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Structural-functionalist view
 Inequality (stratification) is functional and a source of social order
 Function of stratification described by Davis & Moore
• Society needs to fill most important and difficult jobs with the more talented
people
• If all jobs had same rewards, people would get little training and take
easiest jobs
• By attaching better rewards to more important positions, society motivates
people to get training and work in more important jobs
 Criticisms of functionalist view
1. Assumes better paying jobs are more important
2. Assumes training for top jobs is undesirable
3. Stratification involves ascribed characteristics (e.g., race & gender)
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Conflict views
 Stratification is a source of conflict, coercion and unhappiness
 Stratification systems are designed to benefit “haves” at expense of
“have-nots”
 Marx’s class model: two-class system focuses on means of production
and ability to control labor of others
• Means of production: land, commercial enterprises, factories, and wealth
that form the economic basis of class societies.
• Capitalist (bourgeoisie): someone who owns the means of production and is
able to purchase the labor power of others.
• Worker (proletariat): individual who neither owns means of production nor
has the ability to purchase the labor power of others and who must instead
sell his or her own labor to survive.
 More recent conflict models have built upon Marx’s insights but add
other variables
• Wright’s class model includes managers, who have authority but not
ownership of the means of production
• Conflict models of political power apply Marx’s insights to critique pluralist view that
power in U.S society is evenly distributed...