Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
DESPITE HIS STATUS AS A FOUNDER OF MODERN SOCIAL SCIENCE, Pareto receives little scholarly attention. In particular, his penetrating discussion of ‘demagogic plutocracy’ (his term for the liberal state) has been strangely ignored by analysts of Western, or ‘bourgeois’, democracy. While Marx's scattered and inconsistent remarks on ‘the capitalist state’ have spawned a vast literature, Pareto is lucky to be acknowledged in a footnote. Consider the exemplary case of David Held, a theorist of great repute, who managed to write a 321 page textbook called Models of Democracy without once mentioning Pareto's name. Why has Pareto been ‘put in quarantine’? One reason is surely the irritating nature of his master-work, Treatise of General Sociology (published in 1916). Even his admirers describe this work as ‘monstrous’ – disorganized, unnecessarily long, full of pedantic distinctions, and continually interrupted by digressions, and by digressions within digression. He never missed an opportunity to break the thread of exposition in order to pursue some bright idea or display his arcane erudition. But a fuller explanation of Pareto's ‘quarantine’ requires us to look at the social psychology of intellectuals.
1 Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987. In addition, see Andrew Vincent’s highly regarded Theories of the State, Oxford, Blackwell, 1987, which mentions Pareto once en passant.
2 Freund, J., Pareto: la teoria dell’ equilibrio, Bari, Laterza, 1976, p. 1.Google Scholar
3 English translation by Bongiorno, A. and Livingston, A. under the title, The Mind and Society, London, Jonathan Cape, 1935.Google Scholar The Italian title was Tratlato (Treatise) di sociología generale.
4 Bousquet, G. H., Pareto: Le savant et l’homme, Lausanne, Payot, 1960, p. 149.Google Scholar
5 Pareto, V., Mind and Society (henceforth MS), para. 933.Google Scholar
6 ibid., para. 2206.
7 ’Everywhere and everlastingly human beings brutally ill-treat, slaughter and destroy their kind.’ Fatti e Teorie (1920), in Pareto, V., Sociological Writings, trans. Mirfin, D. and éd. Finer, S. E. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1966, p. 294.Google Scholar
8 Vander Zanden, J. W., ‘Pareto and Fascism Reconsidered’, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 19 07 1960, p. 408;Google Scholar Worthington, R. V., ‘Pareto: the Karl Marx of Fascism’, Economic Forum, Summer and Fall, 1933.Google Scholar
9 AIS, para. 150.
10 ibid., paras 870, 875.
11 ibid., para. 154.
12 ibid., paras 2239, 2394; and V. Pareto, The Transformation of Democracy, trans. Girola, R. and ed. Powers, C. H., London, Transaction Books, 1984, p. 28 Google Scholar. Originally published in 1921 under the title, Trasformazione delta democrazia.
13 Bellamy, R., Modern Italian Social Theory, Oxford, Blackwell, 1987, p. 26.Google Scholar
14 MS, para. 70.
15 ibid., paras 72, 843.
16 ibid., paras 2133–5, 2143.
17 Stark, W., ‘In Search of the True Pareto’, British Journal of Sociology, XIV, 06 1963, pp. 111–12;Google Scholar Ginsberg, M., ‘The Sociology of Pareto’, in 0Pareto and Mosca, ed. Meisel, J. H., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1965, p. 96;Google Scholar Borkenau, F., Pareto, London, Chapman & Hall, 1936, ch.3;Google Scholar and Timasheff, N.S., Sociological Theory, New York, Random House, 1957, pp. 159–66.Google Scholar
18 Les Systèmes Socialistes (1902), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, p. 124; Manuel d’Economie Politique ( 1909), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, pp. 148–49; and MS, paras 1091 and 1690.
19 MS, para. 2060.
20 ibid., para. 2067.
21 Smart Hughes, H., Consciousness and Society, St Albans, Herts., Paladin, 1974, p. 78.Google Scholar
22 MS, paras 6, 1537.
23 ibid., paras 829, 1884.
24 ibid., para. 830.
25 ibid., para. 2231.
26 Cours d’Economie Politique (1896), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, p. 117.
27 Les Systèmes Socialistes (1902), ín Pareto, Sociological Writings, p. 140.
28 MS, para. 1543.
29 Les Systèmes Socialistes (1902), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, p. 138.
30 ibid., p. 139.
31 MS, para. 2183
32 ibid., para. 2244.
33 ibid., paras 2253, 2183–4.
34 ibid., para. 2053.
35 But it’s a fairy-story whose authorship is often attributed to Pareto! Tom Bottomore, for example, in his influential Elites and Society, Harmondsworth, Pelican, 1966, complains that Pareto (unlike Mosca) was blind to the ‘heterogeneity’ of the elite (p. 12). For some people, a ruling elite is by definition conspiratorial and self-conscious. (See R. Dahl, ‘A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model’, American Political Science Review, LII, 1958, pp. 463–9.) Maybe they read Pareto with this preconception in mind.
36 MS, para. 2254.
37 ibid.
38 ibid., paras 2265, 2257.
39 ibid., para. 2231.
40 ibid., para. 2233.
41 ibid., para. 2234. Borkenau finds it odd that Pareto, having accused Marx of simplifying a complex reality by dividing society into ‘capitalists’ and ‘proletariat’, should commit precisely the same error with his division between ‘speculators’ and ‘rentiers’ (Pareto, p. 141). The criticism is a fair one, though Pareto does acknowledge that the dividing line between the two ‘classes’ is blurred. (MS, para. 2235).
42 MS, para. 2231.
43 ibid., para. 2250.
44 See, in particular, Olson, M., The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
45 Les Systèmes Socialistes (1902), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, pp. 141–42.
46 ibid., p. 142.
47 Cours d’Economie Politique (1896), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, p. 119.
48 Pareto, , The Transformation of Democracy, pp. 43–6, 66.Google Scholar
49 MS, paras 2228, 2255, 2309.
50 Pareto, , The Transformation of Democracy, p. 60.Google Scholar
51 MS, paras 2306–7.
52 Pareto, The Transformation of Democracy, pp. 65–7.Google Scholar
53 Manuel d’Economie Politique (1909), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, pp. 148–9.
54 Pareto, The Transformation of Democracy, pp. 25, 31; MS, para. 401.Google Scholar
55 MS, para. 1554.
56 ibid., paras 1486–92, 1608–9.
57 ibid., para. 2134.
58 ibid., paras 2228, 2307, 2309, 2059.
59 Pareto, The Transformation of Democracy, p. 71.Google Scholar
60 ibid., pp. 43–6, 66.
61 MS, para. 1210.
62 Pareto, The Transformation of Democracy, p. 47.Google Scholar
63 Finer, ‘Introduction’ to Pareto, Sociological Writings, p. 80.Google Scholar
64 Borkenau, Pareto, p. 174.Google Scholar
65 AÍS, para. 2267.
66 Cours d’Economie Politique (1896), in Pareto, Sociological Writings, p. 121. See, also, MS, paras 1050, 2390.
67 ’Pareto’s Sociological System’, The Nation, CXL, 26 June 1935, p. 747.
68 Zanden, Vander ‘Pareto and Fascism Reconsidered’, p. 408.Google Scholar
69 Aron, R Le Machiavélisme, doctrine des tyrannies modernes, cited in G. Busino, Gli studi su Vilfredo Pareto oggi, Rome, Bulzoni, 1974, p. 77.Google Scholar
70 MS, paras 1050, 2175, 2246.
71 For references, see Lopreato, J and Ness, R. C ‘Vilfredo Pareto: Sociologist or Ideologist?’, Sociological Quarterly, Winter 1966, p. 36.Google Scholar
72 Párelo, p. 136.
73 Vilfredo Pareto e il fascismo, Rome, Volpe, 1974, pp. 15, 216 in particular.
74 Fascisms’s temporary hold on the liberal imagination extended beyond Italy. Many American liberals also welcomed the fascist takeover. Unlike Pareto, however, they tended to be ‘new liberals’, disillusioned with the atomistic, contractual approach of the Lockean tradition. See Diggins, J. P Mussolini and Fascism: the View from America, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1972, pp. 220–39.Google Scholar
75 MS, para. 2240.
76 Modern Italian Social Theory, pp. 22, 33.
77 For an excellent analysis of the philosophical issues, see Ginsberg, M On the Diversity of Morals, London, Heinemann, 1962,Google Scholarch. 3.
78 Secólo, H 17 05 1923; quoted in Fiorot, D Politica e scienza in Vilfredo Pareto, Milan, Edizioni di Comunità, 1975, p. 214.Google Scholar
79 Fiorot, Politica e scienza in Vilfredo Pareto, p. 212.Google Scholar
80 See, e.g., MS, para. 69.
81 The Wealth of Nations: Representative Selections, ed. B. Mazlish, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1961, p. 252.
82 Pareto, The Transformation of Democracy, pp. 45–8.Google Scholar
83 La sociología di Vilfredo Pareto fra otto e novecento, Genoa, ECIG, 1984, p. 60.
84 Consciousness and Society, p. 266.