Davis–Moore (1945)
Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (published a paper in 1945)
Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, two American sociologists, developed the ideas of Talcott Parsons. They suggested that stratification existed in every known human society. They attempted to explain this as a universal necessity for stratification in all social systems. They agreed with Parson’s idea that all social systems shared certain functional prerequisites that had to be met if the system was to survive and operate efficiently. One functional prerequisite, put forward by Davis and Moore, was effective role allocation and performance.
This meant that:
· all social roles (in effect, occupations) must be filled
· these roles must be filled by those best able to perform them
· the necessary training for these roles must be undertaken
· and that these roles must be performed conscientiously.
Davis and Moore argued that all societies needed some mechanism for insuring effective role allocation and performance. This mechanism was stratification, which they saw as a system that attached unequal rewards and privileges to the different positions in society. If the people and positions that made up society did not differ in important respects there would be no need for stratification. Further to this, certain positions were and are more functionally important than others and a major function of stratification was and still is to match the most able people with the functionally most important positions. This was achieved by attaching high rewards to these positions. This would provide people with motivation and incentive.
For Davis and Moore, stratification was a device by which societies ensured that the most qualified persons conscientiously filled the most important positions. In this way, society would be a meritocracy.
Meritocracy: A system of stratification where those most qualified get the highest positions in the hierarchy and those with the least qualifications get the lower positions in the hierarchy.