System, Group, and Power: Chapter One, Text Five

Functional Stratification

The chief functional necessity which explains the universal presence of stratification is every society’s need to situate and motivate individuals within the social structure. As a collection of functions, a society must somehow assign its members social positions and induce them to complete the duties of those positions. Thus, it should preoccupy itself with motivation on two different levels: inspiring a sufficient number of individuals to take certain positions and then to realize their implied duties.

[...]

It makes a great difference which individuals receive what positions, not only because some positions are intrinsically more attractive than others, but also because some require a particular talent or special training, and because some are functionally more important than others. Moreover, it is essential that the duties of each position are executed with the proper diligence they demand. For that reason, a society inevitably must first have certain kind of rewards which it can use as a stimulus and, secondly, a method for distributing such rewards in different quantity to each position. These rewards and their distribution become a part of the social order and thus produce stratification.

[...]

Social inequality is thus an unconsciously developed mechanism by which societies ensure that the most important positions are deliberately occupied by the most qualified people.


Davis and Moore, 1945/1966, p. 47-48.