Discuss the Davis-Moore thesis. How did Melvin Tumin challenge the Davis-Moore thesis?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary.The Davis-Moore thesis, as it's commonly called, asserts that social stratification benefits society. According to the Davis-Moore thesis and other functionalist perspectives, stratification and inequality are necessary to motivate people to work hard and to succeed. The key arguments of the Davis-Moore thesis can be summarized as follows:1. Every society must fill a wide variety of positions and ensure that people accomplish important tasks. Societies need teachers, doctors, farmers, trash collectors, plumbers, police officers, and so on.2. Some positions are more crucial than others for a society's survival. Doctors, for example, provide more critical services to ensure a society's continuation than do lawyers, engineers, or bankers.3. The most qualified people must fill the most important positions. Some jobs require more skill, training, or intelligence than others because they're more demanding, and it is more difficult to replace the workers. Pilots, for example, must have more years of training and are not replaced as easily as flight attendants.4. Society must offer greater rewards to motivate the most qualified people to fill the most important positions. People will not undergo many years of education or training unless they are rewarded by money, power, status, and/or prestige. If doctors and nurses earned the same salaries, there would not be much incentive for people to spend so many years earning a medical degree.For functionalists, social stratification is based on meritocracy-people's accomplishments. That is, people are rewarded for what they do and how well, rather than their ascribed status. Sociologist Melvin Tumin (1953) challenged the Davis-Moore thesis. First, he argued, societies do not always reward the positions that are the most important for the members' survival. According to Tumin, there is little association between earnings and the jobs that keep a society going. Second, Tumin claimed, Davis and Moore overlook the many ways that stratification limits upward mobility. Where wealth is differentially distributed, access to education, especially higher education, depends on family wealth. As a result, large segments of the population are likely to be deprived of the chance to discover what their talents are, and society loses. Third, Tumin criticized Davis and Moore for ignoring the critical role of inheritance. In upper social classes, sons and daughters do not have to work because their inherited wealth guarantees a lifetime income and perpetuates privileges over generations.