Two other Functionalists that share major ideas on social stratification are Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore. Their views were said to be the most famous of the Functionalists theory. They believed that stratification presented that all roles must be filled and they must be filled by those who are best able to perform them.
Davis and Moore believed that the education system is responsible for the act of differentiating between children and allocating them to their occupational roles. They believed that inequality is a necessary feature of modern society that by inequality everyone is motivated to want to achieve so they work hard. Compete seriously and find more efficient ways of accomplishing tasks. Davis and Moore maintain that a differential system of rewards is necessary for the efficient operation of society. Rewards and prestige are based on the importance of the position or role in society. Those that work hard should be rewarded. Therefore, the executives and managers are rewarded with the wealth and prestige and the poor is there to help keep down the cost of doing business and thereby contribute to lower prices for the consumers.
In the Caribbean today social mobility is based on achievement. Individuals are able to achieve mobility through hard work and education. One’s life chances are not fixed, like for example, in the caste system where if you were born poor you died poor. The Functionalists, Davis and Moore, theory follows that society has to be meritocratic. Meritocracy is based on achievement. Those that work hard should be rewarded. For instance, in the Caribbean many of the persons at the ‘top’ have achieved their status through hard work and education. They achieve it by staying in school and furthering their education with determination and focus on their ultimate goal achievement. Because the Caribbean can be noted for having education as an important factor in making persons become upwardly mobile.
The Functionalists perspective on stratification can be criticized on many fronts and is limited in explaining social stratification in the Caribbean. There are still examples in the Caribbean where people are denied jobs and positions because of their class, race and gender. Even though Davis and Moore argue that inequality is a necessary feature of modern society and that it stimulates everyone to want to achieve many of the persons in the Caribbean do not achieve anything because of their race, gender and class. Social inequality has been apart of the Caribbean system since the days of slavery and indentureship.
This is where the whites, blacks and East Indians were distinguished. At first in slavery it was just the whites at the top and black slaves at the bottom. But in the time of indentureship when the East Indians came there has been a struggle for who is better, the blacks or the East Indians. This has not changed mush in the Caribbean today and race inequality could be seen in Jamaica, Guyana, Antigua and Trinidad. For example, even though it is said that education contributes to social mobility many of the children of the lower strata are placed in poor schools, which decreases their chances of success while the higher strata are placed in grammar schools increasing their chances of success. According to Gordon, very few make it to the very top of the social hierarchy.
Davis and Moore had one main critic who criticized everything they said about social stratification and his name was Melvin Tumin. Tumin criticized that sometimes it is not the most talented that fill the most important positions but those who are at the very ‘top’. Many are denied higher levels of education because of their class. When one examines the education systems of Jamaica and Trinidad there is evidence of this. The poor and the rich children are placed in different schools with different levels of education.
Tumin also criticized Davis and Moore about the filling of important positions. Persons have difficulty in explaining which positions are the most important in society. There are many jobs that are vital to the society for example, garbage collecting and street cleaning but these are very poor paying jobs with low status. Tumin also states that the Davis and Moore theory seems to discriminate against persons of the lower class. Such persons rarely have the opportunity to rise to the higher class. However, there are persons in the higher status who are their because of their parents wealth and prestige.
In Antigua, for instance, class is the dominant system of stratification. There is the upper class, for example, political leaders, then the middle class with the middle management of hotels and teachers, for example and then there is the lower class, which consists of blue-collar workers and farmers etc. In Antigua there is no hard and fast rule for placing individuals into their classes and it can be seen that some individuals are not in any class but outside the system. These are the Syrian/Lebanese status group and the White/Expatriate status group.
It would be better advised to use a combination of the Functionalists theory and the Marxist theory. The Functionalists see social stratification as contributing to stability in the society. This is not necessarily so in the Caribbean. Social stratification can be more divisive that integrative. In the Caribbean there is a conflict among different groups because of the ranking of groups into layers. There is class conflict and conflict between races and ethnic groups. This as appeared in Trinidad and Guyana where the various ethnic groups are of significant size and are far more complex. According to the Conflict theorist, they agree with the Functionalists that the social stratification system is based on meritocracy. But it serves to reinforce and perpetuate the existing status quo in society. This is that the ruling class will always own the means of production and the working class will exchange their labour for payment.
