Vilfredo Pareto vs Marx

Question 1

what is a pluto-democracy

Answer 1

According to Pareto, the term to describe many European societies in his time refers to societies governed by the rich. (hybrid state)
- societies were mechanisms for the elite to rule over the masses (politically, economically, military, corporate and other members of the elite).

Question 2

Who said, “Aristocracies do not last, History is a graveyard of aristocracies.”

Answer 2

Vilfredo Pareto

Question 3

“Legal violence is the consequence of the norms established in a society, and in general resort to it is more beneficial or at least less harmful than resort to private violence”

Answer 3

Pareto - The Use of Force in Society

Question 4

What is a derivation?

Answer 4

non-logical theories that people use to explain what they believe to be doing when engaging in non-logical ways of behaviour.
- accepted on the basis of emotions and feelings
- attempt to hide realities

Question 5

What was Pareto critical of?

Answer 5

• the legacy of the Enlightenment
• view of that social change is motivated by rational ideas like Reason, progress, or desire for liberty
• He believed most social action (exception of science and strictly economic behaviour is driven by irrational sentiments and that mankind deludes itself to the real causes of social and historical change.

Question 6

What does Pareto mean by demystify social life?

Answer 6

• unmasking the realities behind the appearances of social life.
• show that most powerful systems of abstract thought had influenced the course of human history or helped shape society were inspired by underlying impulses and irrational sentiments. (everything is not real)

Question 7

Did Pareto believe in democracies?

Answer 7

No. “a government of the people, by the people and for the people” any society that claimed such a title was fooling itself.
- or actually the elite were fooling the masses.
- dismiss as utopian the idea of working class liberating itself, against the “nature of things”
- Marx naive to deny the natural and inevitable tendency of elite domination

Question 8

What is the circulation of elites? Pareto KC

Answer 8

• theory of regime change
• cyclic theory of the periodic rise and fall of political elites, or ruling dynasties.
• some rules through coercive force and harsh methods of social control (hard power)
• others manipulation, deception and cunning (soft power) ie: foxes

Question 9

What is the persistence of power?

Question 10

What is the Pareto rule?

Answer 10

• 80 percent 20 percent rule
• 80% of an output will be produced by 20% of the population
• aka law of the vital few

Question 11

Pareto’s typology of social action?

Answer 11

1. Logical action
2. Non-logical action
3. illogical action

Question 12

Elements of Non-logical action

Answer 12

sentiments: basic psychological drives, deep seated impulses, biological urges

residues: tangible effects of sentiments, manifested sentiments, directly observed, described

derivations: social actors that offer logical reasons, motives, causes and other pretexts to explain and justify peoples actions in society.

Question 13

How many kinds of sentiments?

Answer 13

1 Residues - 6 classes
2 Derivation - 4 classes

Question 14

Social circulation

Answer 14

Foxes (speculators): inclination to combine things, maintain their power through diplomacy and skillful manipulation
- innovation, calculation, imagination etc.

Lions (rentiers): group persistence / persistence of aggregates

Question 15

group persistence

Answer 15

• devotion to duty
• protection of national honor
• defence of trad. institutions

Question 16

what is historical materialism? Marx KP

Answer 16

theory of history and society
- focus for human history should be on how communities and societies make their livelihood and produce their subsistence (mode of production)

Question 17

what is mode of production?

Answer 17

• the way a society is organized to produce its own subsistence and livelihood
• primitive = hunting and gathering
• ancient = slavery
• feudal = agriculture
• industrial capitalist = machine production
• develops its own political and cultural superstructure
• analyzed though forces and relations of production
  ** influences all aspects of social life

Question 18

what did Marx mean by false consciousness?

Answer 18

• the inability of members of a social class to correctly identify their position in relation to other classes (esp. dom class)
• social classes of society accept the ideology of the ruling class even when their own interests are structurally opposed to those of the ruling class

Question 19

what is alienation? Marx KP

Answer 19

• those who labour (work) for their livelihood, lose control over the products of their labour and the conditions of their work. (sell themselves)
• workers alienated from the products, other workers and themselves
• evolved into economic concept of “exploitation”

Question 20

what is exploitation?

Answer 20

• process where the surplus value is extracted from the worker during commodity production.
• more than term of moral condemnation
• hidden mechanism that wealth is accumulated in capitalist society

Question 21

What is class struggle?

Answer 21

• not as the same as today
• division b/w those who owned and controlled the means of production and those who owned nothing except their own ability to work for a living.
• ownership vs non-ownership of economic resources