Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology : a Framework for Political Psychology

Testing Pareto’s Theory
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liberalism (r=.18, p=.033). And of course, the conviction-relativism scale (which 
seems to tap the Machiavellian’s ideological relativism and lack of affect) correlated 
strongly (r=.36, p=.000) with psychological liberalism. Taken together, these findings 
do highlight links between liberalism and Machiavellianism, whose distributions 
concentrate in such places as the higher echelons of the Labour and Conservative 
Parliamentary Parties, and which deserve further consideration as features of elite 
social personality.
In response to those asking why Pareto should be read today, perhaps the best 
way to address this question is by returning once more to the enlightenment theme 
of rational self-direction, and thinking it through from the perspective of those who 
contributed to this study. Our main consideration then becomes, how might decision-
makers such as these benefit from a greater awareness of the psychological and 
cultural biases which work through the social personalities of their respective parties 
to influence how they think about politics? More fully, if the MPs who contributed to 
this study found time to read through this book, and if they tried to situate themselves 
within the individual differences explored within it, and if they were to reflect upon 
the possible conditioning influences of social personality, and upon the psychological 
correlates of different levels of eliteness within their parties, and indeed upon what 
appear to be psychological differences between the parties, would this hold value for 
them? It seems likely that it would. A familiarity with Pareto’s sociology, bolstered by 
a knowledge of the political psychology which places Pareto on surer ground, might 
help all political decision-makers, be they voters, activists, elected representatives, 
those who govern, those who take political decisions within executive capacities, or 
even those who take ‘political’ decisions in contexts removed from politics itself, 
such as business leaders, improve the quality of their decision-making. There may 
be much value for future commentaries on Pareto, in adopting and deepening this 
practitioner orientation. 
Finally, it is important to add that Pareto is not the only classical sociologist who 
we might return to in order to make sense of this chapter’s research findings. For 
example, Weber’s work on protestant ethic deserves further consideration alongside 
Inglehart’s work on materialism, for their combined capacity to help us understand 
the phenomenon of conservative individualism which has appeared. We might 
also look back at how a range of sociologists mentioned in chapter three can help 
us theorise the social personalities of the three parliamentary parties, or, as might 
be said of Simmel in relation to his work on metropolitan individualism and the 
‘blasé attitude’, at how they might help us understand several of the psychological 
correlates of liberalism and eliteness which have appeared. Then there are Pareto’s 
fellow classical elitists. We might well ask whether some of the traits identified as 
perhaps existing more at the higher echelons of the political parties, support and 
permit some further development of Michels’ warnings concerning the potential for 
political bureaucracies to be harnessed to serve the interests of party leaderships 
rather than their followerships or wider constituencies. It would doubtless be possible 
to show how this test of Pareto’s theory has generated further findings which might 
now be related back to classical sociology. This book does not attempt this, but is 
content to have used Pareto’s theory to develop and test new, thought provoking 
hypotheses likely to be of interest to many political sociologists, psychologists, and 

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Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology
194
indeed practitioners. It is hoped that this exercise has established a bridge running 
from classical sociology to political psychology which can allow new routes to be 
opened between these disciplines. 

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