7.3.1: The Functionalist View:

 7.3.1: The Functionalist View: Motivating Qualified People Functionalists take the position that the patterns of behavior that characterize a society exist because they are functional for that society. Because social inequality is universal, inequality must help societies survive. But how? Davis and Moore’s Explanation Two functionalists, Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945, 1953), wrestled with this question. They concluded that stratification of society is inevitable because:

 (1) For society to function, its positions must be filled.

 (2)Some positions are more important than others. 

(3) The more important positions must be filled by the more qualified people. 

(4)To motivate the more qualified people to fill these positions, they must offer greater rewards. 

To flesh out this functionalist argument, consider college presidents and military generals. The position of college president is more important than that of student because the president’s decisions affect a large number of people, including many students. College presidents are also accountable for their performance to boards of trustees. It is the same with generals. Their decisions affect many people and sometimes even determine life and death. Generals are accountable to superior generals and to the country’s leader. Why do people accept demanding, high-pressure positions? Why don’t they just take easier jobs? The answer, said Davis and Moore, is that these positions offer greater rewards—more prestige, pay, and benefits. To get highly qualified people to compete with one another, some positions offer a salary of $5 million a year, country club membership, a private jet and pilot, and a chauffeured limousine. For less demanding positions, a $40,000 salary without fringe benefits is enough to get hundreds of people to compete. If a job requires rigorous training, it, too, must offer more salary and benefits. If you can get the same pay with a high school diploma, why suffer through the many tests and term papers that college requires?

Tumin’s Critique of Davis and Moore Davis and Moore did not attempt to justify social inequality. They were simply trying to explain why social stratification is universal. Nevertheless, their view makes many sociologists uncomfortable, because they see it as coming close to justifying the inequalities in society. Its bottom line seems to be: The people who contribute more to society are paid more, while those who contribute less are paid less. Melvin Tumin (1953) was the first sociologist to point out what he saw as major flaws in the functionalist position. 

Here are three of his arguments. First, how do we know that the positions that offer the higher rewards are more important? A heart surgeon, for example, saves lives and earns much more than a garbage collector, but this doesn’t mean that garbage collectors are less important to society.

By helping to prevent contagious diseases, garbage collectors save more lives than heart surgeons do. 

We need independent methods of measuring importance, and we don’t have them. 

Second, if stratification worked as Davis and Moore described it, society would be a meritocracy, that is, positions would be awarded on the basis of merit. But is this what we have? The best predictor of who goes to college, for example, is not ability but income: 

The more a family earns, the more likely their children are to go to college. (See Chapter 13.) Not merit, then, but money—another form of the inequality that is built into society. In short, people’s positions in society are based on many factors other than merit. 208

 Third, if social stratification is so functional, it ought to benefit almost everyone. 

Yet social stratification is dysfunctional for many. Think of the people who could have made valuable contributions to society had they not been born in slums, dropped out of school, and taken menial jobs to help support their families.

Then there are the many who, born female, are assigned “women’s work,” thus ensuring that they do not maximize their mental abilities. In Sum Functionalists argue that some positions are more important to society than others. Offering higher rewards for these positions motivates more talented people to take them. For example, to get highly talented people to become surgeons—to undergo years of rigorous training and then cope with life-and-death situations, as well as malpractice suits—that position must provide a high payoff. Next, let’s see how conflict theorists explain why social stratification is universal. Before we do, look at Table 7.1 which compares the functionalist and conflict views.