Classifying a society’s citizens into ranks based on money, employment, education, family history, and influence is known as social stratification. One might begin by looking into the notion of slavery to understand the described concept better. People were not enslaved due to crimes, debts they owed, or lost wars in the United States, which resulted in a social stratification structure, but by birth (Lumen, 2019). The caste system is another essential factor to consider in this case. It is a closed social system where people have little or no control over their social status. It is considered the caste system when an individual is born in their social status group, or “caste,” and stays there for the rest of their lives (Lumen, 2019). There are hardly any possibilities to enhance one’s social standing, and thus such models are highly deterministic.
The last part of social stratification’s foundation is the class system. It is a free-for-all system that considers both societal and individual aspects. People inside a class system have the freedom to pursue a higher degree of education or career than their parents, mingle with it, and marry individuals of other groups. Therefore, one may conclude that wealth and money dictate class, regarded as an earned status.
Based on the above information, one can conclude that such trends can strongly impact a person. Their life principles and decisions depend on the perception and social norms accepted by those around them, which is considered an adaptation under which a person can compromise their morality for material benefits. The Davis and Moore argument, the work that laid the foundation for an ideology such as functionalism, deserves special attention. In this view, food, shelter, clothing, and money are the fundamental elements of social order (Trueman, 2017). Such an assertion in academic sociology, in turn, serves as direct proof of the reasoning described above. However, the main issue is that authors see incentives as an assurance of performance while, according to their theory, awards should be based on merit. As a result, it is suggested that if capabilities were innate, an incentive system would be unnecessary.
Works Cite
Lumen. (2019). Systems of Social Stratification | Introduction to Sociology. Lumen Learning. Web.
Trueman, A. (2017). Concepts of Functionalism. History Learning Site. Web.