Social Stratification—Nasi Kandars Vs. Old Towns

Old Towns and Nasi Kandars help stratify society based on earning power 

“Nasi Kandar” restaurants under various franchise names and Old Town White Coffee shops are everywhere in Ipoh. Though their clientele can cross-pollinate, the fact that Old Town food items are priced at least twice that of Nasi Kandars means they are manifest examples of social stratification in the food and beverage industry. The difference in price is visibly reflected in the style of décor and quality of service. Moreover, you can sometimes see scruffy looking and shabbily dressed patrons at Nasi Kandars, but Old Town’s have a distinctly middle-class feel and hence appropriately dressed customer.

The root cause of social stratification is earning potential born of demographic markers like education level, gender, racial identity and family background among others. Naturally, functionalists and social conflict theorists view stratification in vastly different terms. Functional theorists believe social roles have different value assignments and consequently should be rewarded differently. The unequal value of work, hence, represents its value to society. And certain tasks should be rewarded more than others simply because the stability of the status quo depends on them.

Put another way, this is capitalism stripped to its base ideals. Individuals who take greater risks, like investment bankers or firefighters, should be compensated more for their role than primary school teachers. While functionalism supports the multi-tiered value of education to society, teaching children professionally does not entail passing rigorous mental or physical obstacle courses. This is the essence of the Davis-Moore Thesis, whereby demand and supply curves notwithstanding, the best and brightest in society should be rewarded commensurate with the perceived importance of their roles to social stability.

Conflict theorists however decry social stratification as the ugly side of free-market capitalism. Segregation by employing the filter of earning power, they believe, is a surefire recipe for class warfare. Moreover, since the advent of compound interest, capital continues to grow faster than wages and hence keeps widening the chasm between the rich and poor. 

They also dismiss the functionalist narrative that individuals are rewarded according to the importance of their occupations to social stability. If that were true, why do basketball players earn millions for providing frivolous entertainment, while teachers who play a fundamental role in society earn peanuts? Advancing this critique, why do attention whores like the Kardashian family— pioneers of the no-talent classification “TV personalities”—rake in the big bucks while garbage collectors cannot even afford to buy property in a decent neighborhood?

Reference:

Theoretical Perspectives on Social Stratification. (n.d.). Retrieved January 20, 2018, from http://philschatz.com/sociology-book/contents/m42845.html

OpenStax College, Sociology. OpenStax CNX.