Vilfredo Pareto (born with Paris the July 15th 1848; deceased with Céligny (Swiss) the August 19th 1923) was a Sociologue and economist Italy N. It contributed many important shares in these two matters, particularly in the study of the distribution of income and in the analysis of the individual choices. It introduced the concept of the Efficacité and helped the development of the field of the Microéconomie with ideas such as the Courbe of indifference. He is successor of Leon Walras with the political Pulpit of economy of the Université of Lausanne.

Biography

Vilfredo Pareto was born in 1848 with Paris, the epicentre of the popular revolutions of this year. His/her father, Raphaël Pareto, was an engineer Italian, noble, exiled of Italy like partisan of Mazzini, republican and anti-Piedmontese; his/her mother, Marie Métenier (1813-1889), is French. The paternal grandfather, Giovanni Benedetto Pareto had been made baron of the Empire by Napoleon.

During its childhood, in Italy, Pareto lived in a medium of middle-class, receiving an education of elevated level.

In 1870 it is graduate in engineering of the polytechnic Université of Turin. Its thesis was entitled " Basic principles of the balance of the bodies solides". Its interest in the analysis of balance in economy and sociology made there its first demonstration.

During a few years, he works as engineer, initially for the Italian of the railroads, public company, then in private industry and becomes director of the Ferriere italiane. Its work makes it travel.

In 1886 he becomes lecturer to the Université of Florence. Its stay with Florence was marked by its political activity, largely supplied with its frustrations against the official regulators. Liberal, it attacks the Socialisme, the Militarisme and the Protectionnisme of the government.

In 1889, after the death of his/her parents, Pareto lifestyle changes: it leaves its work and Marie with Russian, Alessandra Bakounine. It starts to write many polemical articles against the government what attracts to him many troubles like the interruption of one of its conferences by the police force or the refusal of an authorization to teach the political economy.

In 1893 it is named lecturer in economy to the Université of Lausanne in Suisse in the place of Walras which proposed it to him. It remained there until the end of its life

In 1898, it lodges Italian Socialists fleeing the repression of the riots.

In 1902, his wife leaves it. He will live until his death with Jeanne Régis.

In 1906, it made the famous observation according to which twenty percent of the population had eighty percent of the property in Italy, observation at the origin of the law which bears its name.

In 1917, the university of Lausanne organizes its jubilee.

In 1923, he advises with the fascists to adopt a liberal policy.

He dies in Céligny, in Switzerland, the same year.

Sociology

Logical actions and not-logics

Its contribution in the field of sociological research is around the concepts of actions logical studied through the economy and of the actions not-logics studied by sociology. The actions not-logics consisting of residues, i.e. of all the affects inherent in the man. All this development is in its principal work: Treaty of general sociology , published in 1916.

Mass and elite

Pareto distinguishes the social classes between mass and elite, the elite itself is separate between nongovernmental and governmental elite ( Traité general sociology , § 2034). Mass perpetually assemble new elites which the elite in place has the choice to fight or to integrate until it is finally demolished and replaced. It is this fight which makes the history. The study of the circulation of the elites is often reduced to the famous sentence " the history is a cemetery of aristocracies ". ( Treated general sociology , § 2053)

Separation between elite and mass is observed at all the companies, the distribution of the richnesses is unequal everywhere in proportions which are similar; the only way of enriching poorest is thus to enrich the very whole company more quickly than its population does not increase.

Epistemology

Against the scientistic prejudices of its time, Pareto denies with science faculty to define a political system, a morals, an ideal religion. Scientism denatures science by over-estimating it: science cannot determine the human ends.

The cynicism and the pessimism of Pareto tackle face the optimism and the rationalism of Emile Durkheim. Illusions are the attempts to rationally organize the company, illusion to believe the man animated by the reason, illusion to believe the virtue to progress with the increase in reason.

Pareto also criticizes the moralists who vainly develop theories to grant the private interests and collectives. The maximum of utility for the community is not the maximum of utility of the community.

Policy

Pareto is the author of a study of socialism in its work the socialist Systems .

Pareto criticizes throughout its work the weakness of the elites at the end of the reign which causes their loss: “ Any elite which is not ready to fight battle, to defend its positions, is not in full decline, it but does not remain to him any more to leave its place to another elite having the quality virile which it misses. It is pure daydream, if she thinks that the humane principles that she proclaimed will be applied to him: the winners will make resound with its ears the relentless vae victis . The chopper of the guillotine was sharpened in the shade when, at the end of last century (note: end XVIIIe thus), the French leading classes endeavoured to develop to them " sensibilité". This idle and frivolous company, which lived in parasite in the country, spoke, in its elegant suppers, to deliver the world of " the superstition and to crush the infâme" , without suspecting that itself was going to be crushed. ”

Authoritarian regimes

The Italian fascists claimed themselves of Pareto, died in 1923, and him is often said that it justifies the authoritarian regimes.

Reducing the theory of Pareto on the elites, they justify their violence like necessary to maintain the social order. The capacity which the elite exerts, minority, not having in fine step of moral base, the force can be used without complex and the mode consequently finds its justification in its success.

Pareto sees in the advent of the Fascisme a reaction against the middle-class decline and its humanitarism, a pledge of order. Initially very hostile, it accommodates favorably the advent of Benito Mussolini but warns the fascists against " warlike adventures, the restriction of freedom of the press, overtaxation of the rich person and the peasants, the tender with the Church and the clericalism, the limitation of the freedom of teaching " .

Pareto is high representing of Italy at the Commission of the disarmament of SDN in December 1922 and senator in March 1923. He dies a little later well before the proclamation of the laws fascistissimes.

Liberalism

On the economic plan, it estimates that the Libéralisme is the producing system of richness and consequently that which enriches more the very whole company.

On the plan of the political ideas, Pareto seems to prefer a strong and liberal mode i.e. able to make respect freedoms.

Maurice Allais sees in Pareto a large liberal who sought to reduce to the maximum and as far as possible the constraint that the community exerts on the individual.

Nationalization

Pareto announces with accuracy the interventionism growing of the States in the economy which will occur at the 20th century which will see the advent of companies collectivists. The bureaucratization replaces the free initiative. Pareto compares this evolution with that of Byzance and with that of the Lower Empire.

Statistical tools " Pareto"

It remains famous for its observation of the 20% of the population which have 80% of the wealths of Italy, generalized later (by Joseph Juran and others) in Distribution of Pareto. This observation was extended to other fields under the term of “Loi of Pareto”. By extension, one calls Diagramme of Pareto a type of Histogramme where the classes are represented by decreasing order of frequency, which makes it possible to highlight the most important classes; this diagram is used in Gestion of quality, where the classes represent the defects.

It defines the optimum concept of paretien as an overall situation in which an individual cannot improve his situation without deteriorating that of another individual. In the Game theory of John Nash, the situation is an optimum paretien if the agents are satisfied with their choice and that the profits are maximized. These profits being optimal, if the situation of an agent improves, that of another must worsen to preserve balance. A Pareto's optimum is also a balance of Nash (where the concept of optimum does not intervene), the reverse is not true.

Economy

See also: , Pareto's optimum Utility, Curve of indifference

Representative of the neo-classic current , and more particularly with French Leon Walras of the school of Lausanne, Vilfredo Pareto left with the economic literature several major works like his political Cours of economy (1896) and his Manuel of political economy (1909).

One as of its more important contributions was to modify the principles of the value utility at the neo-classic ones. Previously, one of the neo-classic postulates was the existence of a function of cardinal utility: the rational individual is able to determine the absolute level of utility of a product. Pareto substitutes to him the more realistic principle of ordinal utility: the rational individual is in fact able to treat on a hierarchical basis his preferences, to say if he prefers the product has with the product B or conversely.

This reasoning pushes it with the use of the curved of indifference imagined by Francis Edgeworth. The principle of the curve of indifference represents the whole of the combinations of two products, making it possible to obtain a given utility.

The generalization of its reasoning on the scale of the company makes it possible to determine the situation where the use of the resources is optimal. The Pareto's optimum is the situation in which the utility (wellbeing) of no individual can be increased without the utility of another individual not being reduced. This point is obtained by the intersection of the right-hand side representing the material constraints (resources/budget) and of the curve of indifference the highest possible.

The reference to the Pareto's optimum made it possible to the neo-classic economists mathematically to show the theoretical superiority of the Pure competition and perfect on the alternative economic models, starting from their postulates.

Publications

• political Cours of economy (1897)

• the socialist systems (1902)
• Manuale di economia politica idiot una introduzione went scienza social (1906)
• the myth vertuïste and the immoral literature (1911)
• Trattato di sociologia general (1916)
• Fatti E teorie (1920)
• Trasformazione beyond democrazia (1921)

On Pareto

French-speaking people

• G. - H. Bousquet, Pareto (1848-1923), the scientist and the man, Lausanne, Payot, 1928

• Raymond Aron, stages of the sociological thought, Paris, Gallimard, 1967 (nuova edizione 1983)
• P. Bridel, E. Tatti, (editors), general stability. Between economy and sociology. Conference of the Center of interdisciplinary studies Walras-Pareto of the University of Lausanne, Re-examined European of Social sciences , volume XXXVII, 1999, No 116, Droz Bookstore, Geneva-Paris

English-speaking

• Franz Borkenau, Modern Sociologists: Pareto, London, Chapmann & Hall, 1936

• SEN, A.K. “The Impossibility off has Paretian Liberal”, Journal off Political Economy , N. 78, 1970, p 152-157

German-speaking

• Gert Albert: Hermeneutischer Positivismus und dialektischer Essentialismus Vilfredo Paretos . Wiesbaden, VS Verlag 2005

• Maurizio Bach: Jenseits of the rationalen Handelns. Zur Soziologie Vilfredo Paretos . Wiesbaden, VS Verlag 2004
• Gerold Blümle: Paretos Gesetz . In: Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium (WiSt), 8. Jg., Heft 1 (Januar 1979), S. 17.
• Gottfried Eisermann, max Weber und Vilfredo Pareto , Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1989; ISBN 3-16-545457-4
• Gottfried Eisermann : Vilfredo Pareto. Ein Klassiker der Soziologie , Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) 1987; broschiert: ISBN 3-16-545207-5, gebunden: ISBN 3-16-545214-8
• Horst Claus Recktenwald (Hrsg.): Lebensbilder großer Nationalökonomen . Köln, Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1965
• Günter Zauels: Paretos Theory DER sozialen Heterogenität und Zirkulation der Eliten . Stuttgart, Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1968.

Italophones

• NR. Bobbio, Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia, Bari-Roma, Laterza, 1969 (nuova edizione accresciuta 1996)

• S. Ricossa, Dizionario di economia, Torino, UTET, 1982, AD voces
• G. Busino, Pareto, Croce, socialisms and sociology, Geneva, Droz, 1983
• G. Busino, Introduzione, Foot-note biografica, Foot-note bibliografica, Foot-note Al testo, Commento E Indici dell' edizione general critica LED Trattato di sociologia, Torino, UTET, 1988, vol. 4
• F. Aqueci, the funzioni LED linguaggio secondo Pareto, Bern-Frankfurt/M. - New York-Paris, Peter Lang, 1991
• C. Malandrino, R. Marchionatti, (has cleaned di), Economia, sociologia E politica nell' opera di Vilfredo Pareto, Firenze, Olschki, 2000

Quotations

• “ the men has a very marked tendency to give a logical varnish to their actions ”

• “ the tendency to personify the abstractions, or even only to give them an objective reality, is such as many people represent the class controlling almost like a person, or at least as a concrete unit that they suppose a single will to him, and believe that by taking logical measures, it carries out the programs. Thus much of anti-semites the Semites represent themselves, much Socialists the middle-class men. ”

• “ the aristocracies does not last. Whatever are the causes, it is undeniable that after a certain time they disappear. The history is a cemetery of aristocracies . ”

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