Alasdair J. Marshall – författare

This collection examines the work of the Italian economist and social theorist Vilfredo Pareto, highlighting the extraordinary scope of his thought, which covers a vast range of academic disciplines. The volume underlines the enduring and contemporary relevance of Pareto's ideas on a bewildering variety of topics; while illuminating his attempt to unite different disciplines, such as history and sociology, in his quest for a 'holistic' understanding of society. Bringing together the world's leading experts on Pareto, this collection will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of sociology and social psychology, monetary theory and risk analysis, philosophy and intellectual history, and political science and rhetoric.

Vilfredo Pareto is a key figure in the history of economics and sociology. His sociological works attempted to merge these two disciplines through a psychologistic analysis of society, economy and politics. This is the first book to rethink Pareto's contribution to classical sociology by focusing upon its psychological underpinning. The author locates the origins of Pareto's psychologistic approach both within the history of Italian thought and within Pareto's own experiences of business and politics. He evaluates Pareto's sociology through the lens of contemporary social science, examining whether its explanatory power is growing rather than diminishing as levels of social and epistemological complexity rise. The volume also explores Pareto's assumptions about personality through the lens of contemporary psychology. It concludes with a psychometric study of Westminster MPs which clarifies and attests to Pareto's contemporary relevance, and indicates that even practitioners of politics may gain much from reading Pareto.

This collection examines the work of the Italian economist and social theorist Vilfredo Pareto, highlighting the extraordinary scope of his thought, which covers a vast range of academic disciplines. The volume underlines the enduring and contemporary relevance of Pareto's ideas on a bewildering variety of topics; while illuminating his attempt to unite different disciplines, such as history and sociology, in his quest for a 'holistic' understanding of society. Bringing together the world's leading experts on Pareto, this collection will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of sociology and social psychology, monetary theory and risk analysis, philosophy and intellectual history, and political science and rhetoric.

Assessing Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological reworkings of Machiavelli’s Fox and Lion animal spirits as friend-enemy codings, this book offers a unique insight into the growing division today between relatively liberal elites and relatively conservative non-elites.Re-Reading Pareto on Elite Power and Societal Bipolarisation utilises key ideas common to Pareto’s elite theory, general sociology and theory of demagogic plutocracy, and fleshes out a unique perspective for making sense of contemporary societal bipolarisation in terms of friend-enemy codings. The first part of the book explores what Pareto’s core ideas are and outlines why they matter today. The second part considers how we might elaborate and apply Pareto’s concept of ‘open elites’ to reverse contemporary societal bipolarisation and build safer and more mature democracies. The third part explains how we can apply Pareto to predict further deterioration towards fundamental social conflict – such that Pareto’s sociological imagination becomes risk imagination we desperately need today.For academics and students across the domains of sociology, political science and social science in general, the book warns of widespread elite-institutional bias in their research and points to Pareto’s neutral and balanced approach as a corrective – offering a uniquely Paretian view of minimal criteria for democracy, as well as a uniquely balanced analytical perspective for making sense of our ‘culture war’.