Vilfredo Pareto
Vilfredo Pareto Federico ( born Wilfried Fritz Pareto, born July 15, 1848 in Paris, † August 19 1923 in Celigny, Canton of Geneva ) was an Italian engineer, economist and sociologist. He is considered the Lausanne school of neoclassical economics and became known as the founder of welfare economics a name. The Pareto distribution, the Pareto, the Pareto optimality and the Pareto principle are named after him. He then turned to sociology and worked on the subjects of critique of ideology, political system change ( revolution, evolution) and elite circulation.
Life
Pareto was born in 1848 in Paris as Wilfried Fritz Pareto. His parents were Marquis Raffaele Pareto, one of a Genoese merchant family entstamme contemporary Italian refugee and supporters of Mazzini, and the French Marie Méténier. His name Wilfried Fritz, he was alluding to the German revolution of 1848 / 49th The Pareto family moved in 1858 to northern Italy back.
1870 closed Pareto his studies as an engineer at the Politecnico di Torino. He worked for a railroad company, then for an iron smelter. In 1889 he married the Russian Alexandra Bakunin. In 1890 he took up the correspondence with Maffeo Pantaleoni, then director of the business school in Bari, later a professor at the universities of Rome, Naples and Genoa.
In 1893 he was appointed to the Chair of Economics at the University of Lausanne. He took over the successor of the highly mathematically oriented Léon Walras. There he became a co-founder of welfare economics. In 1896, Pareto discovered that the distribution of income no normal distribution; Rather, he recognized that it is usually quite wrong. According to him, the Pareto distribution is named.
In 1898 Pareto then turned to sociology. In 1901 he moved to Céligny on Lake Geneva, where he died on 19 August 1923.
Sociological work
Vilfredo Pareto, an absolutely ruthless and cutting, as well shiny formulated Direction analyst who is considered - along with Max Weber - as one of the sociologists of the utmost importance that established a non-Marxist sociology. His scientific- technical methodology is clear in his works until the end. He published his first works in French, later becoming more common in Italian.
Theory of Action
Much attention is Pareto's critique of ideological phenomena. He distinguishes between (six) residuals ( inductively determinable mental motivation complexes ) an act which is - for him - can no longer be split, and derivations ( sham- logical explanation of an action ). (Later Pareto's concept of " derivation " in psychology has been taken up with the term " rationalization ". ) Raymond Boudon understand Pareto's concept of non-logical action as an indication that sociology should go beyond the narrow concept of economists of rationality.
Elites
The theory of elites is at the core of his theory: In the " elite" he is at first a ( value-neutral ) functional concept of " the best" in an action category - this could be for him politicians or scholars, athletes or courtesans. "Elite" thus refers not only to political rulers. Occasionally he used synonymously the term " aristocracy ". Pareto understands history in general and without exception as a graveyard of aristocracies: the change of elites and thus the conditions of an evolutionary or revolutionary political rule change he describes with great precision. An "elite" is always, but never replaced at Pareto in revolutions only by a "reserve elite" of a mass; regardless of a new elite convene like mass or claims to belong. There is a sentence like the people is a typical Derivation (sham logical explanation ) for him.
According to Pareto, it is a fact that people differ physically, morally and intellectually. He divided the society in first two layers:
- The upper class or elite ( the best lawyers, politicians, doctors, musicians, writers, engineers, the richest, etc. ) according to the criterion rule, the elite further divided into: ruling ( directly or indirectly share in the government )
- Not ruling ( for example, the best chess player)
- Only nominally associated ( merely inherited, erschummelte, etc. membership )
- The earnings by associated, that is, related according to the required properties
Criticism
Pareto is considered inclined frequently than Italian Fascism. This is related to an assessment by the Italian economist Pareto and convinced fascists Luigi Amoroso together in the Giornale degli Economisti which Pareto designated as fascists. Therefore, Pareto is still regarded partly as an important precursor of Fascismo. Benito Mussolini saw in him an excellent teacher. However, this is controversial; as was, for example, Max Weber, a Caesarian shaping of democracy, but with a strong Parliament, much more open to.
Marxists, many Pareto parallels can be stated to their ideology- critical approaches, disliked his cynical and skeptical trains them as well: Pareto was a " Marx for citizens." Erwin Faul writes in his book The Modern Machiavellianism (1961, p 259) on Pareto: [D ] eat sociological writings act as a culmination of the modern political disillusionment.
Gert Albert sees in Pareto's theory of action by combining an externalist with an internalist component a " hermeneutic positivism ".
Writings (selection )
- (German ) General Sociology, translated by Carl Brinkmann, Mohr, Tübingen 1955, ISBN 3-89879-144-0