Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology : a Framework for Political Psychology

Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology
84
while the [class I] residues are losing ground, contrary phenomena are observable. The 
[class II] residues that have weakened may be beneficial, indifferent, or detrimental 
to society. In the first case, the [ideological constructions] of the [class I residues], on 
the basis of which the class II residues are rejected, show themselves entirely at odds 
with practice, as tending to give the society forms unsuitable to it and which might even 
encompass its destruction. That is felt instinctively rather than by thought. [This gives 
rise to the feeling that] we have within us ideas, notions, concepts, that are superior to 
experience, that “intuition” must take the place of “reason”, that “conscience must assert 
its rights in the face of positivistic empiricism” (Pareto 1935, § 2340).
Evidently, Pareto viewed those possessing the ‘class II residues’ (i.e. the ‘lions’ and 
the ‘rentiers’) as unquestioning anti-intellectuals who adhere stubbornly and for no 
good reason to established customs, traditions, practices, dogmas etc. This view 
of psychological conservatism is validated by recent psychometric research using 
several well-established measures of ‘conservative’ and ‘authoritarian’ personality 
which will prove invaluable throughout this chapter. Crucially, this evidence supports 
Pareto’s ‘conservative faith’ construct by encouraging us to view the conservative 
thought process as often reflecting religious, superstitious, mystical and other ‘anti-
rational’ influences. Joe (1974), for example, notes from strong positive correlations 
between Adorno’s F-scale and the Jackson personality inventory that authoritarians 
are more religious, superstitious and anti-scientific than non-authoritarians. This 
dovetails well with Herbert McClosky’s (McClosky in DiRenzo (ed.) 1974, 276) 
finding that conservatives greatly outscored liberals on his ‘Mysticism’ scale 
designed to tap mystical and obscurantist sentiment. Furthermore, strong links 
between conservatism and religious belief are clear from the fact that a religious 
belief subscale is included within the (1968) Wilson-Patterson Conservatism scale, 
which suggests we might even view religious belief as a dimension or definitional 
component of conservatism.
Following Pareto’s view that conservatives tend to think intuitively, their stock 
of arguments for privileging ‘faith’ above ‘reason’ will doubtless include the 
following one which Herbert McClosky counts as a strong indicator of conservative 
personality:
Man’s traditional inheritance is rich, grand, endlessly proliferated and mysterious, 
deserving of veneration, and not to be cast away lightly in favour of the narrow uniformity 
preached by [those who Burke called] “sophisters and calculators”. Theory is to be 
distrusted since reason, which gives rise to theory, is a deceptive, shallow and limited 
instrument (McClosky in DiRenzo (ed.) 1974, 260).
We can also see from the preceding ‘Treatise’ passage that Pareto viewed those 
who possess the ‘class I residues’ (i.e. the ‘foxes’ and the ‘speculators’) as inclining 
towards their own hallmark biases. Just like Edmund Burke’s ‘sophisters and 
calculators’, they will tend to subject social and moral norms to harsh judgments 
by employing pseudo-scientific (Neurath would say ‘pseudorational’, Elster would 
say ‘hyper-rational’) criteria which refuse to acknowledge that norm-following may 
sometimes benefit us in ways which we do not understand.

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Pareto’s Psychology
85
Before exploring these liberal orientations further, it is worth considering how 
psychoanalytic theory provides an explanatory framework for both conservative 
and liberal positions. In the first instance, we will consider the inclination to accept 
norm-guidance as resulting from a particular set of consecutive, developmental 
experiences. The inclination to reject norm guidance will then receive similar 
attention. Perhaps the best place to begin is by considering Freud’s anal phase which 
the child is said to undergo between the ages of around three and four years. This 
is where, according to classical psychoanalytic theory, the anal (i.e. ‘compulsive’ or 
‘obsessional’) character forms in reaction to the forced repression of anal erotism 
during toilet training. Too severe repression of this form of gratification, Freud 
and many subsequent theorists have claimed, can produce certain enduring traits 
– named by (Freud 1925, 83) as neatness, obstinacy and parsimoniousness – which 
carry forward into adulthood to create individuals who we commonly think of as 
‘conservative’. This process of forced repression is most significant for present 
purposes because it lays the groundwork for events which follow during the phallic 
phase (which begins from around the age of five) where the ‘conservative’ personality 
will become more recognisable by taking on its distinctive moralistic aspect. We 
can say that forced repression during the anal phase paves the way for how the 
phallic phase is likely to be experienced in two key respects. Firstly, it establishes 
a pattern of forced compliance to, as well as fear and unquestioning acceptance 
of, parental authority (part of which involves a process of ‘anaclitic identification’ 
with the mother which forms the basis of the ‘ego-ideal’ or ideal self); secondly, the 
infant accepts strong external restrictions upon the id which help prepare the way for 
further – this time internal – controls. 
Later, during the phallic period, these factors combine to promote the introjection 
of the strong superego. For male children, this is famously said to involve a 
succession of oedipal and castration complexes which are resolved through, to use 
Anna Freud’s term, an ‘identification with the aggressor’ where the child quells fears 
of being punished by the father by imbuing himself with the father’s characteristics. 
For female children, we have to think even more controversially in terms of a weaker 
‘identification through loss of love’ with the mother which resolves the electra 
complex. In each case, the ‘imago’ of the same sex parent is said to be internalised 
through identification. This means that the five year old child internalises what he or 
she perceives to be the moral sense possessed by the parent; this then forms the basis 
for that child’s own moral sense, called the superego. The superego is usually held 
to consist of both social proscriptions and prescriptions which are internalised as the 
conscience and the ego-ideal respectively. An early sense of sex role is also said to 
be gained through identification with the same sex parent at this time.
To carry this argument in a neo-Freudian direction by focusing less upon the 
oedipal triangle and more upon wider environmental influences upon personality, it 
can be argued that the newly introjected superego still has a long way to go before it 
can produce that moralistic nature which we associate with conservative individuals. 
Erikson (1968) has argued that for the superego to emerge as a dominant influence 
upon personality it must first carry forward throughout adolescence as a guide to the 
acquisition of adult identity. Even with this accomplished, it still faces the longer term 
challenge of guiding the personality towards integrated wholeness. Drawing upon 

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