ABSTRACT
Walter Buckley's criticism of the Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore theory largely centers on the question of how stratification should be defined. Davis and Moore are committed solely to the view that there must be unequal rewards; how unequal these need to be or how strictly they must be apportioned according to functional importance and skill. The Davis-Moore theory, if it achieves nothing else, surely provides sound arguments for regarding the existence of a hierarchy of roles as a problem in its own right. The proponents of the view that inequality of opportunity is "dysfunctional" fail to distinguish between its effects when the shape or profileof the stratified occupational system is changing and under conditions where pure mobility alone is at issue. American sociologists often stress the "dysfunctions" of the inequalities of opportunity that result from the inheritance of positions.
