Functionalism vs Conflict Theory: Stratification

oh there another section of stratification in what the earlier sections where we talked about Debbie Lloyd Warner's 1940 study and updated it with current material asked the question you know why is wealth distributed the way it is and we get two very different answers from different sociologists some sociologists are much more what we call politically conservative much more on the right meaning that they're functionalists according to your books argument functionalist argue that society is relatively stable set of parts that things fit together for the greater good that's evolved over time to meet basic needs and that the reason some people have more money is because they're worth more than other people to the society is essential argument other people are conflict theorists and I tend to lean in this direction count combination of the two they're both extreme arguments but conflict theorists argue that society is rigged that it's set up so that the power elite see right mills word the power elite are able to pass laws that keep them rich and keep poor people poor that's a profound thought so let's take a look at both of these arguments one of the arguments we'll start with the argument we start with is the functionalist argument this is the conservative one and in argues that like an inch and all these parts are interrelated and it makes a series of arguments here it says number one some jobs are more important then other jobs would you agree with that will come to mind you think about your kid being sick you go to it's got a tumor in the brain you go to a brain surgeon you know that's awfully important you at that moment that that brain surgeon be highly trained and takes a lot of time so forth and so it makes some sense the second part of this is these jobs require highly specialized training so the person is out of the workplace not making money in fact maybe going into debt the average medical doctor here at the University in Springfield is about $100,000 in debt when he or she gets out at the end of that time so would you agree with this one now keep in mind we're kind of doing a tight logic here if you don't object at each stage pretty soon you're going to have a conclusion you're stuck with and we'll go back and critique that some jobs are more important than other jobs these jobs require highly specialized training and number two only a limited number of people have the skills even knew these jobs let's say can't acquire the skills I think about this one that true let's use the brain surgeon example again could I be a brain surgeon and was smart enough to be a brain surgeon maybe but I don't know if you've noticed on camera yet but my eyes wiggle my head shakes I have fine motor coordination you proud problems you probably wouldn't want me digging in there with a scoop in your brain I'd be trying to take out some minor part of the hypothalamus scoop out your amygdala and you'd be like a vegetable for the rest of rest of your life so I would be one person who would not have the skills to be a brain surgeon let me have the skills to be a college teacher but I don't have the skills to be a brain surgeon all right number three learning these skills take years of special training and tying your own marketplace keep in mind even the functionalist art of it here right think about a brain search and they go to school four years of bachelors probably another four years to six years of a general practitioner and then they're practicing and specializing and it may be another four or eight years of specialization training so tremendous amount of training ongoing training all their life try to keep up with it and then at what point is that to give people to go through all this pain to get the SPECIAL training what you got to do to motivate motivation to do this equal to what what we have to offer people they say the class stuff power prestige and money in other words the ability to have a lifestyle the average one of us can't afford so that this is the carrot at the end of the walkway that they go through all kinds of mazes and hard work that that some of the rest of the population knows about through and they may have special abilities to begin with and we need to reward these people to work that hard okay so what's the next conclusion probably going to be if we look at we look at this idea we've got to give high rewards these monies are going to be money power prestige so number five is going to be this leads to social inequality therefore dot dot dot so that means three dots therefore social inequality this one according to this argument is functional is good it works to motivate people going to this argument and therefore it exists in all societies all right what do you agree with on this argument what don't you agree with hmm remember the conflict people is saying wait a minute there's something wrong with this argument that we've got people reading the system some people getting access to education so they can get these special jobs that other people don't even have access to that there are special tax breaks that there are all kinds of things the American Medical Association has done to make this a very prestigious position way beyond what it should be this will be a conflict argument so the first argument says we've got people special training these everybody can't do it you got off from high rewards these high rewards or status lifestyle money therefore inequalities functional well it's such a nice tight sounding argument but the conflict people say there's something seriously wrong with them so let's look at conflict maybe I should have a red magic marker out here instead of a green one for contour thing that might illustrate a little bit better the conflict people make several arguments and they look they said number one there is no objective measure showing one job is more important than another and their argument is like this if say okay now we talk about doctors saving lies they say obviously that's important my child's sick I'm sick my wife's sick but who saved the most lives over time it's been sanitation workers and people designing sewage systems they don't get lots of prestige they don't get nearly the power the doctors have and they save far more lives why don't we honor them why don't we motivate them if you go back to a hundred years ago in Europe in America there were many places for feces blood urine everything imaginable running rampant in the streets they just dump things in little little mud ditches they didn't understand the importance of germs once you've got that under control this massive urban health improvement then lies started being saved by the hundreds of thousands and it wasn't the medical profession that did that directly it was another group of people who are not paid nearly as highly most of you aren't old enough to remember this but I remember a garbage strike in New York City now Union garbage men are in women most of our men some of them get paid reasonable wages but they're not paid like medical doctors they have very hard back-breaking work they went on strike in New York City you know what happened well garbage piled two and three stories high rats came back and you know the rats brought bubonic plague so the lowly garbage order who's breaking his back day in and day out may not be paid and paid much at all maybe in that upper lower class or lower middle class one of the two he or she really is doing a lot to save lives it's a very humble profession but of course there's not lots of training but it is very important what about the health care worker this pay much what about the firemen or fire woman who firefighter who risks his or her life on day in and day out to say people are paid much at all compared to medical doctors why did medical doctors get so much money well hell if we go into this a little deeper there's a fascinating book called social transformation of American medicine and shows how the AMA American Medical Association operated as a very functional union and they managed to take the idea of being a profession of helping people - one that was of a great prestige you might be surprised by this but the word doctor never was related to medicine until they made it connected they took the PhD from Europe and said that's a high-status name let's call ourselves doctors now they're the only ones who get to call themselves doctors all right so that's if there's a problem with one argument here the second point that the conflict people make is that many qualified people get squeezed down the ability to get these good jobs and what I've written here is the many qualified people just starting it on the high track a lot of that has to do with what kind of education they get the quality of education the quality of science education personal choice this year graduating medical school or starting medical school I think over 50% of the people starting are female when I was a kid it was like 80 or 90% of the people starting medical school were male females had a heck of a time getting in we're socialized to believe they couldn't do it and in fact there's lots of evidence to show that that many women bring very special qualities to a health care situation so if you're talking about African Americans or you're talking about women or you're talking about minority groups who lack access to power prestige and money they're less likely to be able to get on the high track to those good-paying jobs of course that's where affirmative action has come in lots of controversy whether it's good or bad that's a very difficult decision all right the third point they make the third point they make in this argument is that the rewards that we give to some professions are way on proportion to how much they contribute to society to their real contributions to society in an earlier video I had mentioned that in 1960 you know the average CEO chief executive officer made 41 times what the average factory worker made and I didn't seem unreasonable to me but by 1997 that had risen to 360 sometimes that seems very unreasonable and by the way that did not happen in Europe and it didn't happen among CEOs in Japan that's fairly unique to the United States so that they get their hands on power and they enhance their prestige they enhance their power that we ought to pay for our firefighters more than we pay them and make we gotta pay some Plastic Surgeons who primarily do breast lifts less who knows that's one of their arguments and compa 13 anyway number four if you're looking at what motivates people think of how what motivates you we all are fixated on money in America but when we look at real motivation research shows us something very clear lack of money can make us unhappy the presence of more and more money doesn't necessarily make us happy are motivated to do a better job so real motivation how is from what kinds of things pride in your work the ability to be independent the ability to have to input in an organization those are the things that motivate people to want to do a good job those people want to do a good job and we don't therefore have time to offer these huge amount of rewards to get people motivated if you look at many countries we have lots of medical doctors who make almost the same salaries as average everyday people why they still get motivated go to school they love learning they love helping people it's not just the money that motivates and finally the conflict point of view argues number five this great inequality we see far more to quality and some south countries for example in America but this great inequality leaves to hostility and conflict between the classes and when the the disparity gets so great they argue that down the road we all need to worry because some people get tired this after a while how do not have a piece of pie and it can lead to the downfall of civilization and shocking to think about so why don't you compare and contrast to come to the point of view with the functionalist point of view you can believe either and have great sociologists to it back you up but you might find some combination between the two if you're thinking about how to put those two together might be able by ideas from both sides Thanks

Channel: John Scarbrough

Views: 101,694

Rating: 4.869616 out of 5

Keywords: 13

Id: q8T2wjMAMvc

Length: 15min 55sec (955 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Endel4]

thank you so much for this! -aspiring sociologist here who wishes more social science was present on this and all leftist subs