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    Evaluate the Davis-Moore thesis.

For people who don't know: this thesis says that stratification is a good thing because it provides incentives for people to work hard and thereby get ahead.

I think it's clearly at least partly true, but I don't think it's completely true.

The thesis implies that individuals can determine whether they get ahead based on how hard they work.

In large part, that's true.  People who don't try generally don't get ahead.  But one problem is that people aren't born in equal circumstances.  If two people have the exact same amount of talent and drive, but one is born rich and the other poor, it seems inevitable that the rich one will end up ahead because he/she started off ahead.