It is often argued that American society is a meritocracy in which every individual has an equal opportunity to succeed. From this perspective, those individuals who have talent and work hard end up in higher social classes; those individuals without much talent and who don’t work hard end up in the lower social classes. Each generation has a new chance to succeed, regardless of how well its parents did. The merit of individuals, then, would explain why society is unequal. 

Basing yourself on the sociological arguments, data, and evidence we have studied so far this semester (not your personal opinions or experience), make an argument as to whether (or not)–or to what extent–our society is, indeed, such a meritocracy. What would be the position of Marxists and functionalists on this issue?

Some Principles of Stratification
Author(s): Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore
Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1944 Annual Meeting Papers (Apr., 1945),
pp. 242-249
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2085643

.

Accessed: 14/11/2013 13:03

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
American Sociological Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2085643?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

242 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

less wholesome than those of children in un-
broken homes. In some instances, the com-
ing of a step-parent has been to the ad-

vantage of the child, for the new parent has
been able to enter into a more sympathetic
intimacy with the child than his own parent.

SOME PRINCIPLES OF

STRATIFICATION

KINGSLEY DAVIS AND WILBERT E. MooRE
Princeton University

IN A PREVIOUS PAPER some concepts for
handling the phenomena of social in-
equality were presented.’ In the present

paper a further step in stratification theory
is undertaken-an attempt to show the re-
lationship between stratification and the
rest of the social order.2 Starting from the
proposition that no society is “classless,” or
unstratified, an effort is made to explain, in
functional terms, the universal necessity
which calls forth stratification in any social
system. Next, an attempt is made to explain
the roughly uniform distribution of prestige
as between the major types of positions in
every society. Since, however, there occur
between one society and another great dif-
ferences in the degree and kind of stratifi-
cation, some attention is also given to the
varieties of social inequality and the variable
factors that give rise to them.

Clearly, the present task requires two dif-
ferent lines of analysis-one to understand
the universal, the other to understand the
variable features of stratification. Naturally
each line of inquiry aids the other and is
indispensable, and in the treatment that
follows the two will be interwoven, although,
because of space limitations, the emphasis
will be on the universals.

Throughout, it will be necessary to keep
in mind one thing-namely, that the discus-
sion relates to the system of positions, not
to the individuals occupying those positions.
It is one thing to ask why different positions

carry different degrees of prestige, and quite
another to ask how certain individuals get
into those positions. Although, as the argu-
ment will try to show, both questions are
related, it is essential to keep them separate
in our thinking. Most of the literature on
stratification has tried to answer the second
question (particularly with regard to the
ease or difficulty of mobility between strata)
without tackling the first. The first ques-
tion, however, is logically prior and, in the
case of any particular individual or group,
factually prior.

THE FUNCTIONAL NECESSITY OF

STRATIFICATION

Curiously, however, the main functional
necessity explaining the universal presence of
stratification is precisely the requirement
faced by any society of placing and moti-
vating individuals in the social structure.
As a functioning mechanism a society must
somehow distribute its members in social
positions and induce them to perform the
duties of these positions. It must thus con-
cern itself with motivation at two different
levels: to instill in the proper individuals
the desire to fill certain positions, and, once
in these positions, the desire to perform the
duties attached to them. Even though the
social order may be relatively static in
form, there is a continuous process of me-
tabolism as new individuals are born into it,
shift with age, and die off. Their absorption
into the positional system must somehow be
arranged and motivated. This is true whether
the system is competitive or non-competi-
tive. A competitive system gives greater
importance to the motivation to achieve
positions, whereas a non-competitive system
gives perhaps greater importance to the mo-

Kingsley Davis, “A Conceptual Analysis of
Stratification,” American Sociological Review. 7:
309-321, June, 1942.

‘The writers regret (and beg indulgence) that
the present essay, a condensation of a longer study,
covers so much in such short space that adequate
evidence and qualification cannot be given and that
as a result what is actually very tentative is pre-
sented in an unfortunately dogmatic manner.

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION 243

tivation to perform the duties of the posi-
tions; but in any system both types of mo-
tivation are required.

If the duties associated with the various
positions were all equally pleasant to the
human organism, all equally important to
societal survival, and all equally in need of
the same ability or talent, it would make
no difference who got into which positions,
and the problem of social placement would
be greatly reduced. But actually it does make
a great deal of difference who gets into which
positions, not only because some positions
are inherently more agreeable than others,
but also because some require special talents
or training and some are functionally more
important than others. Also, it is essential
that the duties of the positions be performed
with the diligence that their importance re-
quires. Inevitably, then, a society must have,
first, some kind of rewards that it can use as
inducements, and, second, some way of dis-
tributing these rewards differentially accord-
ing to positions. The rewards and their dis-
tribution become a part of the social order,
and thus give rise to stratification.

One may ask what kind of rewards a
society has at its disposal in distributing its
personnel and securing essential services. It
has, first of all, the things that contribute
to sustenance and comfort. It has, second, the
things that contribute to humor and diver-
sion. And it has, finally, the things that
contribute to self respect and ego expansion.
The last, because of the peculiarly social
character of the self, is largerly a function
of the opinion of others, but it nonetheless
ranks in importance with the first two. In
any social system all three kinds of rewards
must be dispensed differentially according
to positions.

In a sense the rewards are “built into” the
position. They consist in the “rights” as-
sociated with the position, plus what may
be called its accompaniments or perquisites.
Often the rights, and sometimes the accom-
paniments, are functionally related to the
duties of the position. (Rights as viewed by
the incumbent are usually duties as viewed
by other members of the community.) How-
ever, there may be a host of subsidiary rights

and perquisites that are not essential to the
function of the position and have only an
indirect and symbolic connection with its
duties, but which still may be of considerable
importance in inducing people to seek the
positions and fulfil the essential duties.

If the rights and perquisites of different
positions in a society must be unequal, then
the society must be stratified, because that
is precisely what stratification means. Social
inequality is thus an unconsciously evolved
device by which societies insure that the most
important positions are conscientiously filled
by the most qualified persons. Hence every
society, no matter how simple or complex,
must differentiate persons in terms of both
prestige and esteem, and must therefore
possess a certain amount of institutionalized
inequality.

It does not follow that the amount or
type of inequality need be the same in all
societies. This is largerly a function of
factors that will be discussed presently.

THE TWO DETERMINANTS OF

POSITIONAL RANK

Granting the general function that in-
equality subserves, one can specify the two
factors that determine the relative rank of
different positions. In general those positions
convey the best reward, and hence have the
highest rank, which (a) have the greatest
importance for the society and (b) require
the greatest training or talent. The first
factor concerns function and is a matter of
relative significance; the second concerns
means and is a matter of scarcity.

Differential Functional Importance. Actu-
ally a society does not need to reward
positions in proportion to their functional
importance. It merely needs to give sufficient
reward to them to insure that they will be
filled competently. In other words, it must
see that less essential positions do not com-
pete successfully with more essential ones.
If a position is easily filled, it need not be
heavily rewarded, even though important. On
the other hand, if it is important but hard
to fill, the reward must be high enough to
get it filled anyway. Functional importance

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

244 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

is therefore a necessary but not a sufficient
cause of high rank being assigned to a
position.-

Differential Scarcity of Personnel. Practi-
cally all positions, no matter how acquired,
require some form of skill or capacity for
performance. This is implicit in the very
notion of position, which implies that the
incumbent must, by virtue of his incumbency,
accomplish certain things.

There are, ultimately, only two ways in
which a person’s qualifications come about:
through inherent capacity or through train-
ing. Obviously, in concrete activities both
are always necessary, but from a practical
standpoint the scarcity may lie primarily
in one or the other, as well as in both. Some
positions require innate talents of such high
degree that the persons who fill them are
bound to be rare. In many cases, however,
talent is fairly abundant in the population
but the training process is so long, costly,
and elaborate that relatively few can qualify.
Modem medicine, for example, is within
the mental capacity of most individuals, but
a medical education is so burdensome and
expensive that virtually none would under-
take it if the position of the M.D. did not
carry a reward commensurate with the
sacrifice.

If the talents required for a position are
abundant and the training easy, the method
of acquiring the position may have little to

do with its duties. There may be, in fact, a
virtually accidental relationship. But if the
skills required are scarce by reason of the
rarity of talent or the costliness of training,
the position, if functionally important, must
have an attractive power that will draw the
necessary skills in competition with other
positions. This means, in effect, that the
position must be high in the social scale-
must command great prestige, high salary,
ample leisure, and the like.

How Variations Are to Be Understood. In
so far as there is a difference between one
system of stratification and another, it is
attributable to whatever factors affect the
two determinants of differential reward-
namely, functional importance and scarcity
of personnel. Positions important in one
society may not be important in another,
because the conditions faced by the societies,
or their degree of internal development, may
be different. The same conditions, in turn,
may affect the question of scarcity; for in
some societies the stage of development, or
the external situation, may wholly obviate
the necessity of certain kinds of skill or
talent. Any particular system of stratifica-
tion, then, can be understood as a product of
the special conditions affecting the two afore-
mentioned grounds of differential reward.

MAJOR SOCIETAL FUNCTIONS AND

STRATIFICATION

Religion. The reason why religion is neces-
sary is apparently to be found in the fact
that human society achieves its unity pri-
marily through the possession by its mem-
bers of certain ultimate values and ends
in common. Although these values and ends
are subjective, they influence behavior, and
their integration enables the society to oper-
ate as a system. Derived neither from in-
herited nor from external nature, they have
evolved as a part of culture by communica-
tion and moral pressure. They must, how-

‘ Unfortunately, functional importance is diffi-
cult to establish. To use the position’s prestige to
establish it, as is often unconsciously done, consti-
tutes circular reasoning from our point of view.
There are, however, two independent clues: (a) the
degree to which a position is functionally unique,
there being no other positions that can perform the
same function satisfactorily; (b) the degree to
which other positions are dependent on the one in
question. Both clues are best exemplified in or-
ganized systems of positions built around one major
function. Thus, in most complex societies the re-
ligious, political, economic, and educational func-
tions are handled by distinct structures not easily
interchangeable. In addition, each structure pos-
sesses many different positions, some clearly de-
pendent on, if not subordinate to, others. In sum,
when an institutional nucleus becomes differentiated
around one main function, and at the same time
organizes a large portion of the population into its
relationships, the key positions in it are of the high-

est functional importance. The absence of such
specialization does not prove functional unimpor-
tance, for the whole society may be relatively
unspecialized; but it is safe to assume that the more
important functions receive the first and clearest
structural differentiation.

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION 245

ever, appear to the members of the society
to have some reality, and it is the role of
religious belief and ritual to supply and re-
inforce this appearance of reality. Through
belief and ritual the common ends and values
are connected with an imaginary world
symbolized by concrete sacred objects, which
world in turn is related in a meaningful way
to the facts and trials of the individual’s life.
Through the worship of the sacred objects
and the beings they symbolize, and the ac-
ceptance of supernatural prescriptions that
are at the same time codes of behavior, a
powerful control over human conduct is
exercised, guiding it along lines sustaining
the institutional structure and conforming
to the ultimate ends and values.

If this conception of the role of religion is
true, one can understand why in every known
society the religious activities tend to be
under the charge of particular persons, who
tend thereby to enjoy greater rewards than
the ordinary societal member. Certain of the
rewards and special privileges may attach to
only the highest religious functionaries, but
others usually apply, if such exists, to the
entire sacerdotal class.

Moreover, there is a peculiar relation be-
tween the duties of the religious official and
the special privileges he enjoys. If the super-
natural world governs the destinies of men
more ultimately than does the real world, its
earthly representative, the person through
whom one may communicate with the super-
natural, must be a powerful individual. He
is a keeper of sacred tradition, a skilled per-
former of the ritual, and an interpreter of
lore and myth. He is in such close contact
with the gods that he is viewed as possessing
some of their characteristics. He is, in short,
a bit sacred, and hence free from some of
the more vulgar necessities and controls.

It is no accident, therefore, that religious
functionaries have been associated with the
very highest positions of power, as in theo-
cratic regimes. Indeed, looking at it from
this point of view, one may wonder why it
is that they do not get entire control over
their societies. The factors that prevent this
are worthy of note.

In the first place, the amount of technical

competence necessary for the performance of
religious duties is small. Scientific or artistic
capacity is not required. Anyone can set
himself up as enjoying an intimate relation
with deities, and nobody can successfully
dispute him. Therefore, the factor of scarcity
of personnel does not operate in the technical
sense.

One may assert, on the other hand, that
religious ritual is often elaborate and religious
lore abstruse, and that priestly ministrations
require tact, if not intelligence. This is true,
but the technical requirements of the profes-
sion are for the most part adventitious, not
related to the end in the same way that
science is related to air travel. The priest
can never be free from competition, since
the criteria of whether or not one has genuine
contact with the supernatural are never
strictly clear. It is this competition that
debases the priestly position below what
might be expected at first glance. That is
why priestly prestige is highest in those
societies where membership in the profession
is rigidly controlled by the priestly guild
itself. That is why, in part at least, elaborate
devices are utilized to stress the identification
of the person with his office-spectacular
costume, abnormal conduct, special diet,
segregated residence, celibacy, conspicuous
leisure, and the like. In fact, the priest is
always in danger of becoming somewhat dis-
credited-as happens in a secularized society
-because in a world of stubborn fact, ritual
and sacred knowledge alone will not grow
crops or build houses. Furthermore, unless
he is protected by a professional guild, the
priest’s identification with the supernatural
tends to preclude his acquisition of abundant
wordly goods.

As between one society and another it
seems that the highest general position
awarded the priest occurs in the medieval
type of social order. Here there is enough
economic production to afford a surplus,
which can be used to support a numerous
and highly organized priesthood; and yet the
populace is unlettered and therefore credu-
lous to a high degree. Perhaps the most
extreme example is to be found in the
Buddhism of Tibet, but others are en-

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

246 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

countered in the Catholicism of feudal
Europe, the Inca regime of Peru, the Brah-
minism of India, and the Mayan priesthood
of Yucatan. On the other hand, if the society
is so crude as to have no surplus and little
differentiation, so that every priest must be
also a cultivator or hunter, the separation of
the priestly status from the others has hardly
gone far enough for priestly prestige to mean
much. When the priest actually has high
prestige under these circumstances, it is
because he also performs other important
functions (usually political and medical).

In an extremely advanced society built on
scientific technology, the priesthood tends to
lose status, because sacred tradition and
supernaturalism drop into the background.
The ultimate values and common ends of the
society tend to be expressed in less anthro-
pomorphic ways, by officials who occupy
fundamentally political, economic, or educa-
tional rather than religious positions. Never-
theless, it is easily possible for intellectuals
to exaggerate the degree to which the priest-
hood in a presumably secular milieu has lost
prestige. When the matter is closely examined
the urban proletariat, as well as the rural
citizenry, proves to be suprisingly god-fearing
and priest-ridden. No society has become so
completely secularized as to liquidate en-
tirely the belief in transcendental ends and
supernatural entities. Even in a secularized
society some system must exist for the
integration of ultimate values, for their
ritualistic expression, and for the emotional
adjustments required by disappointment,
death, and disaster.

Government. Like religion, government
plays a unique and indispensable part in
society. But in contrast to religion, which
provides integration in terms of sentiments,
beliefs, and rituals, it organizes the society
in terms of law and authority. Furthermore,
it orients the society to the actual rather
than the unseen world.

The main functions of government are,
internally, the ultimate enforcement of norms,
the final arbitration of conflicting interests,
and the overall planning and direction of
society; and externally, the handling of war
and diplomacy. To carry out these functions

it acts as the agent of the entire people, en-
joys a monopoly of force, and controls all
individuals within its territory.

Political action, by definition, implies au-
thority. An official can command because he
has authority, and the citizen must obey
because he is subject to that authority. For
this reason stratification is inherent in the
nature of political relationships.

So clear is the power embodied in political
position that political inequality is sometimes
thought to comprise all inequality. But it can
be shown that there are other bases of strati-
fication, that the following controls operate
in practice to keep political power from be-
coming complete: (a) The fact that the
actual holders of political office, and es-
pecially those determining top policy must
necessarily be few in number compared to
the total population. (b) The fact that the
rulers represent the interest of the group
rather than of themselves, and are therefore
restricted in their behavior by rules and
mores designed to enforce this limitation of
interest. (c) The fact that the holder of
political office has his authority by virtue
of his office and nothing else, and therefore
any special knowledge, talent, or capacity
he may claim is purely incidental, so that he
often has to depend upon others for technical
assistance.

In view of these limiting factors, it is not
strange that the rulers often have less power
and prestige than a literal enumeration of
their formal rights would lead one to expect.

Wealth, Property, and Labor. Every posi-
tion that secures for its incumbent a liveli-
hood is, by definition, economically rewarded.
For this reason there is an economic aspect
to those positions (e.g. political and religious)
the main function of which is not economic.
It therefore becomes convenient for the so-
ciety to use unequal economic returns as a
principal means of controlling the entrance
of persons into positions and stimulating the
performance of their duties. The amount of
the economic return therefore becomes one
of the main indices of social status.

It should be stressed, however, that a
position does not bring power and prestige
because it draws a high income. Rather, it

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION 247

draws a high income because it is functionally
important and the available personnel is for
one reason or another scarce. It is therefore
superficial and erroneous to regard high in-
come as the cause of a man’s power and
prestige, just as it is erroneous to think that
a man’s fever is the cause of his disease.

The economic source of power and prestige
is not income primarily, but the ownership
of capital goods (including patents, good
will, and professional reputation). Such
ownership should be distinguished from the
possession of consumers’ goods, which is an
index rather than a cause of social standing.
In other words, the ownership of producers’
goods is properly speaking, a source of in-
come like other positions, the income itself
remaining an index. Even in situations where
social values are widely commercialized and
earnings are the readiest method of judging
social position, income does not confer pres-
tige on a position so much as it induces people
to compete for the position. It is true that
a man who has a high income as a result of
one position may find this money helpful in
climbing into another position as well, but
this again reflects the effect of his initial,
economically advantageous status, which
exercises its influence through the medium
of money.

In a system of private property in produc-
tive enterprise, an income above what an
individual spends can give rise to possession
of capital wealth. Presumably such posses-
sion is a reward for the proper management
of one’s finances originally and of the pro-
ductive enterprise later. But as social dif-
ferentiation becomes highly advanced and yet
the institution of inheritance persists, the
phenomenon of pure ownership, and reward
for pure ownership, emerges. In such a case
it is difficult to prove that the position is
functionally important or that the scarcity
involved is anything other than extrinsic and
accidental. It is for this reason, doubtless,

that the institution of private property in
productive goods becomes more subject to
criticism as social development proceeds
toward industrialization. It is only this pure,
that is, strictly legal and functionless owner-
ship, however, that is open to attack; for
some form of active ownership, whether
private or public, is indispensable.

One kind of ownership of production goods
consists in rights over the labor of others.
The most extremely concentrated and exclu-
sive of such rights are found in slavery,
but the essential principle remains in serfdom,
peonage, encomienda, and indenture. Natu-
rally this kind of ownership has the greatest
significance for stratification, because it
necessarily entails an unequal relationship.

But property in capital goods inevitably
introduces a compulsive element even into
the nominally free contractual relationship.
Indeed, in some respects the authority of the
contractual employer is greater than that of
the feudal landlord, inasmuch as the latter
is more limited by traditional reciprocities.
Even the classical economics recognized that
competitors would fare unequally, but it did
not pursue this fact to its necessary conclu-
sion that, however it might be acquired, un-
equal control of goods and services must
give unequal advantage to the parties to a
contract.

Technical Knowledge. The function of
finding means to single goals, without any
concern with the choice between goals, is
the exclusively technical sphere. The explana-
tion of why positions requiring great tech-
nical skill receive fairly high rewards is easy
to see, for it is the simplest case of the re-
wards being so distributed as to draw talent
and motivate training. Why they seldom if
ever receive the highest rewards is also clear:
the importance of technical knowledge from
a societal point of view is never so great as
the integration of goals, which takes place on
the religious, political, and economic levels.
Since the technological level is concerned
solely with means, a purely technical position
must ultimately be subordinate to other po-
sitions that are religious, political, or eco-
nomic in character.

Nevertheless, the distinction between ex-

4 The symbolic rather than intrinsic role of
income in social stratification has been succinctly
summarized by Talcott Parsons, “An Analytical
Approach to the Theory of Social Stratification,”
American Journal of Sociology. 45 :84i-862, May,
I940.

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

248 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

pert and layman in any social order is funda-
mental, and cannot be entirely reduced to
other terms. Methods of recruitment, as well
as of reward, sometimes lead to the erroneous
interpretation that technical positions are
economically determined. Actually, however,
the acquisition of knowledge and skill cannot
be accomplished by purchase, although the
opportunity to learn may be. The control of
the avenues of training may inhere as a sort
of property right in certain families or classes,
giving them power and prestige in conse-
quence. Such a situation adds an artificial
scarcity to the natural scarcity of skills and
talents. On the other hand, it is possible for
an opposite situation to arise. The rewards
of technical position may be so great that a
condition of excess supply is created, leading
to at least temporary devaluation of the
rewards. Thus “unemployment in the learned
professions” may result in a debasement of
the prestige of those positions. Such adjust-
ments and readjustments are constantly oc-
curring in changing societies; and it is always
well to bear in mind that the efficiency of a
stratified structure may be affected by the
modes of recruitment for positions. The social
order itself, however, sets limits to the in-
flation or deflation of the prestige of experts:
an over-supply tends to debase the rewards
and discourage recruitment or produce revo-
lution, whereas an under-supply tends to
increase the rewards or weaken the society
in competition with other societies.

Particular systems of stratification show
a wide range with respect to the exact posi-
tion of technically competent persons. This
range is perhaps most evident in the degree
of specialization. Extreme division of labor
tends to create many specialists without high
prestige since the training is short and the
required native capacity relatively small. On
the other hand it also tends to accentuate
the high position of the true experts-scien-
tists, engineers, and administrators-by in-
creasing their authority relative to other
functionally important positions. But the
idea of a technocratic social order or a
government or priesthood of engineers or
social scientists neglects the limitations of
knowledge and skills as a basic for perform-

ing social functions. To the extent that the
social structure is truly specialized the pres-
tige of the technical person must also be
circumscribed.

VARIATION IN STRATIFIED SYSTEMS

The generalized principles of stratification
here suggested form a necessary preliminary
to a consideration of types of stratified sys-
tems, because it is in terms of these principles
that the types must be described. This can
be seen by trying to delineate types according
to certain modes of variation. For instance,
some of the most important modes (together
with the polar types in terms of them) seem
to be as follows:

(a) The Degree of Specialization. The
degree of specialization affects the fineness
and multiplicity of the gradations in power
and prestige. It also influences the extent to
which particular functions may be empha-
sized in the invidious system, since a given
function cannot receive much emphasis in
the hierarchy until it has achieved structural
separation from the other functions. Finally,
the amount of specialization influences the
bases of selection. Polar types: Specialized,
Unspecialized.

(b) The Nature of ‘the Functional Em-
phasis. In general when emphasis is put on
sacred matters, a rigidity is introduced that
tends to limit specialization and hence the
development of technology. In addition, a
brake is placed on social mobility, and on
the development of bureaucracy. When the
preoccupation with the sacred is withdrawn,
leaving greater scope for purely secular pre-
occupations, a great development, and rise
in status, of economic and technological posi-
tions seemingly takes place. Curiously, a
concomitant rise in political position is not
likely, because it has usually been allied with
the religious and stands to gain little by the
decline of the latter. It is also possible for
a society to emphasize family functions-as
in relatively undifferentiated societies where
high mortality requires high fertility and kin-
ship forms the main basis of social organiza-
tion. Main types: Familistic, Authoritarian
(Theocratic or sacred, and Totalitarian or
secular), Capitalistic.

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION 249

(c) The Magnitude of Invidious Dif-
ferences. What may be called the amount
of social distance between positions, taking
into account the entire scale, is something
that should lend itself to quantitative
measurement. Considerable differences ap-
parently exist between different societies in
this regard, and also between parts of the
same society. Polar types: Equalitarian,
Inequalitarian.

(d) The Degree of Opportunity. The
familiar question of the amount of mobility
is different from the question of the com-
parative equality or inequality of rewards
posed above, because the two criteria may
vary independently up to a point. For in-
stance, the tremendous divergences in mone-
tary income in the United States are far
greater than those found in primitive so-
cieties, yet the equality of opportunity to
move from one rung to the other in the social
scale may also be greater in the United
States than in a hereditary tribal kingdom.
Polar types: Mobile (open), Immobile
(closed).

(e) The Degree of Stratum Solidarity.
Again, the degree of “class solidarity” (or
the presence of specific organizations to
promote class interests) may vary to some
extent independently of the other criteria,
and hence is an important principle in classi-
fying systems of stratification. Polar types:
Class organized, Class unorganized.

EXTERNAL CONDITIONS

What state any particular system of strati-
fication is in with reference to each of these
modes of variation depends on two things:
(i) its state with reference to the other ranges
of variation, and (2) the conditions outside
the system of stratification which neverthe-
less influence that system. Among the latter
are the following:

(a) The Stage of Cultural Development.

As the cultural heritage grows, increased
specialization becomes necessary, which in
turn contributes to the enhancement of
mobility, a decline of stratum solidarity, and
a change of functional emphasis.

(b) Situation with Respect to Other So-
cieties. The presence or absence of open con-
flict with other societies, of free trade rela-
tions or cultural diffusion, all influence the
class structure to some extent. A chronic
state of warfare tends to place emphasis upon
the military functions, especially when the
opponents are more or less equal. Free trade,
on the other hand, strengthens the hand of
the trader at the expense of the warrior and
priest. Free movement of ideas generally
has an equalitarian effect. Migration and
conquest create special circumstances.

(c) Size of the Society. A small society
limits the degree to which functional speciali-
zation can go, the degree of segregation of
different strata, and the magnitude of in-
equality.

COMPOSITE TYPES

Much of the literature on stratification
has attempted to classify concrete systems
into a certain number of types. This task is
deceptively simple, however, and should come
at the end of an analysis of elements and
principles, rather than at the beginning. If
the preceding discussion has any validity,
it indicates that there are a number of modes
of variation between different systems, and
that any one system is a composite of the
society’s status with reference to all these
modes of variation. The danger of trying to
classify whole societies under such rubrics
as caste, feudal, or open class is that one or
two criteria are selected and others ignored,
the result being an unsatisfactory solution
to the problem posed. The present discussion
has been offered as a possible approach to
the more systematic classification of com-
posite types.

This content downloaded from 128.210.85.113 on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:03:09 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

• Article Contents

p.242
p.243
p.244
p.245
p.246
p.247
p.248
p.249

• Issue Table of Contents

American Sociological Review, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1944 Annual Meeting Papers (Apr., 1945), pp. 123-335
Front Matter
[Photograph]: Robert Ezra Park, 1864-1944
[Photograph]: Dwight Sanderson, 1878-1944
Presidential Address
Toward Social Dynamics [pp.123-131]
Criminology
Is “White Collar Crime” Crime? [pp.132-139]
Community and Ecology
Sentiment and Symbolism as Ecological Variables [pp.140-148]
A Cooperative Health Association in Spanish Speaking Villages or The Organization of the Taos County Cooperative Health Association [pp.149-157]
The Role of Informal Activities in Community Life [pp.158-160]
Social Research
Wartime Developments in Census Statistics [pp.160-169]
Some Recent Developments in Sociological Work in the Department of Agriculture [pp.169-175]
Impact of the War on Minnesota Communities: with Reference to Problems of Postwar Planning [pp.175-176]
A Methodological Note on the Empirical Establishment of Culture Patterns [pp.176-184]
Latin America
The Spanish Heritage [pp.184-191]
The Problem of Democracy in Middle America [pp.192-199]
Culture, Genuine and Spurious: A Re-Evaluation [pp.199-207]
The Family
Needed Research in Parent-Child Fixation [pp.208-216]
Taming the Lumberjack [pp.217-225]
Family Modes of Expression [pp.226-237]
The Stepchild [pp.237-242]
Social Theory
Some Principles of Stratification [pp.242-249]
Sociometry
An Experimental Sociographic Study of a Stratified 10th Grade Class [pp.250-261]
Political Sociology
Prediction of Political Behavior in America [pp.261-273]
Population
Economic Limits of International Resettlement [pp.274-281]
Social Psychology
Interest Criteria in Propaganda Analysis [pp.282-288]
General Session
Japanese Attitudes and Problems of Peace [pp.288-294]
War and Post-War Changes in Social Stratifications of the Euro-American Population [pp.294-303]
Official Reports and Proceedings [p.304]
Current Items [pp.305-307]
Book Reviews
untitled [pp.308-309]
untitled [pp.309-310]
untitled [pp.310-311]
untitled [pp.311-313]
untitled [pp.313-314]
untitled [p.314]
untitled [pp.314-315]
untitled [p.315]
untitled [pp.315-316]
untitled [pp.316-317]
untitled [pp.317-318]
untitled [p.318]
untitled [pp.318-319]
untitled [pp.319-320]
untitled [pp.320-321]
untitled [pp.321-322]
untitled [pp.322-323]
untitled [p.323]
untitled [p.324]
untitled [pp.324-325]
untitled [pp.325-326]
untitled [p.326]
untitled [pp.327-328]
untitled [p.328]
untitled [pp.328-329]
untitled [pp.329-330]
untitled [pp.330-332]
untitled [pp.332-333]
untitled [pp.333-334]
untitled [p.334]
untitled [pp.334-335]
Back Matter

1

Excerpts from: The Project Gutenberg eBook,

The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844,

by Frederick Engels, Translated by Florence Kelley Wischnewetzky
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17306/pg17306.txt

Photos added.

INTRODUCTION.

The history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the

last century, with the invention of the steam-engine and of machinery for

working cotton. These inventions gave rise, as is well known, to an

industrial revolution, a revolution which altered the whole civil society;

one, the historical importance of which is only now beginning to be

recognised. England is the classic soil of this transformation, which was

all the mightier, the more silently it proceeded; and England is, therefore,

the classic land of its chief product also, the proletariat. Only in England

can the proletariat be studied in all its relations and from all sides.

Before the introduction of

machinery, the spinning and

weaving of raw materials was

carried on in the working-man’s

home. Wife and daughter spun the

yarn that the father wove or that

they sold, if he did not work it

up himself. These weaver families

lived in the country in the

neighbourhood of the towns, and

could get on fairly well with

their wages, because the home

market was almost the only one,

and the crushing power of

competition that came later, with

the conquest of foreign markets

and the extension of trade, did

not yet press upon wages. There

was, further, a constant increase

in the demand for the home

market, keeping pace with the

slow increase in population and employing all the workers; and there was also

the impossibility of vigorous competition of the workers among themselves,

consequent upon the rural dispersion of their homes. So it was that the

weaver was usually in a position to lay by something, and rent a little piece

of land, that he cultivated in his leisure hours, of which he had as many as

he chose to take, since he could weave whenever and as long as he pleased.

True, he was a bad farmer and managed his land inefficiently, often obtaining

but poor crops; nevertheless, he was no proletarian, he had a stake in the

country, he was permanently settled, and stood one step higher in society

than the English workman of to-day.

So the workers vegetated throughout a passably comfortable existence, leading a

righteous and peaceful life in all piety and probity; and their material

position was far better than that of their successors. They did not need to

overwork; they did no more than they chose to do, and yet earned what they

needed. They had leisure for healthful work in garden or field, work which, in

Family spinning and weaving in cottage

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17306/pg17306.txt

2

itself, was recreation for them,

and they could take part besides

in the recreations and games of

their neighbours, and all these

games–bowling, cricket,

football, etc., contributed to

their physical health and vigour.

They were, for the most part,

strong, well-built people, in

whose physique little or no

difference from that of their

peasant neighbours was

discoverable. Their children

grew up in the fresh country air,

and, if they could help their

parents at work, it was only

occasionally; while of eight or

twelve hours work for them there

was no question.

What the moral and intellectual

character of this class was may

be guessed. Shut off from the towns, which they never entered, their yarn and

woven stuff being delivered to travelling agents for payment of wages–so shut

off that old people who lived quite in the neighbourhood of the town never went

thither until they were robbed of their trade by the introduction of machinery

and obliged to look about them in the towns for work–the weavers stood upon the

moral and intellectual plane of the yeomen with whom they were usually

immediately connected through their little holdings. They regarded their

squire, the greatest landholder of the region, as their natural superior; they

asked advice of him, laid their small disputes before him for settlement, and

gave him all honour, as this patriarchal relation involved. They were

“respectable” people, good husbands and fathers, led moral lives because they

had no temptation to be immoral, there being no groggeries or low houses in

their vicinity, and because the host, at whose inn they now and then quenched

their thirst, was also a respectable man, usually a large tenant farmer who took

pride in his good order, good beer, and early hours. They had their children

the whole day at home, and brought them up in obedience and the fear of God; the

patriarchal relationship remained undisturbed so long as the children were

unmarried. The young people grew up in idyllic simplicity and intimacy with

their playmates until they married; and even though sexual intercourse before

marriage almost unfailingly took place, this happened only when the moral

obligation of marriage was recognised on both sides, and a subsequent wedding

made everything good. In short, the English industrial workers of those days

lived and thought after the fashion still to be found here and there in Germany,

in retirement and seclusion, without mental activity and without violent

fluctuations in their position in life. They could rarely read and far more

rarely write; went regularly to church, never talked politics, never conspired,

never thought, delighted in physical exercises, listened with inherited

reverence when the Bible was read, and were, in their unquestioning humility,

exceedingly well-disposed towards the “superior” classes. But intellectually,

they were dead; lived only for their petty, private interest, for their looms

and gardens, and knew nothing of the mighty movement which, beyond their

horizon, was sweeping through mankind. They were comfortable in their silent

vegetation, and but for the industrial revolution they would never have emerged

from this existence, which, cosily romantic as it was, was nevertheless not

worthy of human beings. In truth, they were not human beings; they were merely

Gainsborough painting “The Cottage Door: 1778

3

toiling machines in the service of the few aristocrats who had guided history

down to that time. The industrial revolution has simply carried this out to its

logical end by making the workers machines pure and simple, taking from them the

last trace of independent activity, and so forcing them to think and demand a

position worthy of men. As in France politics, so in England manufacture, and

the movement of civil society in general drew into the whirl of history the last

classes which had remained sunk in apathetic indifference to the universal

interests of mankind.

The first invention which gave rise

to a radical change in the state of

the English workers was the jenny,

invented in the year 1764 by a

weaver, James Hargreaves, of

Standhill, near Blackburn, in North

Lancashire. This machine was the

rough beginning of the later

invented mule, and was moved by

hand. Instead of one spindle like

the ordinary spinning-wheel, it

carried sixteen or eighteen

manipulated by a single workman.

This invention made it possible to

deliver more yarn than heretofore.

Whereas,though one weaver had

employed three spinners, there had

never been enough yarn, and the

weaver had often been obliged to

wait for it, there was now more

yarn to be had than could be woven

by the available workers. The demand for woven goods, already increasing,

rose yet more in consequence of the cheapness of these goods, which

cheapness, in turn, was the outcome of the diminished cost of producing the

yarn. More weavers were needed, and weavers’ wages rose. Now that the

weaver could earn more at his loom, he gradually abandoned his farming, and

gave his whole time to weaving. At that time a family of four grown persons

and two children (who were set to spooling) could earn, with eight hours’

daily work, four pounds sterling in a week, and often more if trade was good

and work pressed. It happened often enough that a single weaver earned two

pounds a week at his loom. By degrees the class of farming weavers wholly

disappeared, and was merged in the newly arising class of weavers who lived

wholly upon wages, had no property whatever, not even the pretended property

of a holding, and so became working-men, proletarians. Moreover, the old

relation between spinner and weaver was destroyed. Hitherto, so far as this

had been possible, yarn had been spun and woven under one roof. Now that the

jenny as well as the loom required a strong hand, men began to spin, and

whole families lived by spinning, while others laid the antiquated,

superseded spinning-wheel aside; and, if they had not means of purchasing a

jenny, were forced to live upon the wages of the father alone. Thus began

with spinning and weaving that division of labour which has since been so

infinitely perfected.

While the industrial proletariat was thus developing with the first still

very imperfect machine, the same machine gave rise to the agricultural

proletariat. There had, hitherto, been a vast number of small landowners,

yeomen, who had vegetated in the same unthinking quiet as their neighbours,

the farming weavers. They cultivated their scraps of land quite after the

Spinning Jenny

4

ancient and inefficient fashion of their ancestors, and opposed every change

with the obstinacy peculiar to such creatures of habit, after remaining

stationary from generation to generation. Among them were many small holders

also, not tenants in the present sense of the word, but people who had their

land handed down from their fathers, either by hereditary lease, or by force

of ancient custom, and had hitherto held it as securely as if it had actually

been their own property. When the industrial workers withdrew from

agriculture, a great number of small holdings fell idle, and upon these the

new class of large tenants established themselves, tenants-at-will, holding

fifty, one hundred, two hundred or more acres, liable to be turned out at the

end of the year, but able by improved tillage and larger farming to increase

the yield of the land. They could sell their produce more cheaply than the

yeomen, for whom nothing remained when his farm no longer supported him but

to sell it, procure a jenny or a loom, or take service as an agricultural

labourer in the employ of a large farmer. His inherited slowness and the

inefficient methods of cultivation bequeathed by his ancestors, and above

which he could not rise, left him no alternative when forced to compete with

men who managed their holdings on sounder principles and with all the

advantages bestowed by farming on a large scale and the investment of capital

for the improvement of the soil.

With these inventions, since improved

from year to year, the victory of

machine-work over hand-work in the

chief branches of English industry

was won; and the history of the

latter from that time forward simply

relates how the hand-workers have

been driven by machinery from one

position after another. The

consequences of this were, on the one

hand, a rapid fall in price of all

manufactured commodities, prosperity

of commerce and manufacture, the

conquest of nearly all the

unprotected foreign markets, the

sudden multiplication of capital and

national wealth; on the otherhand, a

still more rapid multiplication of

the proletariat, the destruction of

all property-holding and of all security of employment for the working-class,

demoralisation, political excitement, and all those facts so highly repugnant

to Englishmen in comfortable circumstances, which we shall have to consider

in the following pages. Having already seen what a transformation in the

social condition of the lower classes a single such clumsy machine as the

jenny had wrought, there is no cause for surprise as to that which a complete

and interdependent system of finely adjusted machinery has brought about,

machinery which receives raw material and turns out woven goods.

Such, in brief, is the history of English industrial development in the past

sixty years, a history which has no counterpart in the annals of humanity.

Sixty, eighty years ago, England was a country like every other, with small

towns, few and simple industries, and a thin but _proportionally_ large

agricultural population. To-day it is a country like _no_ other, with a

capital of two and a half million inhabitants; with vast manufacturing

cities; with an industry that supplies the world, and produces almost

everything by means of the most complex machinery; with an industrious,

Industrial Revolution factories spewing smoke

5

intelligent, dense population, of which two-thirds are employed in trade and

commerce, and composed of classes wholly different; forming, in fact, with

other customs and other needs, a different nation from the England of those

days. The industrial revolution is of the same importance for England as the

political revolution for France, and the philosophical revolution for

Germany; and the difference between England in 1760 and in 1844 is at least

as great as that between France, under the _ancien regime_ and during the

revolution of July. But the mightiest result of this industrial

transformation is the English proletariat.

THE INDUSTRIAL PROLETARIAT.

It has been already suggested that manufacture centralises property in the

hands of the few. It requires large capital with which to erect the colossal

establishments that ruin the petty trading bourgeoisie and with which to

press into its service the forces of Nature, so driving the hand labour of

the independent workman out of the market. The division of labour, the

application of water and especially steam, and the application of machinery,

are the three great levers with which manufacture, since the middle of the

last century, has been busy putting the world out of joint. Manufacture, on

a small scale, created the middle-class; on a large scale, it created the

working-class, and raised the elect of the middle-class to the throne, but

only to overthrow them the more surely when the time comes. Meanwhile, it is

an undenied and easily explained fact that the numerous, petty middle-class

of the “good old times” has been annihilated by manufacture, and resolved

into rich capitalists on the one hand and poor workers on the other.

…

THE GREAT TOWNS.

After roaming the streets of the

capital a day or two, making headway

with difficulty through the human

turmoil and the endless lines of

vehicles, after visiting the slums of

the metropolis, one realises for the

first time that these Londoners have

been forced to sacrifice the best

qualities of their human nature, to

bring to pass all the marvels of

civilisation which crowd their city;

that a hundred powers which slumbered

within them have remained inactive,

have been suppressed in order that a

few might be developed more fully and

multiply through union with those of

others. The very turmoil of the

streets has something repulsive, something against which human nature rebels.

The hundreds of thousands of all classes and ranks crowding past each other,

are they not all human beings with the same qualities and powers, and with

the same interest in being happy? And have they not, in the end, to seek

happiness in the same way, by the same means? And still they crowd by one

another as though they had nothing in common, nothing to do with one another,

and their only agreement is the tacit one, that each keep to his own side of

the pavement, so as not to delay the opposing streams of the crowd, while it

occurs to no man to honour another with so much as a glance. The brutal

indifference, the unfeeling isolation of each in his private interest becomes

the more repellant and offensive, the more these individuals are crowded

Victorian England street scene

6

together, within a limited space. And, however much one may be aware that

this isolation of the individual, this narrow self-seeking is the fundamental

principle of our society everywhere, it is nowhere so shamelessly barefaced,

so self-conscious as just here in the crowding of the great city. The

dissolution of mankind into monads, of which each one has a separate

principle, the world of atoms, is here carried out to its utmost extreme.

Hence it comes, too, that the social war, the war of each against all, is

here openly declared. Just as in Stirner’s recent book, people regard each

other only as useful objects; each exploits the other, and the end of it all

is, that the stronger treads the weaker under foot, and that the powerful

few, the capitalists, seize everything for themselves, while to the weak

many, the poor, scarcely a bare existence remains.

…

… Since capital, the direct or indirect control of the means of subsistence

and production, is the weapon with which this social warfare is carried on,

it is clear that all the disadvantages of such a state must fall upon the

poor. For him no man has the slightest concern. Cast into the whirlpool, he

must struggle through as well as he can. If he is so happy as to find work,

_i.e_., if the bourgeoisie does him the favour to enrich itself by means of

him, wages await him which scarcely suffice to keep body and soul together;

if he can get no work he may steal, if he is not afraid of the police, or

starve, in which case the police will take care that he does so in a quiet

and inoffensive manner.

…

True, it is only individuals who starve,

but what security has the working-man that

it may not be his turn to-morrow? Who

assures him employment, who vouches for it

that, if for any reason or no reason his

lord and master discharges him to-morrow,

he can struggle along with those dependent

upon him, until he may find some one else

“to give him bread?” Who guarantees that

willingness to work shall suffice to

obtain work, that uprightness, industry,

thrift, and the rest of the virtues

recommended by the bourgeoisie, are really

his road to happiness? No one. He knows

that he has something

to-day, and that it does

not depend upon himself

whether he shall have

something to-morrow. He

knows that every breeze that blows, every whim of his

employer, every bad turn of trade may hurl him back into

the fierce whirlpool from which he has temporarily saved

himself, and in which it is hard and often impossible to

keep his head above water. He knows that, though he may

have the means of living to-day, it is very uncertain

whether he shall to-morrow.

Every great city has one or more slums, where the working-class is crowded

together. True, poverty often dwells in hidden alleys close to the palaces

of the rich; but, in general, a separate territory has been assigned to it,

where, removed from the sight of the happier classes, it may struggle along

as it can.

Poor children and a dead horse on a street in 19th century
England

Three poor, dirty, girls

7

It is a disorderly collection of tall, three or four-storied houses, with

narrow, crooked, filthy streets, in which there is quite as much life as in

the great thoroughfares of the town, except that, here, people of the

working-class only are to be seen.

A vegetable market is held in the

street, baskets with vegetables and

fruits, naturally all bad and

hardly fit to use, obstruct the

sidewalk still further, and from

these, as well as from the fish-

dealers’ stalls, arises a horrible

smell. The houses are occupied

from cellar to garret, filthy

within and without, and their

appearance is such that no human

being could possibly wish to live

in them. But all this is nothing

in comparison with the dwellings in

the narrow courts and alleys

between the streets, entered by

covered passages between the

houses, in which the filth and tottering ruin surpass all description.

Scarcely a whole window-pane can be found, the walls are crumbling, door-

posts and window-frames loose and broken, doors of old boards nailed

together, or altogether wanting in this

thieves’ quarter, where no doors are

needed, there being nothing to steal.

Heaps of garbage and ashes lie in all

directions, and the foul liquids emptied

before the doors gather in stinking pools.

Here live the poorest of the poor, the

worst paid workers with thieves and the

victims of prostitution indiscriminately

huddled together, the majority Irish, or of

Irish extraction, and those who have not

yet sunk in the whirlpool of moral ruin

which surrounds them, sinking daily deeper,

losing daily more and more of their power

to resist the demoralising influence of

want, filth, and evil surroundings.

Tenement fire escape and window crowded with
children and mother

Crowded room in tenement

Crowded street scene with vegetable market

Tenement housing

8

But in spite of all this, they who have some kind of a shelter are fortunate,

fortunate in comparison with the utterly homeless. In London fifty thousand

human beings get up every morning, not knowing where they are to lay their

heads at night. The luckiest of this multitude, those who succeed in keeping a

penny or two until evening, enter a lodging-house, such as abound in every

great city, where they find a bed. But what a bed! These houses are filled

with beds from cellar to garret, four, five, six beds in a room; as many as can

be crowded in. Into every bed four, five, or six human beings are piled, as

many as can be packed in, sick and well, young and old, drunk and sober, men

and women, just as they come, indiscriminately. Then come strife, blows,

wounds, or, if these bedfellows agree, so much the worse; thefts are arranged

and things done which our language, grown more humane than our deeds, refuses

to record. And those who cannot pay for such a refuge? They sleep where they

find a place, in passages, arcades, in corners where the police and the owners

leave them undisturbed. A few individuals find their way to the refuges which

are managed, here and there, by private charity, others sleep on the benches in

the parks close under the windows of Queen Victoria.

…

The habitual food of the individual working-man naturally varies according to

his wages. The better paid workers, especially those in whose families every

member is able to earn something, have good food as long as this state of

things lasts; meat daily, and bacon and cheese for supper. Where wages are

less, meat is used only two or three times a week, and the proportion of

bread and potatoes increases. Descending gradually, we find the animal food

reduced to a small piece of bacon cut up with the potatoes; lower still, even

this disappears, and there remain only bread, cheese, porridge, and potatoes,

until on the lowest round of the ladder, among the Irish, potatoes form the

sole food. As an accompaniment, weak tea, with perhaps a little sugar, milk,

or spirits, is universally drunk. Tea is regarded in England, and even in

Ireland, as quite as indispensable as coffee in Germany, and where no tea is

used, the bitterest poverty reigns. But all this pre-supposes that the

workman has work. When he has none, he is wholly at the mercy of accident,

and eats what is given him, what he can beg or steal. And, if he gets

nothing, he simply starves, as we have seen. The quantity of food varies, of

course, like its quality, according to the rate of wages, so that among ill-

paid workers, even if they have no large families, hunger prevails in spite

of full and regular work; and the number of the ill-paid is very large. …

COMPETITION.

We have seen in the introduction how competition created the proletariat at

the very beginning of the industrial movement, by increasing the wages of

weavers in consequence of the increased demand for woven goods, so inducing

the weaving peasants to abandon their farms and earn more money by devoting

themselves to their looms. We have seen how it crowded out the small farmers

by means of the large farm system, reduced them to the rank of proletarians,

and attracted them in part into the towns; how it further ruined the small

bourgeoisie in great measure and reduced its members also to the ranks of the

proletariat; how it centralised capital in the hands of the few, and

population in the great towns. Such are the various ways and means by which

competition, as it reached its full manifestation and free development in

modern industry, created and extended the proletariat. We shall now have to

observe its influence on the working-class already created. And here we must

begin by tracing the results of competition of single workers with one

another.

9

Competition is the completest

expression of the battle of all

against all which rules in modern

civil society. This battle, a battle

for life, for existence, for

everything, in case of need a battle

of life and death, is fought not

between the different classes of

society only, but also between the

individual members of these classes.

Each is in the way of the other, and

each seeks to crowd out all who are in

his way, and to put himself in their

place. The workers are in constant

competition among themselves as the members of the bourgeoisie among

themselves. The power-loom weaver is in competition with the hand-loom

weaver, the unemployed or ill-paid hand-loom weaver with him who has work or

is better paid, each trying to supplant the other. But this competition of

the workers among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things

in its effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in

the hands of the bourgeoisie. Hence the effort of the workers to nullify

this competition by associations, hence the hatred of the bourgeoisie towards

these associations, and its triumph in every defeat which befalls them.

The proletarian is helpless; left to himself, he cannot live a single day.

The bourgeoisie has gained a monopoly of all means of existence in the

broadest sense of the word. What the proletarian needs, he can obtain only

from this bourgeoisie, which is protected in its monopoly by the power of the

State. The proletarian is, therefore, in law and in

fact, the slave of the bourgeoisie, which can decree his life or death.

It offers him the means of living, but only for an “equivalent” for his work.

It even lets him have the appearance of acting from a free choice, of making

a contract with free, unconstrained consent, as a responsible agent who has

attained his majority.

Fine freedom, where the proletarian has no other choice than that of either

accepting the conditions which the bourgeoisie offers him, or of starving, of

freezing to death, of sleeping naked among the beasts of the forests! A fine

“equivalent” valued at pleasure by the bourgeoisie! And if one proletarian

is such a fool as to starve rather than agree to the equitable propositions

of the bourgeoisie, his “natural superiors,” another is easily found in his

place; there are proletarians enough in the world, and not all so insane as

to prefer dying to living.

Here we have the competition of the workers among themselves. If _all_the

proletarians announced their determination to starve rather than work for the

bourgeoisie, the latter would have to surrender its monopoly. But this is

not the case–is, indeed, a rather impossible case–so that the

bourgeoisie still thrives. To this competition of the worker there is but

one limit; no worker will work for less than he needs to subsist. If he must

starve, he will prefer to starve in idleness rather than in toil….

Crowd of laborers

10

From this it is evident what the minimum of wages is. The maximum is

determined by the competition of the bourgeoisie among themselves; for we

have seen how they, too, must compete

with each other. The bourgeois can

increase his capital only in commerce

and manufacture, and in both cases he

needs workers. Even if he invests his

capital at interest, he needs them

indirectly; for without commerce and

manufacture, no one would pay him

interest upon his capital, no one could

use it. So the bourgeois certainly

needs workers, not indeed for his

immediate living, for at need he could

consume his capital, but as we need an

article of trade or a beast of burden,–

as a means of profit. The proletarian

produces the goods which the bourgeois

sells with advantage. When, therefore,

the demand for these goods increases so

that all the competing working-men are

employed, and a few more might perhaps

be useful, the competition among the

workers falls away, and the bourgeoisie

begin to compete among themselves. The

capitalist in search of workmen knows

very well that his profits increase as

prices rise in consequence of the

increased demand for his goods, and pays

a trifle higher wages rather than let

the whole profit escape him….

From this we can determine the average

rate of wages. Under average

circumstances, when neither workers nor

capitalists have reason to compete,

especially among themselves, when there are just as many workers at hand as

can be employed in producing precisely the goods that are demanded, wages

stand a little above the minimum. How far they rise above the minimum will

depend upon the average needs and the grade of civilisation of the workers.

If the workers are accustomed to eat

meat several times in the week, the

capitalists must reconcile themselves to

paying wages enough to make this food

attainable, not less, because the

workers are not competing among

themselves and have no occasion to

content themselves with less; not more,

because the capitalists, in the absence

of competition among themselves, have no

occasion to attract working-men by

extraordinary favours. This standard of

the average needs and the average

civilisation of the workers has become

very complicated by reason of the

complications of English industry, and

is different for different sorts of

Children operating spinning machines in factory

Children and adults working in machine shop

Women working in factory

11

workers, as has been pointed out. Most industrial occupations demand a

certain skill and regularity, and for these qualities which involve a certain

grade of civilisation, the rate of wages must be such as to induce the worker

to acquire such skill and subject himself to such regularity. Hence it is

that the average wages of industrial workers are higher than those of mere

porters, day labourers, etc., higher especially than those of agricultural

labourers, a fact to which the additional cost of the necessities of life in

cities contributes somewhat. In other words, the worker is, in law and in

fact,the slave of the property-holding class, so effectually a slave that he

is sold like a piece of goods, rises and falls in value like a commodity. If

the demand for workers increases, the price of workers rises; if it falls,

their price falls. If it falls so greatly that a number of them become

unsaleable, if they are left in stock, they are simply left idle; and as they

cannot live upon that, they die of starvation. The bourgeoisie, on the other

hand, is far better off under the present arrangement than under the old

slave system; it can dismiss its employees at discretion without sacrificing

invested capital, and gets its work done much more cheaply than is possible

with slave labour, as Adam Smith comfortingly pointed out.

From this it is clear that English manufacture must have, at all times save

the brief periods of highest prosperity, an unemployed reserve army of

workers, in order to be able to produce the masses of goods required by the

market in the liveliest months. This reserve army is larger or smaller,

according as the state of the market occasions the employment of a larger or

smaller proportion of its members. This reserve army, which embraces an

immense multitude during the crisis and a large number during the period

which may be regarded as the average between the highest prosperity and the

crisis, is the “surplus population” of England, which keeps body and soul

together by begging, stealing, street-sweeping, collecting manure, pushing

handcarts, driving donkeys, peddling, or performing occasional small jobs.

In every great town a multitude of such people may be found.

RESULTS.

Having now investigated, somewhat in detail, the conditions under which the

English working-class lives, it is time to draw some further inferences from

the facts presented, and then to compare our inferences with the actual state

of things. Let us see what the workers themselves have become under the given

circumstances, what sort of people they are, what their physical, mental, and

moral status.

…

When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that

death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in

advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when

society {95} places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they

inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as

much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives

thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which

they _cannot_ live–forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain

in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable

consequence–knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet

permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the

deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against

which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man

sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since

the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it

remains. I have now to prove that society in England daily and hourly

12

commits what the working-men’s organs, with perfect correctness, characterise

as social murder, that it has placed the workers under conditions in which

they can neither retain health nor live long; that it undermines the vital

force of these workers gradually, little by little, and so hurries them to

the grave before their time. I have further to prove that society knows how

injurious such conditions are to the health and the life of the workers, and

yet does nothing to improve these conditions. That it _knows_ the

consequences of its deeds; that its act is, therefore, not mere manslaughter,

but murder, I shall have proved, when I cite official documents, reports of

Parliament and of the Government, in substantiation of my charge.

That a class which lives under the conditions

already sketched and is so ill-provided with

the most necessary means of subsistence, cannot

be healthy and can reach no advanced age, is

self-evident. Let us review the circumstances

once more with especial reference to the health

of the workers. The centralisation of

population in great cities exercises of itself

an unfavourable influence; the atmosphere of

London can never be so pure, so rich in oxygen,

as the air of the country; two and a half

million pairs of lungs, two hundred and fifty

thousand fires, crowded upon an area three to

four miles square, consume an enormous amount

of oxygen, which is replaced with difficulty,

because the method of building cities in itself

impedes ventilation. The carbonic acid gas,

engendered by respiration and fire, remains in

the streets by reason of its specific gravity,

and the chief air current passes over the roofs

of the city. The lungs of the inhabitants fail

to receive the due supply of oxygen, and the

consequence is mental and physical lassitude and low vitality. For this

reason, the dwellers in cities are far less exposed to acute, and especially

to inflammatory, affections than rural populations, who live in a free,

normal atmosphere; but they suffer the more from chronic affections. And if

life in large cities is, in itself, injurious to health, how great must be

the harmful influence of an abnormal atmosphere in the working-people’s

quarters, where, as we have seen, everything combines to poison the air. In

the country, it may, perhaps, be comparatively innoxious to keep a dung-heap

adjoining one’s dwelling, because the air has free ingress from all sides;

but in the midst of a large town, among closely built lanes and courts that

shut out all movement of the atmosphere, the case is different. All

putrefying vegetable and animal substances give off gases decidedly injurious

to health, and if these gases have no free way of escape, they inevitably

poison the atmosphere. The filth and stagnant pools of the working-people’s

quarters in the great cities have, therefore, the worst effect upon the

public health, because they produce precisely those gases which engender

disease; so, too, the exhalations from contaminated streams. But this is by

no means all. The manner in which the great multitude of the poor is treated

by society today is revolting. They are drawn into the large cities where

they breathe a poorer atmosphere than in the country; they are relegated to

districts which, by reason of the method of construction, are worse

ventilated than any others; they are deprived of all means of cleanliness,

Smoke spewing from factory smoke stacks

13

of water itself, since pipes are

laid only when paid for, and the

rivers so means of cleanliness,

polluted that they are useless

for such purposes; they are

obliged to throw all offal and

garbage, all dirty water, often

all disgusting drainage and

excrement into the streets, being

without other means of disposing

of them; they are thus compelled

to infect the region of their own

dwellings. Nor is this enough.

All conceivable evils are heaped

upon the heads of the poor. If

the population of great cities is

too dense in general, it is they

in particular who are packed into

the least space. As though the vitiated atmosphere of the streets were not

enough, they are penned in dozens into single rooms, so that the air which

they breathe at night is enough in itself to stifle them. They are given damp

dwellings, cellar dens that are not waterproof from below or garrets that leak

from above. Their houses are so built that the clammy air cannot escape. They

are supplied bad, tattered, or rotten clothing, adulterated and indigestible

food. They are exposed to the most exciting changes of mental condition, the

most violent vibrations between hope and fear; they are hunted like game, and

not permitted to attain peace of mind and quiet enjoyment of life. They are

deprived of all enjoyments except that of sexual indulgence and drunkenness,

are worked every day to the point of complete exhaustion of their mental and

physical energies, and are thus constantly spurred on to the maddest excess in

the only two enjoyments at their command. And if they surmount all this, they

fall victims to want of work in a crisis when all the little is taken from

them that had hitherto been vouchsafed them.

…

Besides these, there are other influences which enfeeble the health of a

great number of workers, intemperance most of all. All possible temptations,

all allurements combine to bring the workers

to drunkenness. Liquor is almost their only

source of pleasure, and all things conspire

to make it accessible to them. The working-

man comes from his work tired, exhausted,

finds his home comfortless, damp, dirty,

repulsive; he has urgent need of recreation,

he must have something to make work worth

his trouble, to make the prospect of the

next day endurable. His unnerved,

uncomfortable, hypochondriac state of mind

and body arising from his unhealthy

condition, and especially from indigestion,

is aggravated beyond endurance by the

general conditions of his life, the

uncertainty of his existence, his dependence

upon all possible accidents and chances, and

his inability to do anything towards gaining an assured position. His

enfeebled frame, weakened by bad air and bad food, violently demands some

external stimulus; his social need can be gratified only in the public-house,

he has absolutely no other place where he can meet his friends. How can he be

Drawing of a worker enjoying a jug of an alcoholic
drink

Polluted river near factory

14

expected to resist the temptation? It is morally and physically inevitable

that, under such circumstances, a very large number of working-men should

fall into intemperance.

…

The Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Working-Class contains

information which attests the same fact. In Liverpool, in 1840, the average

longevity of the upper classes, gentry, professional men, etc., was thirty-

five years; that of the business men and better-placed handicraftsmen,

twenty-two years; and that of the operatives, day-labourers, and serviceable

class in general, but fifteen years. The Parliamentary reports contain a mass

of similar facts.

The death-rate is kept so high chiefly by the heavy mortality among young

children in the working-class. The tender frame of a child is least able to

withstand the unfavourable influences of an inferior lot in life; the neglect

to which they are often subjected, when

both parents work or one is dead,

avenges itself promptly, and no one

need wonder that in Manchester,

according to the report last quoted,

more than fifty-seven per cent of the

children of the working-class perish

before the fifth year, while but twenty

per cent of the children of the higher

classes, and not quite. Thirty-two

percent of the children of all classes

in the country die under five years of

age…

So far has it gone in England; and the

bourgeoisie reads these things every

day in the newspapers and takes no

further trouble in the matter. But it

cannot complain if, after the official and non-official testimony here cited

which must be known to it, I broadly accuse it of social murder. Let the

ruling class see to it that these frightful conditions are ameliorated, or

let it surrender the administration of the common interests to the labouring-

class. To the latter course it is by no means inclined; for the former task,

so long as it remains the bourgeoisie crippled by bourgeois prejudice, it has

not the needed power. For if, at last, after hundreds of thousands of victims

have perished, it manifests some little anxiety for the future, passing a

“Metropolitan Buildings Act”, under which the most unscrupulous overcrowding

of dwellings is to be, at least in some slight degree, restricted; if it

points with pride to measures which, far from attacking the root of the evil,

do not by any means meet the demands of the commonest sanitary police, it

cannot thus vindicate itself from the accusation. The English bourgeoisie has

but one choice, either to continue its rule under the unanswerable charge of

murder and in spite of this charge, or to abdicate in favour of the

labouring-class. Hitherto it has chosen the former course.

Let us turn from the physical to the mental state of the workers. Since the

bourgeoisie vouchsafes them only so much of life as is absolutely necessary,

we need not wonder that it bestows upon them only so much education as lies

in the interest of the bourgeoisie; and that, in truth, is not much. The

means of education in England are restricted out of all proportion to the

population. The few day schools at the command of the working-class are

available only for the smallest minority, and are bad besides. The teachers,

Homeless children from Victorian era, sleeping in stairway

15

Boy on factory floor

worn-out workers, and other unsuitable persons who only turn to teaching in

order to live, are usually without the indispensable elementary knowledge,

without the moral discipline so needful for the

teacher, and relieved of all public supervision.

Here, too, free competition rules, and, as

usual, the rich profit by it, and the poor, for

whom competition is not free, who have not the

knowledge needed to enable them to form a

correct judgment, have the evil consequences to

bear. Compulsory school attendance does not

exist. In the mills it is, as we shall see,

purely nominal; and when in the session of 1843

the Ministry was disposed to make this nominal

compulsion effective, the manufacturing

bourgeoisie opposed the measure with all its

might, though the working-class was outspokenly

in favour of compulsory school attendance.

Moreover, a mass of children work the whole week

through in the mills or at home, and therefore

cannot attend school. The evening schools,

supposed to be attended by children who are

employed during the day, are almost abandoned or

attended without benefit. It is asking too much,

that young workers, who have been using

themselves up twelve hours in the day, should go

to school from eight to ten at night. And those

who try it usually fall asleep, as is testified

by hundreds of witnesses in the Children’s

Employment Commission’s Report. Sunday schools have been founded, it is true,

but they, too, are most scantily supplied with teachers, and can be of use to

those only who have already learnt something in the day schools. The interval

from one Sunday to the next is too long for

an ignorant child to remember in the second

sitting what it learned in the first, a week

before. The Children’s Employment

Commission’s Report furnishes a hundred

proofs, and the Commission itself most

emphatically expresses the opinion, that

neither the week-day nor the Sunday schools,

in the least degree, meet the needs of the

nation. This Report gives evidence of

ignorance in the working-class of England,

such as could hardly be expected in Spain or

Italy. It cannot be otherwise; the

bourgeoisie has little to hope, and much to

fear, from the education of the working-

class. The Ministry, in its whole enormous

budget of £55,000,000, has only the single

trifling item of £40,000 for public

education, and, but for the fanaticism of the religious sects which does at

least as much harm as good, the means of education would be yet more scanty.

As it is, the State Church manages its national schools and the various sects

their sectarian schools for the sole purpose of keeping the children of the

brethren of the faith within the congregation, and of winning away a poor

childish soul here and there from some other sect. The consequence is that

religion, and precisely the most unprofitable side of religion, polemical

discussion, is made the principal subject of instruction, and the memory of

Clergyman from Victorian era

16

the children overburdened with incomprehensible dogmas and theological

distinctions; that sectarian hatred and bigotry are awakened as early as

possible, and all rational mental and moral training shamefully neglected.

The working-class has repeatedly demanded of Parliament a system of strictly

secular public education, leaving religion to the ministers of the sects;

but, thus far, no Ministry has been induced to grant it. The Minister is the

obedient servant of the bourgeoisie…

…

Thus are the workers cast out and ignored by the class in power, morally as

well as physically and mentally. The only provision made for them is the law,

which fastens upon them when they become obnoxious to the bourgeoisie. Like

the dullest of the brutes, they are treated to but one form of education, the

whip, in the shape of force, not convincing but intimidating. There is,

therefore, no cause for surprise if the workers, treated as brutes, actually

become such; or if they can maintain their consciousness of manhood only by

cherishing the most glowing hatred, the most unbroken inward rebellion

against the bourgeoisie in power. They are men so long only as they burn with

wrath against the reigning class. They become brutes the moment they bend in

patience under the yoke, and merely strive to make life endurable while

abandoning the effort to break the yoke.

This, then, is all that the bourgeoisie has done for the education of the

proletariat – and when we take into consideration all the circumstances in

which this class lives, we shall not think the worse of it for the resentment

which it cherishes against the ruling class. The

moral training which is not given to the worker in

school is not supplied by the other conditions of

his life; that moral training, at least, which

alone has worth in the eyes of the bourgeoisie; his

whole position and environment involves the

strongest temptation to immorality. He is poor,

life offers him no charm, almost every enjoyment is

denied him, the penalties of the law have no

further terrors for him; why should he restrain his

desires, why leave to the rich the enjoyment of his

birthright, why not seize a part of it for himself?

What inducement has the proletarian not to steal?

It is all very pretty and very agreeable to the ear

of the bourgeois to hear the “sacredness of

property” asserted; but for him who has none, the sacredness of property dies

out of itself. Money is the God of this world; the bourgeois takes the

proletarian’s money from him and so makes a practical atheist of him. No

wonder, then, if the proletarian retains his atheism and no longer respects

the sacredness and power of the earthly God. And when the poverty of the

proletarian is intensified to the point of actual lack of the barest

necessaries of life, to want and hunger, the temptation to disregard all

social order does but gain power…Want leaves the working-man the choice

between starving slowly, killing himself speedily, or taking what he needs

where he finds it – in plain English, stealing. And there is no cause for

surprise that most of them prefer stealing to starvation and suicide.

True, there are, within the working-class, numbers too moral to steal even

when reduced to the utmost extremity, and these starve or commit suicide. For

suicide, formerly the enviable privilege of the upper classes, has become

fashionable among the English workers, and numbers of the poor kill

themselves to avoid the misery from which they see no other means of escape.

Drawing of police officer scuffling with
crowd of working-class men

17

But far more demoralising than his poverty in its influence upon the English

working-man is the insecurity of his position, the necessity of living upon

wages from hand to mouth, that in short which makes a proletarian of him. The

smaller peasants in Germany are usually poor, and often suffer want, but they

are less at the mercy of accident, they have at least something secure. The

proletarian, who has nothing but his two hands, who consumes today what he

earned yesterday, who is subject to every possible chance, and has not the

slightest guarantee for being able to earn the barest necessities of life,

whom every crisis, every whim of his employer may deprive of bread, this

proletarian is placed in the most revolting, inhuman position conceivable for

a human being. The slave is assured of a bare livelihood by the self-interest

of his master, the serf has at least a scrap of land on which to live; each

has at worst a guarantee for life itself. But the proletarian must depend

upon himself alone, and is yet prevented from so applying his abilities as to

be able to rely upon them.

Everything that the

proletarian can do to improve

his position is but a drop in

the ocean compared with the

floods of varying chances to

which he is exposed, over

which he has not the slightest

control. He is the passive

subject of all possible

combinations of circumstances,

and must count himself

fortunate when he has saved

his life even for a short

time; and his character and

way of living are naturally

shaped by these conditions.

Either he seeks to keep his

head above water in this whirlpool, to rescue his manhood, and this he can do

solely in rebellion[20] against the class which plunders him so mercilessly

and then abandons him to his fate, which strives to hold him in this position

so demoralising to a human being; or he gives up the struggle against his

fate as hopeless, and strives to profit, so far as he can, by the most

favourable moment. To save is unavailing, for at the utmost he cannot save

more than suffices to sustain life for a short time, while if he falls out of

work, it is for no brief period. To accumulate lasting property for himself

is impossible; and if it were not, he would only cease to be a working-man

and another would take his place. What better thing can he do, then, when he

gets high wages, than live well upon them? The English bourgeoisie is

violently scandalised at the extravagant living of the workers when wages are

high; yet it is not only very natural but very sensible of them to enjoy life

when they can, instead of laying up treasures which are of no lasting use to

them, and which in the end moth and rust (i.e., the bourgeoisie) get

possession of…

…

Carlyle is perfectly right as to the facts and wrong only in censuring the

wild rage of the workers against the higher classes. This rage, this passion,

is rather the proof that the workers feel the inhumanity of their position,

that they refuse to be degraded to the level of brutes, and that they will

one day free themselves from servitude to the bourgeoisie. This may be seen

in the case of those who do not share this wrath; they either bow humbly

before the fate that overtakes them, live a respectful private life as well

as they can, do not concern themselves as to the course of public affairs,

Dejected men sitting on benches

18

help the bourgeoisie to forge the chains

of the workers yet more securely and stand

upon the plane of intellectual nullity

that prevailed before the industrial

period began; or they are tossed about by

fate, lose their moral hold upon

themselves as they have already lost their

economic hold, live along from day to day,

drink and fall into licentiousness; and in

both cases they are brutes. The last-named

class contributes chiefly to the “rapid

increase of vice”, at which the

bourgeoisie’ is so horrified after itself

setting in motion the causes which give

rise to it.

…

Another source of demoralisation among the

workers is their being condemned to work.

As voluntary, productive activity is the

highest enjoyment known to us, so is

compulsory toil the most cruel, degrading punishment. Nothing is more terrible

than being constrained to do some one thing every day from morning until night

against one’s will. And the more a man the worker feels himself, the more

hateful must his work be to him, because he feels the constraint, the

aimlessness of it for himself. Why does he work? For love of work? From a

natural impulse? Not at all! He works for money, for a thing which has nothing

whatsoever to do with the work itself; and he works so long, moreover, and in

such unbroken monotony, that this alone must make his work a torture in the

first weeks if he has the least human feeling left. The division of labour has

multiplied the brutalising influences of forced work. In most branches the

worker’s activity is reduced to some paltry, purely mechanical manipulation,

repeated minute after minute, unchanged year after year. {119} How much human

feeling, what abilities can a man retain in his thirtieth year, who has made

needle points or filed toothed wheels twelve hours every day from his early

childhood, living all the time under the conditions forced upon the English

proletarian? It is still the same thing since the introduction of steam. The

worker’s activity is made easy, muscular effort is saved, but the work itself

becomes unmeaning and monotonous to the last degree. It offers no field for

mental activity, and claims just enough of his attention to keep him from

thinking of anything else. And a sentence to such work, to work which takes his

whole time for itself, leaving him scarcely time to eat and sleep, none for

physical exercise in the open air, or the enjoyment of Nature, much less for

mental activity, how can such a sentence help degrading a human being to the

level of a brute? Once more the worker must choose, must either surrender

himself to his fate, become a “good” workman, heed “faithfully” the interest of

the bourgeoisie, in which case he most certainly becomes a brute, or else he

must rebel, fight for his manhood to the last, and this he can only do in the

fight against the bourgeoisie.

…

And when all these conditions have engendered vast demoralisation among the

workers, a new influence is added to the old, to spread this degradation more

widely and carry it to the extremest point. This influence is the

centralisation of the population. The writers of the English bourgeoisie are

crying murder at the demoralising tendency of the great cities; like

perverted Jeremiahs, they sing dirges, not over the destruction, but the

growth of the cities. Sheriff Alison attributes almost everything, and Dr.

Vaughan, author of The Age of Great Cities, still more to this influence. And

Workers marching with sign reading: Work or Riot;
One or the Other!

19

this is natural, for the propertied class has too direct an interest in the

other conditions which tend to destroy the worker body and soul. If they

should admit that poverty, insecurity, overwork, forced work, are the chief

ruinous influences, they would have to draw the conclusion, then let us give

the poor property, guarantee their subsistence, make laws against overwork,

and this the bourgeoisie dare not formulate. But the great cities have grown

up so spontaneously, the population has moved into them so wholly of its own

motion, and the inference that manufacture and the middle-class which profits

from it alone have created the cities is so remote, that it is extremely

convenient for the ruling class to ascribe all the evil to this apparently

unavoidable source; whereas the great cities really only secure a more rapid

and certain development for evils already existing in the germ. Alison is

humane enough to admit this; he is no thoroughbred Liberal manufacturer, but

only a half developed Tory bourgeois, and he has, therefore, an open eye, now

and then, where the full-fledged bourgeois is still stone blind…

…

“It is in the great cities that vice has spread her temptations, and pleasure

her seductions, and folly her allurements; that guilt is encouraged by the

hope of impunity, and idleness fostered by the frequency of example. It is to

these great marts of human corruption that the base and the profligate resort

from the simplicity of country life; it is here that they find victims

whereon to practise their iniquity, and gains to reward the dangers that

attend them. Virtue is here depressed from the obscurity in which it is

involved. Guilt is matured from the difficulty of its detection;

licentiousness is rewarded by the immediate enjoyment which it promises. If

any person will walk through St. Giles’s, the crowded alleys of Dublin, or

the poorer quarters of Glasgow by night, he will meet with ample proof of

these observations; he will no longer wonder at the disorderly habits and

profligate enjoyments of the lower orders; his astonishment will be, not that

there is so much, but that there is so little crime in the world. The great

cause of human corruption in these crowded situations is the contagious

nature of bad example and the extreme difficulty of avoiding the seductions

of vice when they are brought into close and daily proximity with the younger

part of the people….”

…

If the centralisation of population stimulates and develops the property-

holding class, it forces the development of the workers yet more rapidly.

The workers begin to feel as a class, as a whole; they begin to perceive

that, though feeble as individuals, they form a power united; their

separation from the bourgeoisie, the development of views peculiar to the

workers and corresponding to their position in life, is fostered, the

consciousness of oppression awakens, and the workers attain social and

political importance. The great cities are the birthplaces of labour

movements; in them the workers first began to reflect upon their own

condition, and to struggle against it; in them the opposition between

proletariat and bourgeoisie first made itself manifest; from them proceeded

the Trades-Unions, Chartism, and Socialism. The great cities have transformed

the disease of the social body, which appears in chronic form in the country,

into an acute one, and so made manifest its real nature and the means of

curing it. Without the great cities and their forcing influence upon the

popular intelligence, the working-class would be far less advanced than it

is. Moreover, they have destroyed the last remnant of the patriarchal

relation between working-men and employers, a result to which manufacture on

a large scale has contributed by multiplying the employees dependent upon a

single employer. The bourgeoisie deplores all this, it is true, and has good

reason to do so; for, under the old conditions, the bourgeois was

comparatively secure against a revolt on the part of his hands. He could

20

tyrannise over them and plunder them to his heart’s content, and yet receive

obedience, gratitude, and assent from these stupid people by bestowing a

trifle of patronising friendliness which cost him nothing, and perhaps some

paltry present, all apparently out of pure, self-sacrificing, uncalled-for

goodness of heart, but really not one-tenth part of his duty. As an

individual bourgeois, placed under conditions which he had not himself

created, he might do his duty at least in part; but, as a member of the

ruling class, which, by the mere fact of its ruling, is responsible for the

condition of the whole nation, he did nothing of what his position involved.

On the contrary, he plundered the whole nation for his own individual

advantage. In the patriarchal relation that hypocritically concealed the

slavery of the worker, the latter must have remained an intellectual zero,

totally ignorant of his own interest, a mere private individual. Only when

estranged from his employer, when convinced that the sole bond between

employer and employee is the bond of pecuniary profit, when the sentimental

bond between them, which stood not the slightest test, had wholly fallen

away, then only did the worker begin to recognise his own interests and

develop independently; then only did he cease to be the slave of the

bourgeoisie in his thoughts, feelings, and the expression of his will. And to

this end manufacture on a grand scale and in great cities has most largely

contributed.

…

In view of all this, it is not surprising that the working-class has

gradually become a race wholly apart from the English bourgeoisie. The

bourgeoisie has more in common with every other nation of the earth than with

the workers in whose midst it lives. The workers speak other dialects, have

other thoughts and ideals, other customs and moral principles, a different

religion and other politics than those of the bourgeoisie. Thus they are two

radically dissimilar nations, as unlike as difference of race could make

them, of whom we on the Continent have known but one, the bourgeoisie. Yet it

is precisely the other, the people, the proletariat, which is by far the more

important for the future of England.

…

In other ways, too, the humanity of the workers is constantly manifesting

itself pleasantly. They have experienced hard times themselves, and can

therefore feel for those in trouble, whence they are more approachable,

friendlier, and less greedy for money, though they need it far more than the

property-holding class. For them money is worth only what it will buy,

whereas for the bourgeois it has an especial inherent value, the value of a

god, and makes the bourgeois the mean, low money-grubber that he is. The

working-man who knows nothing of this feeling of reverence for money is

therefore less grasping than the bourgeois, whose whole activity is for the

purpose of gain, who sees in the accumulations of his money-bags the end and

aim of life. Hence the workman is much less prejudiced, has a clearer eye for

facts as they are than the bourgeois, and does not look at everything through

the spectacles of personal selfishness…

…

Thus the social order makes family life almost impossible for the worker. In

a comfortless, filthy house, hardly good enough for mere nightly shelter,

ill-furnished, often neither rain-tight nor warm, a foul atmosphere filling

rooms overcrowded with human beings, no domestic comfort is possible. The

husband works the whole day through, perhaps the wife also and the elder

children, all in different places; they meet night and morning only, all

under perpetual temptation to drink; what family life is possible under such

conditions? Yet the working-man cannot escape from the family, must live in

the family, and the consequence is a perpetual succession of family troubles,

domestic quarrels, most demoralising for parents and children alike. Neglect

21

of all domestic duties, neglect of the children, especially, is only too

common among the English working-people, and only too vigorously fostered by

the existing institutions of society. And children growing up in this savage

way, amidst these demoralising influences, are expected to turn out goody-

goody and moral in the end! Verily the requirements are naive, which the

self-satisfied bourgeois makes upon the working-man!

The contempt for the existing social order is most conspicuous in its extreme

form – that of offences against the law. If the influences demoralising to

the working-man act more powerfully, more concentratedly than usual, he

becomes an offender as certainly as water abandons the fluid for the vaporous

state at 80 degrees, Réaumur. Under the brutal and brutalising treatment of

the bourgeoisie, the working-man becomes precisely as much a thing without

volition as water, and is subject to the laws of Nature with precisely the

same necessity; at a certain point all freedom ceases. Hence with the

extension of the proletariat, crime has increased in England, and the British

nation has become the most criminal in the world….

The enemies are dividing gradually into two great camps – the bourgeoisie on

the one hand, the workers on the other. This war of each against all, of the

bourgeoisie against the proletariat, need cause us no surprise, for it is

only the logical sequel of the

principle involved in free

competition. But it may very well

surprise us that the bourgeoisie

remains so quiet and composed in

the face of the rapidly gathering

storm-clouds, that it can read

all these things daily in the

papers without, we will not say

indignation at such a social

condition, but fear of its

consequences, of a universal

outburst of that which manifests

itself symptomatically from day

to day in the form of crime. But

then it is the bourgeoisie, and

from its standpoint cannot even

see the facts, much less perceive their consequences. One thing only is

astounding, that class prejudice and preconceived opinions can hold a whole

class of human beings in such perfect, I might almost say, such mad

blindness. Meanwhile, the development of the nation goes its way whether the

bourgeoisie has eyes for it or not, and will surprise the property- holding

class one day with things not dreamed of in its philosophy.

Belligerent group of men and boys on street

Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis
Author(s): Melvin M. Tumin
Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Aug., 1953), pp. 387-394
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL:

http://www.jstor.org

/stable/2087551
Accessed: 19/09/2010 09:37

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
American Sociological Review.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2087551?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=asa

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION: A CRITICAL
ANALYSIS *

MELVIN M. TUMIN
Princeton University

T HE fact of social inequality in human
society is marked by its ubiquity and
its antiquity. Every known society,

past and present, distributes its scarce and
demanded goods and services unequally.
And there are attached to the positions
which command unequal amounts of such
goods and services certain highly morally-
toned evaluations of their importance for
the society.

The ubiquity and the antiquity of such
inequality has given rise to the assumption
that there must be something both inevitable
and positively functional about such social
arrangements.

Clearly, the truth or falsity of such an
assumption is a strategic question for any
general theory of social organization. It is
therefore most curious that the basic prem-
ises and implications of the assumption have
only been most casually explored by Amer-
ican sociologists.

The most systematic treatment is to be
found in the well-known article by Kingsley
Davis and Wilbert Moore, entitled “Some
Principles of Stratification.” 1 More than

* The writer has had the benefit of a most
helpful criticism of the main portions of this paper
by Professor W. J. Goode of Columbia University.
In addition, he has had the opportunity to expose
this paper to criticism by the Staff Seminar of
the Sociology Section at Princeton. In deference
to a possible rejoinder by Professors Moore and
Davis, the writer has not revised the paper to
meet the criticisms which Moore has already
offered personally.

‘ American Sociological Review, X (April,
1945), pp. 242-249. An earlier article by Kingsley
Davis, entitled, “A Conceptual Analysis of Strati-
fication,” American Sociological Review, VII
(June, 1942), pp. 309-321, is devoted primarily to
setting forth a vocabulary for stratification analy-
sis. A still earlier article by Talcott Parsons, “An
Analytical Approach to the Theory of Social Strati-
fication,” American Journal of Sociology, XLV
(November, 1940), pp. 849-862, approaches the
problem in terms of why “differential ranking is
considered a really fundamental phenomenon of
social systems and what are the respects in which
such ranking is important.” The principal line of

twelve years have passed since its publica-
tion, and though it is one of the very few
treatments of stratification on a high level
of generalization, it is difficult to locate a
single systematic analysis of its reasoning.
It will be the principal concern of this paper
to present the beginnings of such an analysis.

The central argument advanced by Davis
and Moore can be stated in a number of
sequential propositions, as follows:

(1) Certain positions in any society are func-
tionally more important than others,
and require special skills for their
performance.

(2) Only a limited number of individuals

in any society have the talents which
can be trained into the skills appropriate
to these positions.

(3) The conversion of talents into skills in-
volves a training period during which
sacrifices of one kind or another are
made by those undergoing the training.

(4) In order to induce the talented persons
to undergo these sacrifices and acquire
the training, their future positions must
carry an inducement value in the form
of differential, i.e., privileged and dispro-
portionate access to the scarce and de-
sired rewards which the society has to
offer.2

(5) These scarce and desired goods consist
of the rights and perquisites attached to,

integration asserted by Parsons is with the fact
of the normative orientation of any society. Cer-
tain crucial lines of connection are left unexplained,
however, in this article, and in the Davis and
Moore article of 1945 only some of these lines
are made explicit.

2 The “scarcity and demand” qualities of goods
and services are never explicitly mentioned by
Davis and Moore. But it seems to the writer that
the argument makes no sense unless the goods
and services are so characterized. For if rewards
are to function as differential inducements they
must not only be differentially distributed but they
must be both scarce and demanded as well. Neither
the scarcity of an item by itself nor the fact of
its being in demand is sufficient to allow it to
function as a differential inducement in a system
of unequal rewards. Leprosy is scarce and oxygen
is highly demanded.

387

388 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

or built into, the positions, and can be
classified into those things which con-
tribute to (a) sustenance and comfort,
(b) humor and diversion, (c) self-re-
spect and ego expansion.

(6) This differential access to the basic re-
wards of the society has as a conse-
quence the differentiation of the prestige
and esteem which various strata acquire.
This may be said, along with the rights
and perquisites, to constitute institution-
alized social inequality, i.e., stratification.

(7) Therefore, social inequality among dif-
ferent strata in the amounts of scarce
and desired goods, and the amounts of
prestige and esteem which they receive,
is both positively functional and inevi-
table in any society.

Let us take these propositions and ex-
amine them seriatim..3

(1) Certain positions in any society are
more functionally important than others and
require special skills for their performance.

The key term here is “functionally im-
portant.” The functionalist theory of social
organization is by no means clear and ex-
plicit about this term. The minimum com-
mon referent is to something known as the
“survival value” of a social structure.4 This
concept immediately involves a number of
perplexing questions. Among these are: (a)
the issue of minimum vs. maximum survival,
and the possible empirical referents which
can be given to those terms; (b) whether
such a proposition is a useless tautology
since any status quo at any given moment
is nothing more and nothing less than every-
thing present in the status quo. In these
terms, all acts and structures must be judged
positively functional in that they constitute
essential portions of the status quo; (c)
what kind of calculus of functionality exists
which will enable us, at this point in our
development, to add and subtract long and
short range consequences, with their mixed
qualities, and arrive at some summative

3 The arguments to be advanced here are con-
densed versions of a much longer analysis entitled,
An Essay on Social Stratification. Perforce, all the
reasoning necessary to support some of the con-
tentions cannot be offered within the space limits
of this article.

4 Davis and Moore are explicitly aware of the
difficulties involved here and suggest two “inde-
pendent clues” other than survival value. See foot-
note 3 on p. 244 of their article.

judgment regarding the rating an act or
structure should receive on a scale of greater
or lesser functionality? At best, we tend to
make primarily intuitive judgments. Often
enough, these judgments involve the use of
value-laden criteria, or, at least, criteria
which are chosen in preference to others
not for any sociologically systematic reasons
but by reason of certain implicit value
preferences.

Thus, to judge that the engineers in a
factory are functionally more important to
the factory than the unskilled workmen in-
volves a notion regarding the dispensability
of the unskilled workmen, or their replace-
ability, relative to that of the engineers. But
this is not a process of choice with infinite
time dimensions. For at some point along
the line one must face the problem of ade-
quate motivation for all workers at all levels
of skill in the factory. In the long run,
some labor force of unskilled workmen is
as important and as indispensable to the
factory as some labor force of engineers.
Often enough, the labor force situation is
such that this fact is brought home sharply
to the entrepreneur in the short run rather
than in the long run.

Moreover, the judgment as to the rela-
tive indispensability and replaceability of a
particular segment of skills in the population
involves a prior judgment about the bar-
gaining-power of that segment. But this
power is itself a culturally shaped conse-
quence of the existing system of rating,
rather than something inevitable in the na-
ture of social organization. At least the con-
trary of this has never been demonstrated,
but only assumed.

A generalized theory of social stratifica-
tion must recognize that the prevailing sys-
tem of inducements and rewards is only one
of many variants in the whole range of
possible systems of motivation which, at
least theoretically, are capable of working
in human society. It is quite conceivable, of
course, that a system of norms could be
institutionalized in which the idea of threat-
ened withdrawal of services, except under
the most extreme circumstances, would be
considered as absolute moral anathema. In
such a case, the whole notion of relative
functionality, as advanced by Davis and
Moore, would have to be radically revised.

(2) Only a limited number of individuals

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION 389

in any society have the talents which can
be trained into the skills appropriate to these
positions (i.e., the more functionally impor-
tant positions).

The truth of this proposition depends at
least in part on the truth of proposition 1
above. It is, therefore, subject to all the
limitations indicated above. But for the mo-
ment, let us assume the validity of the first
proposition and concentrate on the question
of the rarity of appropriate talent.

If all that is meant is that in every so-
ciety there is a range of talent, and that
some members of any society are by nature
more talented than others, no sensible con-
tradiction can be offered, but a question
must be raised here regarding the amount
of sound knowledge present in any society
concerning the presence of talent in the
population.

For, in every society there is some de-
monstrable ignorance regarding the amount
of talent present in the population. And the
more rigidly stratified a society is, the less
chance does that society have of discover-
ing any new facts about the talents of its
members. Smoothly working and stable sys-
tems of stratification, wherever found, tend
to build-in obstacles to the further explora-
tion of the range of available talent. This
is especially true in those societies where
the opportunity to discover talent in any
one generation varies with the differential
resources of the parent generation. Where,
for instance, access to education depends
upon the wealth of one’s parents, and where
wealth is differentially distributed, large seg-
ments of the population are likely to be
deprived of the chance even to discover what
are their talents.

Whether or not differential rewards and
opportunities are functional in any one gen-
eration, it is clear that if those differentials
are allowed to be socially inherited by the
next generation, then, the stratification sys-
tem is specifically dysfunctional for the dis-
covery of talents in the next generation. In
this fashion, systems of social stratification
tend to limit the chances available to maxi-
mize the efficiency of discovery, recruitment
and training of “functionally important
talent.” r

5Davis and Moore state this point briefly on
p. 248 but do not elaborate it.

Additionally, the unequal distribution of
rewards in one generation tends to result in
the unequal distribution of motivation in the
succeeding generation. Since motivation to
succeed is clearly an important element in
the entire process of education, the unequal
distribution of motivation tends to set limits
on the possible extensions of the educational
system, and hence, upon the efficient recruit-
ment and training of the widest body of
skills available in the population.”

Lastly, in this context, it may be asserted
that there is some noticeable tendency for
elites to restrict further access to their priv-
ileged positions, once they have sufficient
power to enforce such restrictions. This is
especially true in a culture where it is pos-
sible for an elite to contrive a high demand
and a proportionately higher reward for its
work by restricting the numbers of the elite
available to do the work. The recruitment
and training of doctors in modern United
States is at least partly a case in point.

Here, then, are three ways, among others
which could be cited, in which stratification
systems, once operative, tend to reduce the
survival value of a society by limiting the
search, recruitment and training of func-
tionally important personnel far more
sharply than the facts of available talent
would appear to justify. It is only when
there is genuinely equal access to recruit-
ment and training for all potentially talented
persons that differential rewards can con-
ceivably be justified as functional. And
stratification systems are apparently inher-
ently antagonistic to the development of
such full equality of opportunity.

(3) The conversion of talents into skills
involves a training period during which sac-
rifices of one kind or another are made by
those undergoing the training.

Davis and Moore introduce here a con-
cept, “sacrifice” which comes closer than
any of the rest of their vocabulary of analy-
sis to being a direct reflection of the ration-

6 In the United States, for instance, we are
only now becoming aware of the amount of pro-
ductivity we, as a society, lose by allocating inferior
opportunities and rewards, and hence, inferior moti-
vation, to our Negro population. The actual amount
of loss is difficult to specify precisely. Some rough
estimate can be made, however, on the assumption
that there is present in the Negro population
about the same range of talent that is found in
the White population.

390 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

alizations, offered by the more fortunate
members of a society, of the rightness of
their occupancy of privileged positions. It
is the least critically thought-out concept in
the repertoire, and can also be shown to be
least supported by the actual facts.

In our present society, for example, what
are the sacrifices which talented persons
undergo in the training period? The pos-
sibly serious losses involve the surrender of
earning power and the cost of the training.
The latter is generally borne by the parents
of the talented youth undergoing training,
and not by the trainees themselves. But this
cost tends to be paid out of income which
the parents were able to earn generally by
virtue of their privileged positions in the
hierarchy of stratification. That is to say,
the parents’ ability to pay for the training
of their children is part of the differential
reward they, the parents, received for their
privileged positions in the society. And to
charge this sum up against sacrifices made
by the youth is falsely to perpetrate a bill
or a debt already paid by the society to
the parents.

So far as the sacrifice of earning power
by the trainees themselves is concerned, the
loss may be measured relative to what they
might have earned had they gone into the
labor market instead of into advanced train-
ing for the “important” skills. There are
several ways to judge this. One way is to
take all the average earnings of age peers
who did go into the labor market for a
period equal to the average length of the
training period. The total income, so cal-
culated, roughly equals an amount which
the elite can, on the average, earn back
in the first decade of professional work, over
and above the earnings of his age peers who
are not trained. Ten years is probably the
maximum amount needed to equalize the
differential.7 There remains, on the average,
twenty years of work during each of which
the skilled person then goes on to earn far
more than his unskilled age peers. And,
what is often forgotten, there is then still
another ten or fifteen year period during
which the skilled person continues to work
and earn when his unskilled age peer is

7 These are only very rough estimates, of course,
and it is certain that there is considerable income
variation within the so-called elite group. so that
the proposition holds only relatively more or less.

either totally or partially out of the labor
market by virtue of the attrition of his
strength and capabilities.

One might say that the first ten years
of differential pay is perhaps justified, in
order to regain for the trained person what
he lost during his training period. But it
is difficult to imagine what would justify
continuing such differential rewards beyond
that period.

Another and probably sounder way to
measure how much is lost during the train-
ing period is to compare the per capita
income available to the trainee with the per
capita income of the age peer on the un-
trained labor market during the so-called
sacrificial period. If one takes into account
the earlier marriage of untrained persons,
and the earlier acquisition of family depend-
ents, it is highly dubious that the per capita
income of the wage worker is significantly
larger than that of the trainee. Even as-
suming, for the moment, that there is a
difference, the amount is by no means suffi-
cient to justify a lifetime of continuing
differentials.

What tends to be completely overlooked,
in addition, are the psychic and spiritual
rewards which are available to the elite
trainees by comparison with their age peers
in the labor force. There is, first, the much
higher prestige enjoyed by the college stu-
dent and the professional-school student as
compared with persons in shops and offices.
There is, second, the extremely highly val-
ued privilege of having greater opportunity
for self-development. There is, third, all the
psychic gain involved in being allowed to
delay the assumption of adult responsibili-
ties such as earning a living and supporting
a family. There is, fourth, the access to
leisure and freedom of a kind not likely
to be experienced by the persons already at
work.

If these are never taken into account as
rewards of the training period it is not
because they are not concretely present, but
because the emphasis in American concepts
of reward is almost exclusively placed on
the material returns of positions. The em-
phases on enjoyment, entertainment, ego
enhancement, prestige and esteem are intro-
duced only when the differentials in these
which accrue to the skilled positions need
to be justified. If these other rewards were

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION 391

taken into account, it would be much more
difficult to demonstrate that the training
period, as presently operative, is really sac-
rificial. Indeed, it might turn out to be the
case that even at this point in their careers,
the elite trainees were being differentially
rewarded relative to their age peers in the
labor force.

All of the foregoing concerns the quality
of the training period under our present
system of motivation and rewards. Whatever
may turn out to be the factual case about
the present system-and the factual case
is moot-the more important theoretical
question concerns the assumption that the
training period under any system must be
sacrificial.

There seem to be no good theoretical
grounds for insisting on this assumption.
For, while under any system certain costs
will be involved in training persons for
skilled positions, these costs could easily be
assumed by the society-at-large. Under these
circumstances, there would be no need to
compensate anyone in terms of differential
rewards once the skilled positions were
staffed. In short, there would be no need
or justification for stratifying social posi-
tions on these grounds.

(4) In order to induce the talented per-
sons to undergo these sacrifices and acquire
the training, their future positions must
carry an inducement value in the form of
differential, i.e., privileged and dispropor-
tionate access to the scarce and desired re-
wards which the society has to offer.

Let us assume, for the purposes of the
discussion, that the training period is sac-
rificial and the talent is rare in every con-
ceivable human society. There is still the
basic problem as to whether the allocation
of differential rewards in scarce and desired
goods and services is the only or the most
efficient way of recruiting the appropriate
talent to these positions.

For there are a number of alternative mo-
tivational schemes whose efficiency and ade-
quacy ought at least to be considered in
this context. What can be said, for instance,
on behalf of the motivation which De Man
called “joy in work,” Veblen termed “in-
stinct for workmanship” and which we lat-
terly have come to identify as “intrinsic
work satisfaction?” Or, to what extent could
the motivation of “social duty” be institu-

tionalized in such a fashion that self interest
and social interest come closely to coincide?
Or, how much prospective confidence can
be placed in the possibilities of institution-
alizing “social service” as a widespread mo-
tivation for seeking one’s appropriate posi-
tion and fulfilling it conscientiously?

Are not these types of motivations, we
may ask, likely to prove most appropriate
for precisely the “most functionally impor-
tant positions?” Especially in a mass indus-
trial society, where the vast majority of
positions become standardized and rou-
tinized, it is the skilled jobs which are likely
to retain most of the quality of “intrinsic
job satisfaction” and be most readily identi-
fiable as socially serviceable. Is it indeed
impossible then to build these motivations
into the socialization pattern to which we
expose our talented youth?

To deny that such motivations could be
institutionalized would be to overclaim our
present knowledge. In part, also, such a
claim would seem to deprive from an as-
sumption that what has not been institu-
tionalized yet in human affairs is incapable
of institutionalization. Admittedly, historical
experience affords us evidence we cannot
afford to ignore. But such evidence cannot
legitimately be used to deny absolutely the
possibility of heretofore untried alternatives.
Social innovation is as important a feature
of human societies as social stability.

On the basis of these observations, it
seems that Davis and Moore have stated the
case much too strongly when they insist that
a “functionally important position” which
requires skills that are scarce, “must com-
mand great prestige, high salary, ample
leisure, and the like,” if the appropriate
talents are to be attracted to the position.
Here, clearly, the authors are postulating
the unavoidability of very specific types of
rewards and, by implication, denying the
possibility of others.

(5) These scarce and desired goods con-
sist of rights and perquisites attached to,
or built into, the positions and can be classi-
fied into those things which contribute to
(a) sustenance and comfort; (b) humor
and diversion; (c) self respect and ego
expansion.

(6) This differential access to the basic
rewards of the society has as a consequence
the differentiation of the prestige and esteem

392 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

which various strata acquire. This may be
said, along with the rights? and perquisites,
to constitute institutionalized social inequal-
ity, i.e., stratification.

With the classification of the rewards
offered by Davis and Moore there need be
little argument. Some question must be
raised, however, as to whether any reward
system, built into a general stratification
system, must allocate equal amounts of all
three types of reward in order to function
effectively, or whether one type of reward
may be emphasized to the virtual neglect
of others. This raises the further question
regarding which type of emphasis is likely
to prove most effective as a differential in-
ducer. Nothing in the known facts about
human motivation impels us to favor one
type of reward over the other, or to insist
that all three types of reward must be built
into the positions in comparable amounts
if the position is to have an inducement
value.

It is well known, of course, that societies
differ considerably in the kinds of rewards
they emphasize in their efforts to maintain
a reasonable balance between responsibility
and reward. There are, for instance, numer-
ous societies in which the conspicuous dis-
play of differential economic advantage is
considered extremely bad taste. In short, our
present knowledge commends to us the pos-
sibility of considerable plasticity in the way
in which different types of rewards can be
structured into a functioning society. This
is to say, it cannot yet be demonstrated
that it is unavoidable that differential pres-
tige and esteem shall accrue to positions
which command differential rewards in
power and property.

What does seem to be unavoidable is that
differential prestige shall be given to those
in any society who conform to the normative
order as against those who deviate from
that order in a way judged immoral and
detrimental. On the assumption that the
continuity of a society depends on the con-
tinuity and stability of its normative order,
some such distinction between conformists
and deviants seems inescapable.

It also seems to be unavoidable that in
any society, no matter how literate its tradi-
tion, the older, wiser and more experienced
individuals who are charged with the en-

culturation and socialization of the young
must have more power than the young, on
the assumption that the task of effective
socialization demands such differential
power.

But this differentiation in prestige be-
tween the conformist and the deviant is by
no means the same distinction as that be-
tween strata of individuals each of which
operates within the normative order, and is
composed of adults. The latter distinction,
in the form of differentiated rewards and
prestige between social strata is what Davis
and Moore, and most sociologists, consider
the structure of a stratification system. The
former distinctions have nothing necessarily
to do with the workings of such a system
nor with the efficiency of motivation
and recruitment of functionally important
personnel.

Nor does the differentiation of power be-
tween young and old necessarily create dif-
ferentially valued strata. For no society rates
its young as less morally worthy than its
older persons, no matter how much dif-
ferential power the older ones may tempo-
rarily enjoy.

(7) Therefore, social inequality among
different strata in the amounts of scarce and
desired goods, and the amounts of prestige
and esteem which they receive, is both posi-
tively functional and inevitable in any
society.

If the objections which have heretofore
been raised are taken as reasonable, then
it may be stated that the only items which
any society must distribute unequally are
the power and property necessary for the
performance of different tasks. If such dif-
ferential power and property are viewed by
all as commensurate with the differential
responsibilities, and if they are culturally
defined as resources and not as rewards,
then, no differentials in prestige and esteem
need follow.

Historically, the evidence seems to be
that every time power and property are dis-
tributed unequally, no matter what the cul-
tural definition, prestige and esteem differ-
entiations have tended to result as well.
Historically, however, no systematic effort
has ever been made, under propitious cir-
cumstances, to develop the tradition that
each man is as socially worthy as all other
men so long as he performs his appropriate

SOME PRINCIPLES OF STRATIFICATION 393

tasks conscientiously. While such a tradi-
tion seems utterly utopian, no known facts
in psychological or social science have yet
demonstrated its impossibility or its dys-
functionality for the continuity of a society.
The achievement of a full institutionaliza-
tion of such a tradition seems far too
remote to contemplate. Some successive ap-
proximations at such a tradition, however,
are not out of the range of prospective social
innovation.

What, then, of the “positive function-
ality” of social stratification? Are there
other, negative, functions of institutionalized
social inequality which can be identified, if
only tentatively? Some such dysfunctions of
stratification have already been suggested in
the body of this paper. Along with others
they may now be stated, in the form of
provisional assertions, as follows:

(1) Social stratification systems function
to limit the possibility of discovery of the
full range of talent available in a society.
This results from the fact of unequal access
to appropriate motivation, channels of re-
cruitment and centers of training.

(2) In foreshortening the range of avail-
able talent, social stratification systems func-
tion to set limits upon the possibility of
expanding the productive resources of the
society, at least relative to what might be
the case under conditions of greater equality
of opportunity.

(3) Social stratification systems function
to provide the elite with the political power
necessary to procure acceptance and domi-
nance of an ideology which rationalizes the
status quo, whatever it may be, as “logical,”
“natural” and “morally right.” In this man-
ner, social stratification systems function as
essentially conservative influences in the so-
cieties in which they are found.

(4) Social stratification systems function
to distribute favorable self-images unequally
throughout a population. To the extent that
such favorable self-images are requisite to
the development of the creative potential in-
herent in men, to that extent stratification
systems function to limit the development of
this creative potential.

(5) To the extent that inequalities in so-
cial rewards cannot be made fully acceptable
to the less privileged in a society, social
stratification systems function to encourage
hostility, suspicion and distrust among the
various segments of a society and thus to
limit the possibilities of extensive social
integration.

(6) To the extent that the sense of sig-
nificant membership in a society depends on
one’s place on the prestige ladder of the
society, social stratification systems function
to distribute unequally the sense of significant
membership in the population.

(7) To the extent that loyalty to a society
depends on a sense of significant membership
in the society, social stratification systems
function to distribute loyalty unequally in the
population.

(8) To the extent that participation and
apathy depend upon the sense of significant
membership in the society, social stratifica-
tion systems function to distribute the
motivation to participate unequally in a
population.

Each of the eight foregoing propositions
contains implicit hypotheses regarding the
consequences of unequal distribution of re-
wards in a society in accordance with some
notion of the functional importance of vari-
ous positions. These are empirical hypoth-
eses, subject to test. They are offered here
only as exemplary of the kinds of conse-
quences of social stratification which are
not often taken into account in dealing with
the problem. They should also serve to re-
inforce the doubt that social inequality is
a device which is uniformly functional for
the role of guaranteeing that the most
important tasks in a society will be per-
formed conscientiously by the most compe-
tent persons.

The obviously mixed character of the
functions of social inequality should come
as no surprise to anyone. If sociology is
sophisticated in any sense, it is certainly
with regard to its awareness of the mixed
nature of any social arrangement, when the
observer takes into account long as well as
short range consequences and latent as well
as manifest dimensions.

SUMMARY

In this paper, an effort has been made
to raise questions regarding the inevitability
and positive functionality of stratification,
or institutionalized social inequality in re-
wards, allocated in accordance with some
notion of the greater and lesser functional
importance of various positions. The pos-
sible alternative meanings of the concept
“functional importance” has been shown to
be one difficulty. The question of the

394 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

scarcity or abundance of available talent
has been indicated as a principal source of
possible variation. The extent to which the
period of training for skilled positions may
reasonably be viewed as sacrificial has been
called into question. The possibility has been
suggested that very different types of moti-
vational schemes might conceivably be made
to function. The separability of differentials
in power and property considered as re-
sources appropriate to a task from such
differentials considered as rewards for the
performance of a task has also been sug-
gested. It has also been maintained that
differentials in prestige and esteem do not

necessarily follow upon differentials in power
and property when the latter are considered
as appropriate resources rather than re-
wards. Finally, some negative functions, or
dysfunctions, of institutionalized social in-
equality have been tentatively identified, re-
vealing the mixed character of the outcome
of social stratification, and casting doubt on
the contention that

Social inequality is thus an unconsciously
evolved device by which societies insure that
the most important positions are conscien-
tiously filled by the most qualified persons.8

8 Davis and Moore, op. cit., p. 243.

REPLY

KINGSLEY DAVIS

Columbia University

Tumin’s critique, almost as long as the article
it criticizes, is unfortunately intended not to
supplement or amend the Davis-Moore theory
but to prove it wrong. The critique also sets
a bad example from the standpoint of meth-
odology. Nevertheless, it does afford us a meager
opportunity to clarify and extend the original
discussion. The latter, limited to eight pages,
was so brief a treatment of so big a subject
that it had to ignore certain relevant topics
and telescope others. In the process of answer-
ing Tumin, a partial emendation can now be
made.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

Our critic seems to labor under four major
difficulties, two of a methodological and two of
a substantive character. First, he appears not
so much interested in understanding institu-
tionalized inequality as in getting rid of it.
By insinuating that we are “justifying” such
inequality, he falls into the usual error of re-
garding a causal explanation of something as
a justification of it. He himself offers no ex-
planation for the universality of stratified in-
equality. He argues throughout his critique that
stratification does not have to be, instead of
trying to understand why it is. Our interest,
however, was only in the latter question. If
Tumin had chosen to state our propositions in
our own words rather than his, he could not
have pictured us as concerned with the question
of whether stratification is “avoidable.”

Second, Tumin confuses abstract, or theo-
retical, reasoning on the one hand with raw
empirical generalizations on the other. Much
of his critique accordingly rests on the fallacy

of misplaced concreteness. Our article dealt
with stratified inequality as a general property
of social systems. It represented a high degree
of abstraction, because there are obviously
other aspects of society which in actuality affect
the operation of the prestige element. It is
therefore impossible to move directly from the
kind of propositions we were making to descrip-
tive propositions about, say, American society.

Third, in concentrating on only one journal
article, Tumin has ignored other theoretical
contributions by the authors on stratification
and on other relevant aspects of society. He
has thus both misrepresented the theory and
raised questions that were answered elsewhere.

Fourth, by ignoring additions to the theory
in other places, Tumin has failed to achieve
consistency in his use of the concept “stratifica-
tion.” The first requirement, in this connection,
is to distinguish between stratified and non-
stratified statuses. One of the authors under
attack has shown the difference to hinge on
the family. “Those positions that may be com-
bined in the same legitimate family-viz., posi-
tions based on sex, age, and kinship-do not
form part of the system of stratification. On
the other hand those positions that are socially
prohibited from being combined in the same
legal family-viz., different caste or class posi-
tions-constitute what we call stratification.”‘l
This distinction is basic, but in addition it is
necessary to realize that two different questions
can be asked about stratified positions: (a)
Why are different evaluations and rewards given

1 Kingsley Davis, Human Society, New York:
Macmillan, 1949, p. 364.

• Article Contents

p.387
p.388
p.389
p.390
p.391
p.392
p.393
p.394

• Issue Table of Contents

American Sociological Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Aug., 1953), pp. 351-473
Front Matter
Power Relations in Three-Person Groups [pp.351-357]
An Experimental Approach to the Study of Status Relations in Informal Groups [pp.357-367]
Some Functional Consequences of Primary Controls in Formal Work Organizations [pp.368-373]
Role Conflict and Ambivalence in Leadership [pp.373-380]
A Note on Participation in Voluntary Associations in a Mexican City [pp.380-386]
Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis [pp.387-394]
Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis: Reply [pp.394-397]
Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis: Comment [p.397]
Social Class Identification in the Urban Community [pp.398-404]
Trends in Occupational Origins of Physicians [pp.404-409]
Testing Message Diffusion in Controlled Experiments: Charting the Distance and Time Factors in the Interactance Hypothesis [pp.410-416]
The Accuracy of Census Results [pp.416-423]
Marital Happiness of Parents and Their Children’s Attitudes to Them [pp.424-431]
Official Reports and Proceedings [p.432]
News and Announcements [pp.433-436]
Book Reviews
untitled [pp.437-439]
untitled [pp.439-440]
untitled [pp.440-441]
untitled [pp.441-442]
untitled [pp.442-443]
untitled [pp.443-444]
untitled [pp.444-445]
untitled [p.445]
untitled [pp.445-447]
untitled [pp.447-448]
untitled [pp.448-449]
untitled [pp.449-450]
untitled [pp.450-452]
untitled [pp.452-453]
untitled [p.453]
untitled [pp.453-454]
untitled [pp.455-456]
untitled [p.456]
untitled [pp.456-457]
untitled [pp.457-458]
untitled [pp.458-459]
untitled [pp.459-460]
untitled [p.460]
untitled [pp.460-461]
untitled [pp.461-462]
untitled [pp.462-463]
untitled [p.463]
untitled [pp.463-464]
untitled [pp.464-465]
untitled [pp.465-466]
untitled [pp.466-467]
untitled [pp.467-468]
untitled [pp.468-469]
untitled [pp.469-470]
Publications Received [pp.470-473]
Erratum: “Reader in Urban Sociology” [p.473]
Back Matter