Vilfredo Pareto's Sociology : a Framework for Political Psychology

Vilfredo Pareto’s Sociology
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Some postmaterialist theorists follow the early ideas of Ronald Inglehart (who is 
probably the most influential theorist of this school) by understanding this change 
in humanistic psychological terms as involving the conquest of those fundamental 
material needs which form the base of Abraham Maslow’s ‘needs hierarchy’. For 
Maslow our ‘lower order needs’, or ‘deficiency needs’ consist firstly of physiological 
needs, then safety needs, then belongingness needs, and after that, esteem needs. 
Once deficiencies arising within each of these areas have been overcome, we 
become free to address our ‘higher order needs’ or ‘growth needs’. These begin with 
needs for knowledge and understanding, and for aesthetics, but then extend higher to 
include ‘self-actualisation’ and ‘self transcendence’. Self actualisation refers to self-
cultivation towards the fulfilment of individual potential, whilst self transcendence, 
the pinnacle of human achievement, involves concern for others and other-centred 
behaviour. Hence self-transcendence bears close comparison with that condition 
of ‘free conscious production’ found in the works of the young Karl Marx, which 
understands creative productivity as prosocially motivated, yet only possible when 
labour overcomes alienation and material scarcity.
Other postmaterialists, who are less keen to assume that human development has 
a particular teleological structure, have chosen to follow Inglehart’s later work. They 
rely upon a safer, less psychologically specific ‘scarcity hypothesis’ which holds that 
‘one places greatest objective value on those things that are in relatively short supply’ 
(Scarbrough in Van Deth and Scarbrough (ed.) 1995, 124–125). Hence, although 
postmaterialists disagree over humanistic psychological theory, they all contend that 
individuals who grow up experiencing ‘formative security’ during their early years 
will later tend to concern themselves much more with abstract issues relating to 
the overall quality of life than with more immediate and concrete issues relating to 
personal security and well-being within the daily environment. Ultimately then, the 
Postmaterialist contention is that as societies grow wealthier, and as formative security 
propagates throughout the modal socialisation environment, heightened concerns 
regarding abstract quality of life issues will draw people together in co-operative 
political endeavours (Scarbrough in Van Deth and Scarbrough 1995, 125). This 
iterates a strand of humanist thought which is commonly thought to have its origins 
in Aristotle, for whom the condition of happiness or flourishing (eudaimonia) results 
from a sharpening of reason and virtue through participation in the public affairs of 
the city state. Interestingly, this link between political partipation and humanistic 
flourishing finds support in Fowler’s (2006) finding that altruism is positively related 
to voter turnout. We might further contend that as these ‘postmaterialist’ individuals 
have not experienced crisis or scarcity, they may well exercise less caution when 
confronted with risk on both personal and political levels. 
Postmaterialist theory thus provides a basis for understanding why there should 
be, as Pareto’s sociology proposes, a general link between a society’s level of wealth 
and the preparedness of its citizens to engage in risk-taking. Moreover, this allows 
us to hypothesise a broader contrast between the risk-tolerant ‘postmaterialist value 
orientation’, which can be understood as a product of relative freedom from material 
scarcity, and its exact opposite, the risk-averse conservative-authoritarian crisis 
orientation. This possibility does find some support in Abramson and Inglehart’s 
(1995) finding that postmaterialist values wither during periods of economic instability. 

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Pareto’s Psychology
113
The following chapter will include a short measure of postmaterialism
8
 within the test 
battery used to assess Pareto’s model. Results will show that postmaterialist value 
orientation correlates solidly with several indicators of liberal personality. This will 
confirm that postmaterialist theory could well hold the key to Pareto’s link between 
liberal personality and tolerance of risk. 
So far, then, this section has investigated various theories which explain why 
people should vary in their levels of willingness to take risks. It has, however, so 
far neglected the question of whether psychometric evidence is able to confirm that 
risk-taking can legitimately be treated as a general individual difference. Dahlbäck 
(1990) provides a short review of evidence which reveals no consensus. Only weak 
or non existent relationships, he says, have been found between psychometric 
measures of risk-taking (Slovic 1992; Kogan and Wallach 1964; Weinstein and 
Martin 1969; Steiner 1972; Jackson, Hourany and Vidmar 1972; Knowles, Cutter, 
Walsh and Casey 1973; MacCrimmon and Wehrung 1985). Such findings support 
the contention of Mary Douglas, Aron Wildavsky and other cultural theorists who 
believe that the psychometric approach to risk neglects to consider that we encounter 
risk indirectly through cultures which emphasise certain risks and downplay others. 
Douglas’ classic argument is that our individual orientations towards risk come 
‘culturally primed’. Our cultures define risk not just to make us aware of the objective 
risks we face but also to uphold social structures, often by affirming the values 
which support these structures. Risks are ‘politicised’ in the sense that our cultures 
direct our attention towards certain risks in ways which help social structures resist 
threatening influences. Such politicisations, Douglas maintains, draw heavily upon 
our individual psychological orientations towards ‘impure’, ‘polluting’ threats to 
our bodies. When individuals, groups, or indeed specific hazards are identified on 
political levels as polluting, this can activate our individual orientations towards 
dirt, pollution, impurity, and the like, such that we then serve as guardians of social 
structure by fearing and aggressing against whatever threats are symbolically 
imbued with these characteristics (Lupton 1999). Hence we become like sniffer 
dogs, forever patrolling boundaries, quite unaware of dangers growing within the 
premises we guard. It follows from this cultural theory perspective that individual 
orientations towards risk are likely to be conditioned by a range of not just cultural 
but also psychological variables including submissiveness, pliability, conformity, 
and indeed our preparedness to draw upon those reserves of anger and fear from 
which we construct our disgust responses to polluting influences.  
Yet we may still usefully explore orientations towards risk on a purely 
psychological level. Dahlbäck mentions that some personality psychologists 
(e.g. Eysenck and Eysenck 1977 1978) have concluded that a general individual 
difference spanning risk-aversion and risk-proneness is real. He also explains his own 
8  Inglehart’s widely used forced choice questionnaire contains only four items and asks 
respondents to select their first and second priorities. Item A is ‘Maintain order in the nation’, 
item B is ‘Give people more say in the decisions of the government’, item C is ‘Fight rising 
prices’ and item D is ‘Protect freedom of speech’. Responses combining (A) and (C) are held 
to indicate a materialist orientation; those comprising (B) and (D) are held to indicate a ‘post-
materialist’ orientation (Van Deth and Scarbrough 1995, 129).

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