by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, entitled Some Principles of Stratification. 1 More than * The writer has had the benefit of a most helpful criticism of the m