Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology : a Framework for Political Psychology

Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology
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extent that we can usefully measure Pareto’s contributions against other classical 
sources. 
With this thought, Berger and Luckman’s estimation of Pareto as having taken a 
more elaborate approach to the psychological pole within sociology begins to make 
more sense. We can identify Pareto’s level of reliance upon psychological variables 
for the purpose of sociological explanation, right across the domains of political, 
economic and social life which together comprise his social system, as the chief 
distinguishing characteristic which sets him apart from other classical theorists. This 
heavy reliance means, of course, that Pareto’s theory stands or falls on the strength 
of its assumptions and claims about human psychology and its sociological role.
This book aims to convince the reader that Pareto’s theoretical template retains 
value and can still help us analyse many issues which are ‘political’ in the broadest 
sense. It will even be contended that this template is more readily applicable across 
industrialised societies now than it was in Pareto’s day. A key consideration here is 
that the current political climate is characterised by sophisticated and well-informed 
populations who have grown distrustful of politicians and political parties. That 
makes it an era to which Pareto’s sociology is pre-eminently well suited. Raymond 
Aron once commented that at the ‘living heart’ of Paretian thought we find the idea 
that ‘every political man is either selfish or naive’. He was echoing Pareto’s belief 
that the higher echelons of political elites are usually dominated by unscrupulous 
and devious types who are driven by the desire for wealth, whereas the lower 
echelons of political elites are generally filled with opinionated zealots who are 
easily animated by propaganda. Such aspersions are commonplace today as levels 
of trust in politicians plummet and election turnouts dwindle. To this modest extent, 
we can say that Paretian analysis is already a part of our political zeitgeist. 
As our critical orientation towards politicians has deepened to become an 
inescapable feature of our political culture, it has impressed upon us a host of negative 
emotions and cognitions which may trigger whenever we contemplate the characters 
and motivations of politicians. Hence the argument arises that it must surely be in the 
interests of reason to use Pareto’s theory as a touchstone to help us discipline how we 
think about politicians. Pareto can help in two ways. Firstly, when we read him at his 
best, we can value his insight into the ways in which personality influences people 
to think and behave politically in certain ways. And secondly, when we read him at 
his worst, we can learn to be wary of some of his more malicious claims, particularly 
those involving character assassination, and avoid these ourselves.
Vilfredo Pareto’s magnum opus was his (1916) ‘Treatise on General Sociology’. 
This was written, for the most part, before the First World War, although it was not 
published in English until 1935, twelve years after his death. Writing in 1966, the 
political scientist Sammy Finer rated this as ‘the most pregnant work of political 
science in the last half century’, because be believed it provided a rich source of 
testable hypotheses for future researchers (Pareto 1966, 87). This was Pareto’s 
intention. He felt that it made good sense, for scientists and historians alike, to 
theorise with generalities before moving to specifics (Pareto 1935, §144, §540). 
Hence ‘general sociology’ had to precede the various ‘special sociologies’ such as 
political sociology. Pareto believed that once he had established a general framework 
theory for sociological investigation, social scientists following after him could 

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Introduction
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begin to contribute detail to his theory at microsociological levels more amenable 
to empirical enquiry. He valued his own general theory with some humility, hoping 
others would rework its constituent parts to accomodate future research findings. 
Charles Powers (1987) reaffirms Finer’s estimation that it is Pareto’s broad 
sociological framework theory which retains most value. He argues that this has a 
timeless relevance because it ‘provides lessons about the social structural dynamics 
which have operated throughout human history’ (Powers 1987, 11). As will shortly 
be explained, Powers tries to distil his theory and restate its key claims as a detailed 
set of empirical propositions. In doing this, he felt he was completing Pareto’s 
sociological project (Powers 1987, 12). Powers’ restatement of Pareto argues that 
‘social sentiment’, ‘economic organization’ and ‘political organization’ are each 
characterised by cyclical change. His ‘elementary theory’ for each of these cyclical 
processes consists of a set of interlocking mechanisms. Each of these mechanisms has 
a similar structure, whereby it is claimed that one kind of change is likely to induce 
another kind of change (if ∆ A then ∆ B). Then Powers lists further mechanisms 
which explain how the endogenous dynamics of the social, political and economic 
cycles are likely to impact exogenously upon each other. In other words, we are given 
detailed explanations for how economic change is likely to influence the direction 
of social and political change, how social change is likely to influence the direction 
of political and economic change, and how political change is likely to influence the 
direction of social and economic change. 
In accomplishing this, Powers lends some limited credibility to Pareto’s belief 
that the social, political and economic cycles tend to synchronise with one another 
to the extent that we can begin to think in terms of a grand ‘historical cycle’. One 
implication of Pareto’s cyclical approach to sociology is that it locates him within 
the long tradition of ‘historical pessimism’, which stands in sharp contrast to the 
eschatological visions of so many nineteenth century socialists and liberals and who 
had pinned great hopes upon ‘progress’, a word which Pareto frequently derided. 
What is more important for present purposes, however, is that Powers’ restatement 
of Pareto’s general sociology makes it immediately accessible. This, in turn, will 
make it much easier to understand both the decisive role for psychological factors 
which characterises Pareto’s general theory, and also the political sociology which 
Pareto nested within this broader framework.
At this point, the reader who is primarily interested in political psychology may 
well ask why effort should be dedicated to learning about Pareto’s general sociology. 
The answer is simple. The discipline of political psychology has increasingly 
recognised, over the last two decades or so, that it cannot hover at the level of 
individual psychology, and be concerned solely with attitudes, values, personality 
structures and the like; rather, it now emphasises the economic, political and social 
forces which influence, and are influenced by, the workings of the human mind. The 
English translation of Pareto’s treatise is entitled ‘The Mind and Society’ to reflect 
this same concern. We will see that what he wrote about this interaction is highly 
thought-provoking. It brings a degree of simplicity and elegance to a theoretical 
space which would otherwise be extremely difficult to fill.
The case for Pareto will unfold as follows. Chapter two will set the scene by 
explaining that Pareto’s sociological theory hinges upon general assumptions about 

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