1 Comment
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Freedom Fox's avatar

Speaking of Pareto...

In addition to conflict, 80-20 rule efficiency, etc. the sociologist/economist was very influential to aspiring Fascists. Notably, Benito Mussolini. Who became familiar with his work in 1903 when he was studying in Switzerland.

The State-approved narrative resource WikiLeaks has this to say about Vilfredo Pareto:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto

Fascism and power distribution

Renato Cirillo wrote that Vilfredo Pareto had frequently been considered a predecessor of fascism as a result of his support for the movement when it began. However, Cirillo disagreed with this interpretation, suggesting that Pareto was critical of fascism in his private letters.

Pareto argued that democracy was an illusion and that a ruling class always emerged and enriched itself. For him, the key question was how actively the rulers ruled. For this reason, he called for a drastic reduction of the state and welcomed Benito Mussolini's rule as a transition to this minimal state so as to liberate the "pure" economic forces.

When he was still a young student, the future leader of Italian fascism Benito Mussolini attended some of Pareto's lectures at the University of Lausanne in 1904. It has been argued that Mussolini's move away from socialism towards a form of "elitism" may be attributed to Pareto's ideas. Franz Borkenau, a biographer, argued that Mussolini followed Pareto's policy ideas during the beginning of his tenure as prime minister.

Karl Popper dubbed Pareto the "theoretician of totalitarianism", but, according to Renato Cirillo, there is no evidence in Popper's published work that he read Pareto in any detail before repeating what was then a common but dubious judgement in anti-fascist circles."

FF - Not that this adds to the point of your comment. Just that as we are looking down a double-barrel totalitarian shotgun, Communism loaded in one barrel and Fascism loaded in the other, it's interesting to know the theories that inspire these people.

Another concept attribued to Pareto is the "Circulation of the Elite."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites

"Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another."

FF - As we see the big names coming and going between political leaders, names with very 'flexible' ideological beliefs, this Pareto concept is also valuable in understanding our times.

Expand full comment