SOURCE: "Pareto and Fascism Reconsidered," in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 19, No. 4, July, 1960, pp. 399-411.

[In the following essay, Jaffe reconsiders the basis for Pareto's reputation as a fascist ideologue.]

From time to time various writers have linked the name of the Italian economist and sociologist, Vilfredo Pareto, with fascism. He has been portrayed by some as the ideological father of fascism ("Marx of the bourgeoisie"), by still others as a precursor of fascism. Accordingly, it would seem well systematically to appraise Pareto's work, especially as it relates to fascist ideology. Here we will attempt this task, singling out four aspects of his work: first, his anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism; second, his quasi-biological theory of the elite third; his vilification and hatred of democracy; and fourth, his glorification of force as an instrument of rule.

A good many definitions have been advanced for fascism. Most of them have reflected their authors' procliv ity for some particular theory seeking to explain the rise of fascism, theories ranging from the revolt of the middle class to the domination of the militaristic caste. Here we will treat fascism broadly, referring to it primarily in terms of the regimes that characterized Italy under Mussolini and Germany under Hitler.

I

PARETO's ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM AND ANTI-RATIONALISM

Central to Pareto's theoretical work is his conception of logical and non-logical actions. By logical actions Pareto means those actions which use means appropriate to ends as judged by logic and experience. They are actions determined by some real aim. He singles out scientific and economic activities as illustrative of such actions. Although Pareto does not explicitly include the well-considered struggle for political power in this category, nevertheless it can be surmised from his work that he so included it.

Non-logical actions, on the other hand, are those actions which do not use means appropriate to ends. They are actions opposed to science, to economic activities and to the real interests of the individual as interpreted by experience and logic. As Pareto views non-logical actions, they are determined simply by some impulse which is inaccessible to any further explanation. Thus non-logical actions, since they do not use means appropriate to ends, and since they are governed by some unexplainable impulse, are essentially irrational. According to Pareto, non-logical actions overwhelmingly predominate in social life; thus in the last analysis human behavior is irrational. And it is against rationalism which Pareto directs his thrusts in the three early chapters of Mind and Society.

In short, Pareto perceives man as an irrational and non-logical entity propelled onward by mysterious, mystical impulses which are inaccessible to explanation. Except for certain economic and scientific activities and the struggle for political power on the part of his elites, he denies to man the ability to act with some real aim or to use means appropriate to gaining his ends. Man is a bundle of irrational sentiments and instincts. And as we shall see, the sentiment and instinct glorified by Pareto above all others, as indicative of strength, virility and excellence, was brute force—force used by an elite as an instrument of gaining and exercising power.

Pareto's theory of non-logical actions is in profound agreement with the trend prevailing in fascist movements and regimes against intellectualism and in favor of vigorous and natural sentiments. It found expression in official fascist ideology, and more particularly and importantly it was carried into practice. Lederer in his study of fascism characterizes it as revering the irrational, exalting the élan vital, idealizing the hero and glorifying its own self-proclaimed destiny. Borkenau points to such attributes of fascism as its emphasis upon uncontrolled sentiments, its acceptance of authority instead of rational consideration, its eulogy of activity in the place of thought, its unconsidered acceptance of a few meta-physical principles taken for granted, its rejection of any "problems" not solved by its official axioms, and its banishment of rationalism from the most important spheres of human life. Fascism was indeed the logical fulfillment of Pareto's system from its militant anti-rationalism to its limitation of the rational to science, and we might add to the science and technology of war, to economics with its corporate states and managed economies, and to the fascist struggle for political power.

Eberstein summarizes the anti-intellectualism and antirationalism of fascism in these words:

… obedience, discipline, faith and a religious belief in the cardinal tenets of the Fascist creed are put forth as the supreme values of a perfect Fascist. Individual thinking along independent lines is discouraged. What is wanted is not brains, daring ideas, or speculative faculties, but character pressed in the mold of Fascism.

A similar situation existed in Germany. Anti-rationalism, anti-intellectualism and the favoring of vigorous and natural sentiments, when carried to their logical culmination, are epitomized by a fascist regime. It is reflected in its purging of the faculties and student bodies of anti-Fascist elements, its gang attacks on the persons and homes of prominent educators, its hounding and persecution of intellectuals, its loyalty oaths, its militarization of the universities and schools, its racist ideologies and the burning of books.

Perhaps had Pareto lived longer than 1923 he would have himself revolted at this phenomenon because although he disliked political liberty he loved economic and intellectual liberty. But be this as it may, it has nevertheless been true that in contemporary democratic history political liberty has been inextricably bound up with economic and intellectual liberty. This, to be sure, is a contradiction in Pareto's thinking, and is evidence which can be used to buttress our later conclusion, that although Pareto cannot be characterized as a fascist, he can best be understood as a precursor of fascism. For the logical fulfillment of Pareto's thought would be that system which has since become known to us as "fascism."

Pareto was likewise contemptuous of intellectuals, who are a frequent source of his sneers and barbs. No one can read Pareto without feeling this antipathy. He identifies intellectuals with that group in which Class I residues predominate, a group he characterizes as weak, degenerate and reluctant to use force. At one point he writes:

The "intellectuals" in Europe, like the mandarins of China, are the worst of rulers, and the fact that our "intellectuals" have played a less extensive role than the mandarins in the conduct of public affairs is one of the many reasons why the lots of European peoples and the Chinese have been different, just as it explains in part why the Japanese, led by their feudal chieftains, are so much stronger than the Chinese.

II

PARETO's THEORY OF THE EUTES AND THEIR CIRCULATION

The second great cornerstone of Pareto's theoretical system is his theory of the elites. Except in a number of secondary aspects, this theory is an independent body of concepts distinguished from his other work. Thus there is no serious obstacle to discussing these two aspects separately. The extent of Pareto's indebtedness to Gaetano Mosca, Italian sociologist and author of The Ruling Class (1896), for his ideas concerning elites remains considerably clouded in controversy.

Pareto's theory of the elites can be summarized as follows: People in any society are characterized by differentiated innate abilities, from which there arises domination of one group by another. The group which dominates possesses a special talent for ruling, a talent which is a natural, quasi-biological fact. This group is the elite. They exhibit natural, biological traits which are lacking in the masses.

Pareto differentiates between two types of elites, the speculator and the rentier. These two terms are not used in the literal sense of the word, although the choice of terms is one of many cases where Pareto's violent passions appear behind his quiet formulae. In this instance, the "speculator" is evaluated as the least desirable of the two. Governments with speculators in power are characterized by many democratic features, features for which Pareto periodically indicates his hatred and contempt. The speculators, according to Pareto, are a weak lot who rule by cunning and cleverness rather than by might and force (the methods esteemed by Pareto). Humanitarians and intellectuals are likely to be found in such governments, which only serves to intensify Pareto's hostility.

The rentiers, on the other hand, are a virile, vigorous group, as contrasted with the weak, cowardly, humanitarian speculators. They are not afraid of force and violence, which are their chief instruments of rule. Found in this group are the conservative industrialists, the bureaucrats, the real rentier and like groups, all of which are jumbled together.

These elites rotate in power. The rule of the one cannot last forever, since, according to Pareto, there is no new influx of fresh blood into the ruling group, admission to it being barred. In the long run, the ruling group contains an increasing percentage of unfit members as it fails to draw the innately talented from the masses. In effect, as Meisel points out, we have no way of judging the relative superiority or inferiority of an elite other than the factual one of success.

Pareto further traces the division of society into the elite and the ruled to an inherent residue or instinct, namely "the sentiment of hierarchy." Included in this category is the "sentiment of superiors" and the "sentiment of inferiors." In short, Pareto makes his division between the ruled and the rulers one which ultimately rests upon certain mystical, unexplained instincts of a biological character.

The parallels between Pareto's thought in this connection and fascism are striking. The fascist parties of Germany and Italy laid claim to being an elite. Hitler declared the National Socialists to be "racially the most valuable section of the German nation," a party which "represents an elite, a natural aristocracy." In his speech in Nuremberg on September 16, 1935, Hitler asserted that the National Socialist Party must see to it "that all Germans are ideally educated to be National Socialists; that the best National Socialists become Party members; and that the best Party members take the lead in the state." In short, there must be exclusiveness and hierarchy.

Inextricably tied to this notion of the elite is that of the leader or hero. Palmieri in his The Philosophy of Fascism (a work bearing the seal of the fascist "Dante" organization and endorsed by Mussolini) gives a clear and articulate writes: insight into the fascist definition of the "hero." He writes:

Fascism holds, in fact, that the State must be a social, political, economic, moral and religious organism built as a pyramid at whose vertex is the national hero, the greatest man of his time and his nation, and leading to this national hero by an uninterrupted series of continuously widening powers arranged in hierarchies.

The hierarchy becomes thus the very essence of Authority and the hierarchical arrangement of Society its truest expression in the world of man.

Indeed, this is the logical culmination of Pareto's system. Here is the epitome of the "elite," with lesser men of the elite grading down from the hero in hierarchical order.

Still again Palmieri writes:

The day may come, perhaps, and we all sincerely hope and pray for it, when all men will be heroes, but at the present stage of human evolution, let only the greatest among the great rule and govern, because he sees deeper and further than we shall ever be able to see, because he knows what we shall never be able to know, because he is gift from God.

In Germany, likewise, the supreme authority of the Fiihrer appears again and again in the writings and propaganda of the Nazi.

To those who object that the quotations cited point to the worship of a hero and not to a ruling elite as Pareto perceived it, it might be well to recall the following words of Pareto:

The governing class is not a homogeneous body. It too has a government—a smaller, choicer class (or else a leader, or a committee) that effectively and practically exercises control.

Fascism is the logical culmination and fulfillment of Pareto's thought in practice, fascism with its exaltation of the hero, with its elite of the party, in particular the officialdom, and with its Italian Black Shirts and German S. A. (Stormtroopers—Sturm Abteilung) and S. S. (Schutz Staffel—Himmler's Black Shirts), the elite of masculinity. It is the embodiment not alone of the elite, but of the elite most desired by Pareto, those who have no humanitarian or democratic compulsions about the use of force and violence.

And like Pareto, Palmieri sees the elite as constituted by a special sort of men, men endowed with special biological talents:

Vainly we offer knowledge, education, wisdom to the common man. He cannot benefit of our offer. Mother nature dotes her human children very sparingly of the higher gifts of intelligence, understanding, spirituality. Once in a long time she gives birth to Buddha, a Confucius, a Plato, a Jesus, filling the whole world with visions of a high life opening its realm to the access of man.

III

PARETO's ANTIPATHY TO DEMOCRACY

As Borkenau aptly puts it: "Pareto's sociology is first and foremost a violent manifesto against democracy; and assertions as to its scientific character change nothing in that respect." At the very core of Pareto's work is a most violent, passionate hatred and contempt for democracy, and with it humanitarianism, as the central deity of Pareto's despised Pantheon that includes all the "modern Gods"—Progress, Tolerance, Universal Suffrage, Pacifism and Women's Rights. He seldom mentions these terms without indicating a sneer or hurling a barb. In particular he had a mortal fear of socialism and believed that society stood on the brink of a trade union despotism.

Against democracy Pareto exalted authoritarianism, traditionalism, patriotism, military spirit and physical courage. Disparagingly he refers to "… the devout democrat who bows reverent head and submits judgments and will to the oracles of suffrage, universal or limited, or what is worse, to the pronouncements of parliaments and legislatures, though they are known to house not a few politicians of unsavoury reputations."

Singled out for special vilification are parliamentary forms of government. These too are condemned as modern Gods in these terms:

The ancient Romans credited the gods with the success of their Republic. Modern peoples attribute their economic betterment to corrupt ignorant, altogether contemptible parliaments.

Pareto repeatedly hammers away at the plutocratic character of modern democracy, in which corruption and bribery reign supreme.

The following expression by Pareto of his sentiments on parliamentary systems is not too distant from that of Mussolini:

A governing class is present everywhere, even where there is a despot, but the forms under which it appears are widely variable. In absolute governments a sovereign occupies the stage alone. In so-called democratic governments it is the parliament. But behind the scenes in both cases there are always people who play a very important role in actual government. To be sure they must now and again bend the knee to the whims of ignorant and domineering sovereigns or parliaments, but they are soon back at their tenacious, patient, never-ending work, which is of much the greater consequence.

Mussolini writes:

Democratic regimes may be described as those under which the people are, from time to time, deluded into the belief that they exercise sovereignty, while all the time real sovereignty resides in and is exercised by other and sometimes irresponsible and secret forces.

Similar sentiments are expressed by National Socialist writers for whom democracy, parliament, stupidity and cowardice became synonymous terms. "How nice must it be," Hitler writes, "to hide one's self behind the coatskirts of a so-called ' majority' in front of all real decisions of some importance!" Alfred Rosenberg referred to democratic rule as "Massen-vernebelung" (translation: causing fogs through a dull mediocrity of plebeianism) and equated democracy with money-rule: "Democracy is not the rule of character, but of money."

Some of us may object that some of these expressions are to a degree actual, realistic characterizations of the functioning of parliamentary systems. But the question then arises, if this is indeed the case, what is the answer? The democrat and the fascist would respond quite differently, the fascist calling for the destruction of parliament, and here Pareto, Mussolini and the National Socialists are in agreement. Not alone in word but in action the fascists moved. By 1928, Mussolini, by virtue of the Laws of May 17th and September 2nd, robbed parliament of all functions through which it reflected the will of the people. Hitler upon coming to power quickly moved in a like direction.

Turning again to Palmieri, we find strong shades of Pareto in this statement:

Fascism recognizes therefore at the outset that Democracy cannot be realized and that whenever and wherever it has been tried, it has degenerated sooner or later into an oligarchy of tyrannical autocrats—be they military, as of old, or financial, as of modern times.

To a bastard form of social and political organization [democracy—JVZ], which like all bastard things, cannot last because of its inherent falsehood, Fascism substitutes a genuine life-enhancing organization sprung from the recognition of the fundamental truth of life: the truth that the mass of men is created to be governed and not to govern; is created to be led and not to lead, and is created, finally, to be slaves and not masters: slaves of their animal instincts, their physiological needs, their emotions, and their passions.

Alas, in this statement by Palmieri, we find a striking similarity with Pareto's thought—from the vilification of democracy, to the glorification of the elite, and to the blind irrationalism of instincts, needs, emotions and passions. Nor does Palmieri neglect in the course of his work to vent his wrath upon Progress, Universal Suffrage and the other gods of Pareto's Pantheon of abuse and ridicule.

IV

PARETO's GLORIFICATION OF FORCE

Pareto makes the utilization of force in the acquisition and maintenance of power his chief criterion of a vigorous, virile elite. He was firmly convinced that force was a much more useful instrument for a sound society than parliamentary democracy. He exalted political suppression as a necessity for social stability, and was critical of the reluctance with which it was employed by contemporary governmental authorities.

Pareto viewed the slaughter and pillaging attendant upon revolution as a healthy phenomenon. Slaughter and robbery were perceived as "signs that those who were called upon to commit them deserved power for the good of society" and "… slaughter and rapine are external symptoms indicating the advent of strong and courageous people to places formerly held by weaklings and cowards."

Pareto was alarmed lest the speculator-type governments of his day (that class which has "contributed to the triumph of the regime that is called democracy [and might better be called pluto-demagogic]") would prepare the ruin of their respective nations. And why the alarm? Because the speculator elite was "divesting the class of individuals who are rich in Class I residues and [who] have an aptitude for using force." Nor had Pareto any use for humanitarians, at one point calling upon the rentier elite to kill them as no better than "a baneful animal pest." Elsewhere Pareto laments the fact that:

… the notion is coming to the fore that an existing government may make some slight use of force against its enemies, but no great amount of force, and that it is under all circumstances to be condemned if it carries the use of force so far as to cause the death of considerable numbers, of a small number, a single one, of its enemies; nor can it rid itself of them, either, by putting them in prison or otherwise.

And Pareto believed despotic governments showed the right instinct when they outlawed all independent associations of their subjects.

Pareto's ideal of rule based upon force found its embodiment in the fascist regimes of Europe. "Certainly a government needs power, it needs strength. It must, I might also say, with brutal ruthlessness press through the ideas which it has recognized to be right, trusting to the actual authority of its strength in the State." Violence was glorified and extolled and the governments were premised upon its systematic use. Ashton writes: "From the castoroil therapy invented by Mussolini's lieutenants to the beatings within an inch of the victim's life, which for some time were a regular feature in Hitler's concentration camps, arbitrary seizures and bodily maltreatment of prisoners characterized the known instances of Fascist rule."

Fascism was conceived, born and reared in force and violence, in the Italian Black Shirts, in the Nazi S. A., S.S. and Gestapo (Geheime Staats Polizei), in the murder and assaults upon political opponents and intellectuals, in the extermination of millions of Jews, in concentration camps, in the militarization of the youth, and in the culminating stage—in an aggressive imperial program. In a word fascism was characterized by terror. Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany were the realization in actual life of Pareto's thought.

V

PARETO's RELATION TO FASCISM

As Borkenau points out, Pareto's sociology can best be understood as simply a political manifesto in scientific guise. It is a philosophy of society, a social creed, determined mainly by violent political and ever purely personal passions. The logical fulfillment of this political manifesto is fascism. The chief ingredients in Pareto's work, his anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism, his theory of the elite, his militant hatred and contempt for democracy and his glorification of force, reached then-logical culmination in Hitlerite Germany and Fascist Italy.

It is questionable, however, if Pareto can be viewed as the intellectual father of fascism. It would be more correct to suggest that Pareto was himself a product of the same political, economic and social forces and the intellectual climate which gave birth to fascism. As Bernard De Voto observes, "… to find Fascist dogma in the Traité [The Mind and Society] itself is equivalent to finding defense of the Immaculate Conception in Willard Gibbs's Statistical Mechanics, or a tract on Christian Science in Newton's Principia." In fact, it is questionable whether any one individual can be singled out as the ideological father of fascism. One of the earliest acts of Mussolini upon coming to power was to call for the writing of a philosophical work laying the ideological basis for fascism. Fascism unlike Communism never had its Communist Manifesto, its Das Kapital, or its State and Revolution prior to coming to power. Perhaps Germany was the exception with Hitler's Mein Kampf, but fascism was already in the ascendancy in Italy.

What can be said with greater accuracy is that fascism drew upon and was the intellectual heir of Machiavelli and the neo-Machiavellian writers, of the German Storm and Stress literature with its appeal to violence and passion and its disdain for rule and reason, of Nietzsche and Sorel, of Gobineau and the racists, and of writers in similar veins. And in this category Pareto must be included. The insistence by Mussolini that his mind was shaped by Pareto as a student at Lausanne and his offer to Pareto of numerous honors prove less that Pareto was the intellectual father of fascism than that Mussolini was desperate to rig up a respectable intellectual lineage for his own fascism. In this sense Pareto can best be understood as a precursor of fascism.

Little can be said regarding Pareto's attitude toward the fascist regimes as he died on August 19, 1923, less than a year after the advent of fascism in Italy. However, the available evidence points to the fact that Pareto welcomed fascism only hesitatingly. Borkenau characterizes the matter as follows:

In the first years of his rule Mussolini literally executed the policy prescribed by Pareto, destroying political liberalism, but at the same time largely replacing state management by private enterprise, diminishing taxes on property, favouring industrial development, imposing a religious education in dogmas, which he did not himself believe in. Moreover, Pareto was loaded with the highest honours available. He was designated as a delegate to the Disarmament Conference at Geneva but excused himself on account of his poor health; this was indeed a fact, but he perhaps utilized it as a pretext as well. Then he was made Senator of the Kingdom of Italy and a contributor to Mussolini's personal periodical Gerarchia. Here his scientific career with its many contradictory views finished on a characteristic note. Praising the government of Mussolini for its achievements he at the same time asked for liberty of opinion, liberty of university teaching and pronounced a warning against any alliance with the Papal See.

Reflected in this analysis are some of the contradictions that characterized Pareto's thought. But it is interesting to note that these contradictions were resolved in practice not in a democratic, but in an authoritarian direction. This is seen as well in Pareto's reaction to a series of Royal Decrees, drastically cutting down governmental expenses and suppressing a number of offices, which appears in the April 1923 issue of Gerarchia. There had been much discussion about the "legality" or "illegality" of these measures. Pareto took the position that measures of this sort could not be carried out through the normal workings of parliamentary institutions, yet they were necessary for the safety of the country; in any event, the pre-Mussolini governments had been equally guilty of "illegal" acts which, instead of benefiting the country, brought it to the verge of disaster.

The source of the contradictions in Pareto's thinking can perhaps best be understood in terms of Pareto's social position as it has been analyzed by Max Lerner. Lerner views Pareto not as a spokesman for the middleclass revolt against capitalism as has sometimes been asserted. Pareto despised the indecisiveness, the humanitarianism, the democracy and the mass religions of the middle class. Nor does Lerner believe that Pareto can be viewed as the theorist of the capitalist bourgeoisie in the Marxian sense. Rather his theoretical work is consistent with his position as a member of a family of Genoese merchant princes whom Bonaparte elevated to the nobility.

Lerner concludes:

Thus, the essence of Pareto's position is that of a capitalist-aristocrat who despises democratic equalitarianism and who seeks within capitalist society the more exclusive and traditional forces that will renew its vigor and steel its resistance to the proletarian thrusts.

and

His book seeks to evoke a policy in which the older aristocracy will come back to strengthen a decadent capitalist elite, and together the landed aristocracy, the rentier class, the army, and the most militant of the industrialists will carve out their world. They will sweep plutocratic democracy aside, suppress the proletarian rabble, and replace the false humanitarianism of the middle class by derivations from real group persistences.

In summary, Pareto can best be understood as a precursor of fascism. In particular, four main aspects of his work stand out conspicuously in this regard: first, his intense anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism; second, his quasi-biological theory of the elite; third, his militant vilification and hatred of democracy; and fourth, his glorification of force as an instrument of acquiring and maintaining power.