SOURCE: "Vilfredo Pareto: Sociologist or Ideologist?," in The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1966, pp. 21-38.

[In the following essay, Lopreato and Ness dismiss the view of Pareto as a forerunner of modern fascist ideology.]

In the history of science it has often happened that a scholar's ideas are denied full recognition because ofthat scholar's real or assumed connection to some controversial ideology. The position accorded to Vilfredo Pareto is one illustration of such practice in present-day sociology. This scholar is often said to have been a "Newton of the Moral World," or altogether a fascist ideologist. So Faris informs us that "The book [The Mind and Society] formulates the implicit philosophy of Italian Fascism, advocating the right of the strong to take what they want without apology or appeal to moral principles." In tracing the development of social thought, Bog ardus devotes an entire chapter to "Pareto and Fascist Thought," and authoritatively argues that "While fascism has some of its roots in Nietzsche's concepts and other roots in Machiavellianism, yet Pareto's ideas come even closer to giving an adequate basis." Zanden, in turn, interprets Pareto's sociology to be "a philosophy of society, a social creed, determined mainly by violent and ever purely personal passions. The logical fulfillment of this political manifesto is fascism."

We need not continue further; analogous affirmations are bountiful in the literature. To be sure, not all sociologists accept this view, but to date little or no systematic effort has been made to resolve the controversy, with the result that many students of sociology are unwitting victims of one of the most cruel intellectual hoaxes perpetrated against their discipline and one of their kind. The present paper proposes to offer a clarification with respect to the alleged connection between Pareto's sociology and fascist ideology. Our approach takes us in two major directions: first, an examination of Pareto's Treatise, his chief sociological work, and second, an examination of a series of letters written to his great friend Pantaleoni during the period when fascism was a political reality in Italy.

Before proceeding to present our argument, it may be useful to inquire briefly about the meaning of "fascism," as his critics tend to use that word. A rapid glance at the literature reveals that the following are generally believed to be among the chief characteristics of fascist ideology: distrust of reason, a code of behavior based on "race" and violence, belligerent nationalism, government by an elite, and totalitarianism. Characteristically, these then provide the basis for accusing Pareto of "antirationalism," "anti-intellectualism," "contempt for democracy," and approval of the use of force at all costs. The major portion of this paper will be concerned, therefore, with explicating Pareto's position on these four issues. We shall begin by considering Pareto's alleged antirationalism.

PARETO's "ANTIRATIONALISM"

Although it is difficult to determine the exact source of this label, it appears to us that fundamentally it is rooted in a widespread misunderstanding of Pareto's analysis of human conduct. It will be recalled that in analyzing human action, Pareto uncovers three major types: the logical, the nonlogical, and the illogical. To act logically in Pareto's sense would be to select, consciously and deliberately, goals which are not metaphysical or impossible, and then to take the appropriate steps as dictated by logic and scientific experience, toward reaching those goals. Other types of actions, on the other hand, originate chiefly in "psychic states, sentiments, and subconscious feelings"; they are actions in which men often use entirely inappropriate means, according to the criteria of logico-experimental science, to achieve their goals.

Pareto argues that much of human behavior is nonlogical. Because of this fact, the social scientist must pay particular attention to the role of nonlogical actions if he is to understand the social phenomenon. The conclusion, however, cannot be drawn (as it often is) that because Pareto emphasized the significance of nonlogical actions he was an antirationalist. He did not distrust reason or even suggest that men are totally incapable of rational behavior. On the contrary, in his search for "scientific truth," Pareto strongly argued that it was a product of man's reasoning power. Indeed, within this context, his positive emphasis on rationality includes the important desideratum of "freedom of inquiry." Thus,

before a theory [and this includes ideologies] can be considered true, it is virtually indispensable that there be perfect freedom to impugn it. Any limitation, even indirect and however remote, imposed on anyone choosing to contradict it is enough to cast suspicion upon it. Hence freedom to express one's thought, even counter to the opinion of the majority or of all, even when it offends the sentiments of the few or of the many, even when it is generally reputed absurd or criminal, always proves favorable to the discovery of the objective truth.

Statements such as these (which are legion in the Treatise) have strangely escaped the attention of Pareto's critics, especially those who might profit from a consideration of what such statements imply for fascist or any other totalitarian ideology. What has not escaped their attention, however, is Pareto's scientifically merciless critique of the pseudological theories of what he called "the worshippers of the Goddess Reason," namely those luminaries of Western thought who have emphasized "reason," "free will," and such other metaphysical concepts. As A. G. Keller once said of Pareto, "it is hard to call to mind any other critic who has nailed more hides stripped from such oracles [as Rousseau] to the barn door."

There is no one, to our knowledge, who has attempted to prove Pareto wrong in this connection. Many of his critics have merely reacted to him as if he were an iconoclast, committing an abominable heresy. Thus, his argument that nonrational behavior is more prevalent than heretofore suspected is translated by them into "antirationalism," but what they are really doing is to object to an intellectual posture contrary to that of Rousseau, Aristotle, and the like.

There is, however, one sense in which Pareto might be called an antirationalist, and that is in the sense that he was forever skeptical of all rationalizations and pseudo-logical explanations of human behavior. In Pareto's view, "human beings have a conspicuous tendency to paint a varnish of logic over their conduct." Accordingly, he constantly probed this "varnish of logic," or "derivation" as he called it, attempting to uncover and clarify the fundamental forces behind human behavior. But assuming a skeptical attitude does not make one an antirationalist in any sense attributed to Pareto by his critics. This form of skepticism, as Merton among others has pointed out, is an integral part of a truly scientific approach, and "the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue."

There is another and related respect in which Pareto might conceivably be called an antirationalist, although in this case we would prefer the term "irrationalist" in order to avoid the insidiously ideological connotations of the former term. Here we enter more directly the realm of the sociology of knowledge. According to Hartung, an irrationalist is one who, lacking the criteria for determining the validity of a doctrine of the existential determination of thought and action, is forced to resort to intuitive understanding in order to apprehend knowledge. In this sense, Pareto's theory of the "sentiments" or "residues" may be said to be irrational. It may be recalled that for Pareto these theoretical elements imply no psychological processes, but are "abstractions" or convenient make-shifts which help the observer to organize social facts, just as these suggest the residues to him. But the isolation of the residue is an act of intuition precisely because, as an "abstraction," it does not refer the scientist to an actual phenomenological unit of reality. In this sense, however, to be an antirationalist is in no particular way blameworthy, and Hartung correctly puts Pareto in the company of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Mannheim himself.

PARETO's "ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM"

We would maintain that the criticism of antirationalism advanced against Pareto results from a misunderstanding of his general intellectual position. It is no accident that, in an attempt to prove Pareto an antirationalist, several critics have argued that he was contemptuous of intellectuals. They have failed, however, to appreciate the connotations of the term "intellectual" as Pareto uses it. Specifically, they have confused his attitude toward the "intellectual" with his position on what we might call "intelligent" activity in general. This problem, too, is very closely related to Pareto's discussion of the three major types of conduct mentioned above. His often forceful critique of intellectuals is directed only toward those "so-called intellectuals" who are inclined to explain social phenomena in terms of derivations rather than residues. Hence, throughout the Treatise the term "intellectual" is placed in quotation marks to suggest the real nature of many of those who imagine themselves to be critical, objective thinkers. About these Pareto had this to say:

A … judgement may be passed upon the work of our "intellectuals" as leading to few results that are beneficial and to many that are very bad; because, from the standpoint of sentiments, they shut their eyes to realities as the latter stand reflected in many sentiments that they condemn from failure to grasp their role in society; and because, from the standpoint of logico-experimental science, they reason not on facts but on derivations, and from the latter draw, by a logic inopportunely thorough-going, inferences that are altogether at war with the facts.

So, for instance, in discussing "sentiments of equality" Pareto argues, in a fashion familiar to most present-day students of social stratification, that the "sentiment of equality … is not related to any abstraction, as a few naive ' intellectuals' still believe," but to direct interests of individuals who are bent on escaping certain inequalities not in their favor, and setting up new inequalities that will be in their favor, this latter being their chief concern. What happens in the concrete is that people agitate for equality to get equality in general, and then go on to make countless distinctions to deny it in the particular. "Equality is to belong to all—but it is granted only to the few."

If Pareto sometimes seems to be unduly forceful in his criticism of "intellectuals," it is because he thinks that as self-appointed practitioners of social science they should make a greater effort to divorce the residue from the logico-experimental fact. But instead, as he states in his discussion of the residue of "hunger for combining residues," in "intellectuals" this impulse goes beyond the ordinary. So it is that they make one general blend of "well-being," "the true," "the good," "the broadly human," and "solidarity," forming a "simple complex" gratifying as a whole to their sentimentality. The complex then may acquire an independent existence, and in some cases may even be personified as Progress, Democracy, Reason, and the like.

But even in view of this argument, is Pareto completely opposed to such "intellectuals"? The answer is very much in the negative. On the contrary, he holds that even the wildest and most untenable speculations often perform the very useful function of leading to the discovery of real facts and scientific laws. Indeed, "if one were to assert that but for theology and metaphysics experimental science would not even exist, one could not be easily confuted. Those three kinds of activity are probably manifestations of one same psychic state, on the extinction of which they would vanish simultaneously." He found it worthy of note, however, that an "intellectual," like Theodore Roosevelt, despite his tenuous knowledge of the historical and social sciences, was able to keep audiences spellbound at the universities of Berlin and Cambridge, which conferred on him the title of Doctor honoris causa, while the French Institute of Moral and Political Sciences elected him a corresponding member. Pareto recognized that the public attentions showered on Roosevelt were to a certain extent logical actions, in the sense that they were intended to obtain favors from him, but they were anchored in "the feeling also that a man who is competent in one thing is competent in every-thing." Since Pareto's days this phenomenon has come to be known as the "halo effect," and considerations of it produce no particular cries of anti-intellectualism. In Pareto's sociology, the phenomenon is classified among the derivations of "authority."

We must, therefore, conclude that Pareto was not at all an anti-intellectualist in the derogatory sense in which this term is most frequently used. There is, however, one respect in which Pareto may properly be judged an antiintellectualist, but this is a methodological question that should excite no strong reaction on the part of his critics. As Parsons has fittingly noted, the problem again arises because of Pareto's particular position on the distinction between logical and nonlogical action. Setting out from the vantage point of the methodology of positive science, Pareto argues that "theories" accompanying logical action can be understood in their own terms. That is, a theory in this context is a scientifically verifiable explanation of the actions to which it refers. Such is not the case with theories that are grounded in nonlogical action. Here Pareto has found it necessary to introduce the notion of "state of mind," which is the real independent factor in the theory, and which must be clearly distinguished from the theory as a manifestation of the state of mind. This is to say that the explanation of the theory must be sought by reference not to it as an intellectual product but to the "psychic state," the pre-intellectual and amotivational state of the individual who advances the theory. In effect, what we have here is a crude typology of theories into what we might call "intellectual" ones, being those which are of a logico-experimental character, and "pre-intellectual" ones (though not anti-intellectual) referring to those that are of a sentimental nature. Pareto may be judged an anti-intellectualist only in the sense that he focused on "pre-intellectual" as well as "intellectual" theories.

THE USE OF FORCE IN SOCIETY

Perhaps the most frequent, and at the same time the least justifiable, criticism leveled against Pareto would have us believe that Pareto "approves the forceful tactics of the conservative ' lions' who do not hesitate to use the most ruthless means to keep themselves in power." From such a position it is an easy step to say that Pareto provided the intellectual justification for the fascists, and more disastrously, for the Nazis. Thus it is, according to Zanden, that "Pareto's ideal of rule based upon force found its embodiment in the fascist regimes of Europe.… his glorification of force reached [its] logical culmination in Hitlerite Germany and Fascist Italy." This author then goes on to argue that

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."

Unfortunately, this author is badly misinterpreting or altogether misrepresenting Pareto. In fact, Pareto did not judge "slaughter and pillaging" a "healthy phenomenon": he merely argued that such phenomena should not be judged superficially, and that the sociologist, qua analyst of what today we call the "latent functions" of social phenomena, should consider the possibility that "slaughter and pillaging" are "manifestations—as regrettable as one may wish—of sentiments, of social forces, that are very salutary." But the question of whether or not the use of such force is a healthy phenomenon is entirely problematic for Pareto, "for there is no relationship of cause and effect, nor any close and indispensable correlation, between such outrages and social utility"(—emphasis provided). Moreover, if such correlation exists, it can be ascertained only through a strict functional analysis. Formally speaking, the correlation exists only in those cases in which the "utility" would be a "manifest function" directly linked to an intended "state of equilibrium" in a given system. Thus, for instance,

when a governing class divests itself too completely of the sentiments of group-persistence, it easily reaches a point where it is unfit to defend, let alone its power, what is far worse, the independence of its country. In such a case, if the independence is to be deemed an advantage, it must also be deemed an advantage to be rid of a class that has become incompetent to perform the functions- of defence (—emphasis provided).

Rebus sic stantibus, the careful, unbiased, and dispassionate reader will notice that there is no question of Pareto's "approving" the use of the most ruthless force in society. The use of force may have positive functions only under special circumstances. Never, however, does Pareto take an ideological position in this respect. The closest he comes to doing so is when he considers the type of utility that may properly be called societal: specifically, when he considers the question of order and "protection of the citizen" in the society. In this connection Pareto appears to some to be arguing in favor of the type of ruling elite that is capable of using force to maintain itself in power. This is, however, a totally unwarranted interpretation of his position, for his focus is not on power maintenance per se but on social order. To be sure, power maintenance by the ruling elite is a crucial expression of social order, but one must understand that, for Pareto the continuing maintenance of power depends also upon the circulation of the elite. For the most stable, the most effective, and the most legitimate ruling elite is that which is open and allows a free flow of talent into it from the governed masses.

That Pareto's focus is ultimately on social order and citizen protection should be readily evident; otherwise, we could not explain the fact that his strongest theoretical commitment to the use of force occurs when he focuses on the governed masses vis-à-vis the ruling class, a fact, incidentally, that Martindale fails entirely to understand. This fact, in turn, clarifies another that should be kept in mind; the "ultimate good" or utility—if we may speak of such—is not social order per se but rather a political and social organization in which the sentiments of the masses are properly represented. The governed class rebels—and from the viewpoint of collective utility, justifiably—when "the differences in temperament," namely sentiments and values, between itself and the ruling class, "become sufficiently great." In this sense, if it be at all necessary to have recourse to political labels to make our point, it is entirely possible to conclude that Pareto was an "apostle of political democracy" rather than a fascist ideologist.

Two critical observations remain to be made in concluding this section of our paper. First, for Vilfredo Pareto the use of force in society was an inescapable and universal datum, subject to sociological analysis like every other recurrent social phenomenon. To ask whether or not force ought to be used in a society was for him "a question that has no meaning; for force is used by those who wish to preserve certain uniformities and by those who wish to overstep them; and the violence of the ones stands in contrast and in conflict with the violence of the others." Nor indeed is it meaningful to ask whether the use of force in society is beneficial or detrimental unless such a question specifies also the particular aim that the use of force is designed to achieve. And even in such instances, it is never easy to "compute all the advantages and all the drawbacks, direct and indirect" in the society, taken as a collectivity of heterogeneous groups and indi viduals.

Second, in his study of order in society, Pareto, the sociological realist, sought to synthesize the two prevailing metatheories that more recently Dahrendorf has referred to as the "Utopian" or "integration" and the "Rationalist" or "coercion theory of society." As Lopreato has recently demonstrated, Pareto viewed both consensus and coercion as inseparable properties in the function of order maintenance. Pareto's synthesis of the two theories comes about in his discussion of "the use of force in society" in terms of the residues of "individual integrity" and "sociality," particularly the subresidue within the latter class referred to as the "need of uniformity." In its irreducible form, Pareto's argument is as follows. The need of uniformity is not equally strong in all members of a society, for societies are "heterogeneous affairs." Thisx differential potency of the sentiments of uniformity will result in a "number of centers of similarity." But for purposes of facilitating the analysis, Pareto reduces these into "two theologies," "one of which will glorify the immobility of one or another uniformity, real or imaginary, the other of which will glorify movement, progress, in one direction or another." The result is potential, and oftentimes real, conflict between the different "sets," the one trying to extend its own particular uniformity to the other. This tendency to impose conformity is, in turn, related to the class of residues that Pareto discusses under the name of "integrity of the individual and his appurtenances." Specifically, Pareto argues that when a person departs from the common standards, his conduct seems to jar and produces a sense of discomfort in the persons associated with him. As a consequence, "an effort is made to eliminate the jar, now by persuasion, more often by censure, more often still by force."

In conclusion, the basic forces of integration and consensus are also the ultimate causes of conflict and coercion. Indeed, as Lopreato has stated in an analogous context, there is a reciprocal relationship between consensus and coercion that might be expressed in the following terms: just as the requirement of uniformity (and thus consensus) is the ultimate cause of coercion, so the use of force is, in some unspecified degree and for an unspecified period of time, also the cause of consensus; for coercion, as a response to the need of uniformity, tends to strengthen conformity and, therefore, integration and consensus in society.

PARETO AND DEMOCRACY

Before turning to the next and final topic of this paper, in order to more directly answer the question of whether or not Pareto was a fascist, it will be useful to present Pareto's position with respect to "democracy," for it is indubitable that whatever ideological charges are made against him are linked to certain arguments that Pareto wove around this political phenomenon. It has been argued that "Pareto's sociology is first and foremost a violent manifesto against democracy; and assertions as to its scientific character change nothing in that respect."

Pareto was indeed critical of "democracy," but most decidedly he was not against democracy. The problem of interpretation here arises from the fact that while Pareto was concerned with "discovering the substance underlying outward forms," some of his readers have accepted as a definition of democracy that given to it by polities calling themselves democratic. This is to say that, while Pareto operated on the basis of an ideal type of democracy and sought to point out how far actual "democratic systems" depart from that type, those who would accuse Pareto of "totalitarianism" insist on defining democracy with reference to actual "democracies," dear perhaps to their own little hearts.

In discussing "government and its forms," Pareto raises the old question, "What is the best form of government?" and argues, in a manner reminiscent of many contemporary "liberals," that such a question "has little or no meaning unless the society to which the government is to be applied is specified and unless some explanation is given of the term ' best,' which alludes in a very indefinite way to the various individual and social utilities." Unless specifications of this sort are clearly made, statements about the best form of government as well as the relative worth of various political doctrines, "religions," or "faiths," "have not the slightest experimental validity," although this does not "in any way impugn the utility to society with which [they] may be credited."

But what is the exact meaning of the term "democracy"? Pareto asks. In view of its vagueness, let us turn to the facts that it covers. One observes at the outset a pronounced tendency on the part of modern countries to organize governmental forms in which (1) "legislative power rests largely with an assembly elected by a part at least of the citizens," and (2) a tendency predominates "to augment that power and increase the number of citizens electing the assembly." By way of exception, there are also cases in which the legislative powers of the elective assemblies tend to be limited. Such, for instance, is the function of the popular referendum in Switzerland and the federal courts and the presidency in the United States, so that "the power of the legislative assembly varies all the way from a maximum to a minimum." But when all considerations are made, and

Ignoring exceptions, which are few in number and of short duration, one finds everywhere a governing class of relatively few individuals that keeps itself in power partly by force and partly by consensus of the subject class, which is much more populous. The differences lie principally, as regards substance, in the relative proportions of force and consent; and as regards forms, in the manners in which the force is used and the consent obtained.

Indeed, whatever the form of government, the rulers are inclined to use their power "to keep themselves in the saddle, and to abuse it to secure personal gains and advantages." Moreover, "behind the scenes" there are always people, invariably "at their tenacious, patient, never-ending work," who play a very important role in actual government. "King Demos, good soul, thinks he is following his own devices," but from the days of Aristotle down to our own, he has always been effectively "bamboozled."

In view of these arguments, a careful examination of Pareto's thought will reveal that his attacks—if such they were—were directed only against a particular form of democracy. His position in this respect is analogous to his position on "science," which more often than not refers only to a mixture of magico-religious practices, often engaged in to "exploit the poor in spirit under the kindly eye of the legislator." The superficial reader might, then, infer that Pareto, "the scientific fanatic," also had a peculiar aversion to science! The truth is that Pareto's "aversion" to "democracy" was based on the conviction that "democracy" hides despotism under policies and acts of fraudulence and deception. But does this mean that Pareto was against democracy in principle? The answer is forthright and unambiguous. In a moment of enthusiasm, Pareto did set forth, in a footnote, a value judgment which revealed his personal preference concerning political systems, but which has remained strangely unnoticed by those who would have us believe that he was anti-democratic. It is difficult to imagine a "fascist sympathizer" writing this:

The best government now in existence, and also better than countless others that have so far been observable in history, is the government of Switzerland, especially in the forms it takes on in the small cantons—forms of direct democracy. It is a democratic government, but it has nothing but the name in common with the governments, also called democratic, of other countries such as France or the United States.

Now the serious scholar may, of course, disagree with Pareto's analysis of democracy, but it is difficult to find anywhere in Pareto's work "a violent manifesto against democracy."

PARETO AND THE FASCIST PARTY

Let us now conclude by raising an historical question. Pareto lived scarcely ten months after fascism came to power in Italy. Did he, during this period, say or do anything that justifies the label of "fascist" frequently pinned upon him?

Surveying the literature on Pareto, we find that, in the concrete, his reputation as a fascist rests largely on the fact that early in 1923 he was appointed to the Italian senate. Typically, it is maintained that "in accepting the honor [of senator], Pareto showed himself not averse to the fact that this doctrine provided the perfect intellectual justification for Fascism." But on what grounds would we be justified in condemning Pareto, or any other scholar, for lending his services (if this had been the case) to a government in the very period of its birth? Have students of political phenomena achieved the level of theoretical development that will permit them to predict the future behavior of newly arisen political leaders as well as the direction of the government they represent? How many present-day "liberals," we must ask, would have made common cause with die Bolsheviks against the "tyranny" of the Russian Czars.

Any scholar familiar with Italian history must know that the Fascist regime, whatever its later development, was constituted within a context of political chaos. Pareto, or any one else, could have had no way of assessing the political worth of a Mussolini, then a moderate Socialist, other than on the basis that, for the moment at least, he provided a degree of social order and political rationality for his country. When a governing class is incapable of providing its citizens with the protection that it was allegedly organized to give, the plain probability is that any new governing class will constitute an improvement. Yet it is of the utmost importance to remember that for Pareto the greater utility of the new class would not last forever. Eventually, this class too would be corrupted, would lose its utility, and would consequently give way to still another class, which in turn would do likewise. Indeed, the victory of Italian fascism in 1922 constituted for Pareto a validation of his theory of elite circulation and, what is better still, the expression of a theoretical prediction come true. Writing to his friend Pantaleoni, on August 11, 1922, Pareto could say:

When I was writing the Treatise, no one foresaw Fascism; and yet I demonstrated how a historical uniformity [law] has it that, when a government neglects the protection of the citizenry, private forces emerge and take over. Was I not right?

Indeed, the failure of the pre-fascist ruling class in Italy seemed so evident to Pareto that he was convinced that ten men of courage could at any time march on Rome and put to rout the clique of "speculators" that were filling their pockets and leading the collectivity to economic and political disaster. When, therefore, the "March on Rome" was smoothly consummated, Pareto was able, as Livingston correctly points out, to "rise from a sick-bed and utter a triumphant Ί told you so!'—the bitter exultance of the justified prophet, not the assertion, and by far, of a wish."

But let us now consider the circumstances under which Pareto became a "Fascist" senator. One could hardly say that these included genuine sympathy for Mussolini and his party. On June 17, 1921, Pareto had written to Pantaleoni:

I am pleased to learn that your great trust in the Fascists has now abated. Try to understand that, as I have always told you, they will not be a party till they have an ideal, a myth, a program.… As to Mussolino [spelling intended to recall the Calabrian brigand to mind], remember what I said when you were last here.… He is a busybody.

Just the same, considering the existing alternatives, Mussolini appeared to Pareto to be "a statesman of more than common merit," but he did wonder if Mussolini would succeed in "getting rid of the rubbish of his followers." Furthermore, Pareto, the eternal skeptic, argued that "economic and financial problems are not solved with hymns and cries of ' Long Live Italy' [Viva l' Italia!]."

The plain fact is that neither Mussolini nor fascism received Pareto's favor. Pareto had little or no faith in politicians and parties of any kind. In being approached with political honors, time and again he expressed a desire to be left alone to his studies. Mussolini, however, was not a man to be refused. His insistence on this score can be best illustrated by reference to a letter by Pantaleoni, in which this scholar writes to Pareto, "Mussolini is obsessed with the idea of our being senators, together with Corradini, Martini, and the Bishop of Trento. But can you not see the black balls? … Tell me, whom have we not attacked?"

At the time of his death, Pareto had indeed accepted a royal appointment to the Italian senate, but the senator-ship was bestowed upon him with an insistence and a perseverance that defied any protestation on his part. When the official channels came to naught, Mussolini was clever enough to turn to more informal and disarming techniques by approaching Pareto through the agency of dear and trusted friends. Eventually he gave in, but it is important to know his reasons. Writing to Pantaleoni on December 23, 1922, Pareto stated:

… you must know that time and again I begged them ["the friends"] to drop the whole matter [of his appointment to the senatorship]. They may have believed that my refusal was one of those that are not truly intended. Please tell them that on the contrary it is genuine, sincere, and represents my deepest intention. [Finally] I said that I would accept a purely honorary appointment, without stipend (about this I am inflexible). The idea of a Fiuman senator [strictly speaking, Pareto was not an Italian] who lives in Céligny is ridiculous, but it is not ridiculous for a scholar—whatever his nationality or residence—to do whatever he can for a country.

What conclusions can be drawn from all this? Pareto accepted the principle that a scholar should render a service to the collectivity, and he was fully aware that Italy could use such service; but he knew full well that he would not render it. He was a sick man and had no intention of leaving his beloved Switzerland. Furthermore, he had deep misgivings about the possibility of ever leading a peaceful and comfortable life in Italy. Writing to Pantaleoni on May 22, 1921, he had complained thus:

If I returned to Italy, I should be compelled to go hunting grasshoppers for a living.… And then I fear that my cats would incur the hatred of union leaders, or of the Fascists, and would be killed like vile human beings. But tell me: do you not see in the newspapers that there is not a day without murders and woundings? In Switzerland, one does not see such things.

Considering "Senator" Pareto a fascist without considering the circumstances and the time of his appointment would seem to amount to the kind of "mud-slinging" that social scientists should be particularly diligent to avoid. Beyond this, there is still an important question to be answered, one which further reveals the injustice and the uncritical character of Pareto's critics. Let us take his senatorship as given and examine the advice and warnings Pareto gave to the fascist regime.

We find immediately an incessant, relentless insistence on those very aspects which democratic governments purport to foster, and which the fascist regime went on to utterly neglect. In numerous newspaper articles, interviews, and letters Pareto fought for freedom of speech, restrictions on the use of force, freedom of coalition, and the abolition of racial prejudice. Thus, in the very letter in which he explains to Pantaleoni his reluctant acceptance of the "honorific title," he writes:

In Italy one can already see signs—albeit very slight—of a future less good than what could be hoped for. The danger of the use of force consists in slipping into abuse.… It would be especially unfortunate to limit freedom of thought, even if factious! Let the government of Napoleon III and innumerable similar cases be a lesson.

On May 17,1923, Pareto warns that "To govern is the art of acting on the basis of prevailing sentiments." In July, 1923, while admitting the apparent benefits of fascism at the time, he warns against the "abuse of force," "oppressive and arbitrary actions," restrictions on "freedom of the press" and "foreign adventures." On January 10, 1923, he had added to these the warning against restrictions on "economic syndicalism."

Concerning the question of "foreign adventures," already in the Treatise, Pareto had isolated "appeals to patriotism" as a cause of war. Furthermore, he had made a statement, concerning European colonialism, that could hardly be pleasing to Mussolini, or distasteful to his critics, if they had bothered to read it. Pareto wrote:

… if an Englishman, a German, a Frenchman, a Belgian, an Italian, fights and dies for his country, he is a hero; but if an African dares defend his homeland against any one of those nations, he is a contemptible rebel and traitor. So the Europeans are performing a sacrosanct duty in exterminating Africans in an effort to teach them to be civilized.… With a hypocrisy truly admirable, these blessed civilized peoples claim to be acting for the good of their subject races in oppressing and exterminating them, indeed so dearly do they love them that they would have them "free" by force.

And what about the question of racial prejudice? Here is an interesting example of Pareto's intellectual sanity, his deep sense of justice, his boundless objectivity. Having received from Pantaleoni an antisemitic book, he writes to his friend on May 22, 1921:

Have you become antisemitic? Once, if I do not err, you were Dreyfusard. There are those who accuse the Jews of all manner of evils; others so accuse the Masons, still others accuse the clericals (once they were called Jesuits), or the militarists, the Socialists, the reactionaries, and so forth. The only truth in all this is that men are inclined to form cliques in order to seek an advantage at the expense of others.

Pareto never compromised with the facts, as he saw them, even at the cost of chastising in a superior and condescending way his very best friend. And he saw the facts as a detached, objective, skeptic thinker.

CONCLUSION

It should by now be clear that no political label for Vilfredo Pareto would have a valid basis. The social phenomena that attracted his attention were analyzed sociologically rather than ideologically. As James Burnham, once a student of Marx, has rightly and dispassionately observed, Pareto tried "merely to describe what society is like, and to discover some of the general laws in terms of which society operates." The advancing of knowledge without consideration of its consequences is a methodological view intrinsic to the institution of science in general. Students of social phenomena may disagree with this scientific ethos, but it behooves them not to chastise Pareto for political views he never held, or for political actions which he himself would never have condoned.

To ignore or condemn Pareto is convenient, but it is also naive and irresponsible. We hold that this would be true even if Pareto could indeed be considered, in some degree, an ideologist. To accept Pareto spiritu et corde would be scientifically fruitless and dangerous, but no serious scientist can ignore or condemn one of his kind because he does not approve of his political attitude or some aspects of his theories. Yet—we emphatically reiterate this point—Pareto's political attitudes cannot be reprehensible simply because, as a sociologist, he expressed none. His dispassionate analysis may have been misinterpreted, but as Sidney Hook, himself hardly a fascist, has aptly stated,

Many of Pareto's doctrines [could not] be defended in Italy or Germany without bringing their professors into concentration camps. No matter how many honors Mussolini may have heaped upon Pareto in absentia, any talk about Pareto being the ideologist or prophetic apologist of fascism is sheer poppycock.