Vilfredo Pareto - New World Encyclopedia sociology The General Sociological Directory, published in 1916, is Pareto’s great sociological masterpiece. He explained how human behavior can be neatly reduced to residue and derivation. People act on illogical emotions (residue) and then invent justification (derivation) for them.
derivation In Pareto’s theory, what he calls derivation is the ostensibly logical justification that people use to rationalize their essentially illogical and emotion-driven behavior. Pareto lists four principle categories of derivation:
- Derivation of claims
- Authority derivation
- derivation consistent with general sentiment and principles.
- Verbal proof derivation
The first of these is a statement of a dogmatic or aphoristic nature, e.g., the maxim, “Honesty is the best policy.” The second type of authority is an appeal to people or concepts that are held in high regard by tradition. Quoting the opinion of one of America’s founding fathers on a topic of current interest is a Class II derivation. Third is to appeal to “universal judgment,” “popular will,” “the best interests of the majority,” or similar sentiments. And finally, the fourth relies on various verbal gymnastics, metaphors, allegories, etc.
Thus, derivation is merely the content and form of the ideology itself. But it is that residue that is the real underlying problem, the particular cause of the squabbling that leads to “the elite’s circulation.” That underlying residue, he believed, was the only proper object of sociological inquiry.
residue A residue is an illogical emotion rooted in people’s basic desires and impulses. He classified residues into six classes. All of these classes are present but unevenly distributed among people, so that the population is always a heterogeneous and differentiated mass of different psychological types.
The most important residues are Class I’s “bonding instinct” (innovation) and Class II’s “collective sustainability” (conservation). Class I is the rule by trickery type, calculating, materialistic, and innovative; Class II is the rule by force type, bureaucratic, idealistic, and conservative. The political nature of man is not perfect, but is constant throughout history” (Pareto 1916).
For a society to function properly, there must be a balance between these two types of individuals (Type I and Type II). To illustrate this point, Pareto cited the examples of the emperor Wilhelm I, his vizier Otto von Bismarck, and the Prussian adversary emperor Napoleon III. Wilhelm was rich in Class II residue, and Bismarck was typical of Class I. Alone, perhaps neither would have accomplished much, but together they were a giant in 19th century European history, each supplying what the other lacked.
Pareto’s social theory argued that there is a tendency for the ruling elite class to return to a state of equilibrium in which there is a balance between first and second class people. People always tend to move in and out of the elite, thereby restoring a natural balance. If an elite is too polarized, it can be replaced by another elite.
If there are too many Class I’s in the ruling elite, it means that there are violent and conservative Class II’s at the bottom, itching to take power when the Class I’s are too cunning and corrupt, ultimately leading to their downfall (he regarded Napoleon III’s French and Italian “pluto-democratic” (he regarded the “pluto-democratic” regimes of Napoleon III’s France and Italy as such examples). If the ruling elite is composed mostly of Class II types, it will be a bureaucratic, inefficient, and reactionary mess, easy prey for the calculating and upwardly mobile Class I (e.g., Tsarist Russia).
At the social level, according to Pareto’s sociological scheme, residue and derivation are the mechanisms by which society maintains equilibrium. Society is viewed as a system:
A whole composed of interdependent parts. The “material points or molecules” of a system are … Individuals affected by social forces characterized by certain or common characteristics. … When an imbalance occurs, a reaction occurs, whereby equilibrium is again achieved (Timasheff 1967).
One of the most interesting Pareto theories is that there are two types of elites in society: the ruling elite and the nonruling elite. Moreover, the people who make up these elite groups have two distinct mentalities: the “speculator” (speculator) and the “renter” (renter). The speculator is a progressive, class I residue-filled type, while the renter is a conservative, class II residue type. In a healthy society, there is a natural tendency for these two types to alternate in power.
For example, if speculators devastate the government and enrage a large portion of the population with corruption and scandal, conservative forces will come to the fore and replace them in one form or another. This process is cyclical and more or less inevitable.
Even Pareto admitted that humanitarianism, liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism, etc., were all the same in the end. All ideologies are really just “smokescreens” imposed by “leaders” who aspire only to enjoy the privileges and power of the ruling elite (Alexander 1994).
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