Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology : a Framework for Political Psychology

Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology
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science librarians, as far as I know, bidding on behalf of their institutions or the 
discipline – the social science autograph letters and manuscripts in most cases went 
into the hands of private collectors. What factor does age, authenticity, significance 
of past impact, or potential for current illumination play in weighing the value of 
classic texts and ideas in sociology? Is the study of classical sociology part of the 
exercise of the history of the discipline, or part of social theory or methodology, 
dependent on the topicality of substantive themes past and present, or perhaps a 
mixture of all of these concerns? In the course of this preface I offer some responses 
to these questions.
Sometimes sociologists are presented with an option in relation to the problematic 
status of classical sociology, between either a concern with engaging with the real 
world (by which is meant current and contemporary topical issues and concerns) or 
engaging with the texts of the past. The context for this option is clearly a situation of 
limited resources (or limited time tables), since scholars are being asked to choose or 
prioritise, and the conclusion is foregone given the vocation and value commitments 
of most sociologists to illuminate if not ameliorate current conditions. However, 
making this choice in these terms actually misunderstands the nature and role of 
classical sociology and the nature of contemporary sociological practice too. For 
example, it is not possible to read and understand the classic texts without engaging 
with the ‘real world’ since at a minimum the examples required to interpret and 
understand the text can only come from the ‘real world’ and so an ignorance of 
the real world restricts interpretation; the better informed one is about the real 
world, the better the understanding of the classic author. Equally, when looking at 
the ‘real world’ in apparent isolation from the classical tradition, the sociological 
enquirer naively denies the presence, often unconscious, of the ideas of the classical 
sociologist on their very activity. 
This distinction between ‘real world’ and ‘classic texts’ is also not to be encouraged 
because it drives a wedge between past and present which can become more or less 
unbridgeable as time moves on. However, when it comes to the concerns of the 
discipline the classics are our contemporaries: it is texts that perhaps derive from 
before the onset of modernity which are separated from us by a major temporal and 
cultural gulf. Nonetheless, there are ideas afoot within sociology that would insist 
on the gulf between past and present and question the engagement with classical 
sociology. 
Talcott Parsons once famously and ironically asked: ‘Who now reads Herbert 
Spencer?’ The question was ironic since he himself obviously was reading Spencer, 
and he continued to do so throughout his career – to be influenced by him and also to 
differentiate his conception of evolutionary sociology from Spencer’s. The sociology 
of Pareto also bears a relation to Parsons’ 1937, The Theory of Social Action. Clearly, 
Parsons had read Pareto very closely indeed, as the sections devoted to the latter in 
the 1937 text demonstrate, and there are significant features of Parsons’ own system 
that many commentators might trace to the influence of Pareto. Nonetheless, it is 
important for us to pose the question: who now reads Pareto? We should be thankful 
that Alasdair Marshall, the author of the volume to which this is the preface, has been 
reading Pareto, and I invite the reader to engage with his work to ascertain in what 

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Series Editor’s Preface
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ways and to what ends, and with what successes, that rereading of Pareto in the light 
of contemporary questions has been carried out.
If we can adapt a Paretian principal, once used in welfare economics, we can 
say that if at least one person benefits from Marshall’s work and no one else is 
adversely affected that the author will have achieved a ‘Pareto-improvement’! 
Actually, Marshall’s book will have more of an impact than that, and more than one 
person or discipline will be affected, especially because it seeks to build bridges 
between contemporary political psychology and Pareto’s classical writings and does 
this through bringing aspects of Pareto’s psychology into analytical alignment with 
psychoanalytic literature and the results of much empirical work. The application of 
Pareto’s sociological ideas to the collected data, including a survey of Westminster 
MP’s, involves working with psychometric testing – not a procedure with which all 
sociologists are familiar, let alone completely comfortable, especially those more 
familiar with the interpretative traditions in classical sociology. All in all, therefore, 
Marshall’s book is a challenging dialogue with a classical sociological thinker 
which raises important methodological issues and is an example of how classical 
sociological texts are being approached by a new generation of scholars.
With this volume our series begins to fulfil its ambition of including work that 
brings attention and reassessment to classical authors who can be overlooked in 
the history of sociology or who have not received recent critical attention to the 
detriment of the discipline or the analysis of specific areas of substantive enquiry. 
Previous volumes in our series of Rethinking Classical Sociology have had for their 
subject matter the work of Marx, of Weber and of Durkheim – names commonly 
associated with the classical tradition whose status need not be questioned. I am 
pleased, therefore, that this volume considers the legacy of Pareto. 
I would like to broaden the question of who now reads Pareto? I would like to 
ask: why should we read the sociological classics? The sociological classics can 
be read for a variety of purposes – both grudgingly and with enthusiasm no doubt  
– and hence the answer to the question is not singular. I only comment on a few 
approaches given limitations of space. We have yet to publish a volume that deals 
directly with questions of method in treating classical sociological texts, so I hope 
my remarks may stimulate others to take on a book-length investigation of these 
important methodological issues. The latter would also consider the ‘how?’ of re-
reading classical sociology as well as the ‘why?’
Pareto’s work has been of importance to sociology at different times and 
in various respects since the publication of his Trattato di sociologia generale
(1916) written some 8 years before his death. For example, the study of elites 
(and their circulation) owes a good deal to Pareto, and the Hawthorne studies of 
workers and all the work that followed in its wake is also a Paretian legacy. And, as 
already noted, Talcott Parsons gave Pareto considerable attention in the watershed 
publication,  The Theory of Social Action. No doubt additions could be made to 
the list. The point is that one reason for reading Pareto as a sociological classic is 
because later developments in sociology cannot be understood without knowing 
Pareto, and his work needs to be understood if an informed appreciation of those 
uses – their successes and false starts – is to be made. The study of the sociological 
classics here is justified in a fashion that renders the field of classical sociology 

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