Pareto, Wilfredo

Wilfredo Pareto was born July 15, 1848 in Paris in the family of the Italian marquis, a native of the port city of Genoa , forced to emigrate because of his liberal and republican convictions. Pareto's mother was French, and from childhood he was equally fluent in Italian and French , but all his life he felt himself primarily Italian.

In 1858, the Pareto family returned to Italy. There, Wilfredo begins to study and simultaneously receives a classical, humanitarian and technical education. At the same time, he pays great attention to the study of mathematics.

After graduating from the Polytechnic School in Turin, Pareto in 1869 defended his thesis "Fundamental Principles of Equilibrium in Solids". This topic is perceived as an omen, given the important place of the concept of equilibrium in his subsequent economic and sociological works. After graduating from the University of Pareto, for several years he held rather important positions in the railway department and in the metallurgical company.

In the 1890s , he made an unsuccessful attempt to engage in political activities. At the same time, he was actively engaged in journalism , reading and translations of classical texts. In the first half of the 90s, Pareto publishes a number of studies in the field of economic theory and mathematical economics. From 1893 until the end of his life, he was a professor of political economics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland , replacing the well-known economist Leon Walras in this position.

In the last year of Pareto's life, a fascist regime was already established in Italy . Some prominent figures of this regime, and above all Mussolini himself, considered themselves to be students of the Lausanne professor. In this regard, in 1923 he was awarded the title of Senator of Italy. Pareto expressed restrained support for the new regime, while urging him to be liberal and not to limit academic freedoms.

Pareto died on August 20, 1923 in Celigny ( Switzerland ), where he lived the last years of his life; there he was buried.

According to Pareto, society has a pyramidal structure , on top of which there is an elite - leading a social force that directs the life of the whole society. In his work, Pareto was skeptical of democratic regimes, calling them “plutodemocratic” or “demagogic plutocracy, ” believing that there is a universal law in political life in which the elite always deceives the masses.

The successful development of society, however, is possible only with timely updating of the elites, which was understood by Pareto, in the concept of “circulation of elites” put forward by him, as absorption and inclusion of the most mobile representatives of non-elites or counter-elites into the elite by directive “ election from above ” by the ruling elite. Otherwise, according to his concept, society will face stagnation and replacement, as a result of the revolution, of the old elite with the new ^{[5] [6]} .

Simplified statement of law:

The time spent on the implementation of the plan: 20% of the labor is realized by 80% of the result, but the remaining 20% ​​of the result requires 80% of the total cost.

The law has a very distant relationship with Wilfredo Pareto himself. He died in 1923 , and the name of the law was proposed in 1941 by American quality specialist in honor of one of the works that said that in Italy, 20% of households receive 80% of their income.

• Pareto Curve
• Pareto distribution
• Theory of Elites
• Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Walras - Pareto
• Pareto Efficiency

List of works

• The course of political economy (Cours d'économie politique, 1896 - 1897 )
• Socialist systems (Les Systémes socialistes, 1902 - 1903 )
• Textbook of Political Economy (Manuale di economia politica, 1906 )
• A treatise on general sociology (Trattato di sociologia generale, 1916 )
• A Brief Guide to General Sociology (Compendio di sociologia generale, 1920 )

Publications in Russian

• Socialist systems = Les Systémes socialistes // Theoretical Sociology. Anthology. In 2 parts (Compilation, scientific edition, preface by S. P. Bankovskaya), T 1 - M .: Book House "University", 2002.
• Compendium of General Sociology = Compendio di sociologia generale / Per. A.A. Zotova. - 2nd ed. - M .: Ed. House of the Higher School of Economics , 2008. - 511 p. - 1,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-7598-0573-1 .
• Transformation of Democracy / Per. with ital. M. Yushima. M .: Publishing House "Territory of the Future", 2011. - 208 p.

Bibliography

• Blaug M. Pareto, Wilfredo // 100 great economists before Keynes = Great Economists before Keynes: An introduction to the lives & works of one hundred great economists of the past. - SPb. : Economics, 2008 .-- S. 233-235. - 352 p. - (Library of the Economic School, vol. 42). - 1 500 copies - ISBN 978-5-903816-01-9 .
• Blumin I.G. Pareto Theory // Critique of bourgeois political economy: In 3 volumes. - M .: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR , 1962. - T. I. Subjective school in bourgeois political economy. - S. 826-865. - VIII, 872 p. - 3,200 copies.
• Osipova E.V. Sociological system of Wilfredo Pareto // History of bourgeois sociology of the XIX - early XX centuries / Ed. I. S. Kona . - M .: Nauka , 1979.- S. 309-331. - 6,400 copies.
• Pareto Wilfredo / Dobronravov I.S., Latin I.T. // Otomi - Plaster. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1975. - ( Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ch. Ed. A. M. Prokhorov ; 1969-1978, vol. 19).
• Schumpeter J. Chapter 5. Wilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) // Ten Great Economists from Marx to Keynes = Ten Great Economists: From Marx to Keynes. - M .: Gaidar Institute, 2011 .-- S. 162-205. - 400 s. - 1,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91129-075-7 .

• Vilfredo Pareto Biography at Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty, Econlib