Pareto and Machiavellianism: The Problem and the Errors

Abstract

This chapter considers the work of Vilfredo Pareto. Shifting from the study of engineering to that of economics, he started to study social phenomena broadly defined. Pareto faced a crisis of Italian (and French) democracy, but did not realise that the problems originated from the fact that “limited democracy” was continually under attack by the political class. This stimulated significant episodes of corruption. In a letter of January 9, 1894, Pareto writes: “This is the condition of our homeland now: every liberty has been extinguished apart from that of theft on the part of self-serving politicians and everything is undertaken to extinguish in the minds of the people every upright and honest”.

The problem raised by Pareto was well-known to Mandeville, Montesquieu, Hume and Smith. These scholars had understood that the “government of the law” was the only one able to contain corruption. They understood that, by establishing boundaries between actions, the rule of law stop an individual from damaging another. That is, they understood that the path to follow was the one limiting public and infrasocial power, which is the same path that leads to “limited democracy”. Pareto instead considered that the solution could be found in a strengthening of public power. He embraced the “government of men” rather than that of the law. He very likely reached such conclusion through his engineering approach to economics, which is based on the assumption that individuals in power know the “relevant data” for policymaking. What is more, his theory of the social cycle, which sees “history like a succession of elites characterized by the use of cunning (foxes) and elites characterized by the resort to force (lions), governments marked by skepticism, which mainly make use of deception, and governments based on material force and the force of religious feelings”, is totally misleading. As Norberto Bobbio has written, “Pareto takes an exclusively psychological stance; and, in addition to that, it is a rudimentary type of psychology”.

Appendix: Lasswell in the Trap of Psychologism

Psychologism was damaging for Pareto. And it has also damaged the study of economic, social and political phenomena. To make this even clearer we shall consider the writings of Harold D. Lasswell, who produced a very extensive body of work on which a number of influences converged. While he was still at high school, he came into contact with the works of Marx and Freud. He later studied at the University of Chicago, which at the time counted Robert E. Park, Charles E. Merriam and George H. Mead as members of its staff. Later he was able to spend a number of periods of study in Europe, where he studied the Italian elitists.

In the light of the approach we have so far taken, it is particularly useful to focus on Park, who was director of the Department of Sociology which had been founded by Albion W. Small. Both of these authors had done a great deal to introduce Simmel to the United States. Small had translated and published a number of the German thinker’s texts in the “American Journal of Sociology”.¹³⁰ And Park had been to Berlin, in the 1899–1900 winter semester, where he had attended Simmel’s lectures: that had been “his only formal instruction in sociology – instruction that influenced him and the course of American sociology deeply”.¹³¹ In 1921, in cooperation with Ernest Burgess, Park had collected a number of sociological texts for the use of his students: a selection in which there was a clear prevalence of Simmel’s writings.¹³² The “frame of reference used to organize the readings was largely Simmelian in conception. Park’s impression of Simmel became part of local lore for generations of Chicago graduate students”.¹³³

When he sent off World Politics and Personal Insecurity for printing in November 1934, Lasswell wrote of Park: “it is possible, without binding him to the enterprise, to record my long standing indebtedness to his sagacious insight and my appreciation of his respect for creative interplay between hours of high abstraction and days of patient contact with humble detail”.¹³⁴ In Power and Society too, a book written later in cooperation with Abraham Kaplan, Park remained one of his references.¹³⁵

The cultural context which allowed the shaping of Lasswell’s views was therefore not foreign to Simmel’s analysis and, in any case, provided the elements for a wide-ranging analysis of the social process and the relations of superordination and subordination which it produces.¹³⁶ Lasswell stated that “central throughout are persons and their acts, not ‘government’ and ‘states’. Terms like ‘state’, ‘government’, ‘law’, ‘power’ – all the traditional vocabulary of political science – are words of ambiguous reference until it is clear how they are to be used in describing what people say and do”.¹³⁷ And from here Lasswell reached a broad definition of political science, which “is concerned with power in general, with all the forms in which it occurs”¹³⁸: since “failure to recognize that power may rest on various bases, each with a varying scope, has confused and distorted the conception of power itself, and retarded inquiry into the conditions and consequences of its exercise in various ways”.¹³⁹

Therefore, power is not only what is held by those who have a prominent position inside the state organisation. Nay, political power “is a complex form which presupposes always other forms of power, and though of course it differs from these others in characteristic ways, it has much in common with them”.¹⁴⁰ Consequently, the “power of the state cannot be understood in abstraction from the forms of power manifested in various types of interpersonal relations”.¹⁴¹

So, “speaking of power and the powerful is an ellipsis, leaving out what is perhaps the longest arc of the circle constituting a power relation”, which “is an interpersonal situation; those who hold power are empowered. They depend upon and continue only so long as there is a continuing stream of empowering responses. Even a casual inspection of human relations will convince any competent observer that power is not a brick that can be lugged from place to place, but a process that vanishes when the supporting responses cease”.¹⁴² One must accordingly “recognize as power whatever relationships involve expectation of severe deprivations”¹⁴³; and it is even necessary to include friendships among these relationships, since they comprehend the possibility of the loss of affection, which takes on the shape of a sanction.¹⁴⁴

Lasswell stated that he had been inspired by the pattern which occurs with exchange.¹⁴⁵ This because subjects are involved in a “continuing spiral of interaction”,¹⁴⁶ based on a web of expectations. And yet, when one considers things carefully, he understands that his reference to exchange is only formal, because deprivations need to be “severe”; and, in order to determine their severity, it is necessary to base oneself on the interpretation of a “considerable number of those in the community who acquainted with such circumstances”.¹⁴⁷ This reminds one of what Pareto wrote in reference to “logical actions”, which are such “not only from the standpoint of the subject performing them, but from the standpoint of others persons who have a more extensive knowledge”.¹⁴⁸ Therefore the evaluation is not only up to the actors involved. This means that we cannot say we are inside the realm of the theory of exchange, which requires that evaluations be exclusively in the hands of the parties directly involved.

Despite making use of good assumptions, Lasswell’s theory undergoes a continual drift, which refutes his premises. This is immediately visible when one reads that the statement according to which men seek power “is a statement we can accept as true in every society where power exists”.¹⁴⁹ But the fact is that there are no societies in which power does not exist. Furthermore, as we have stressed from the very first pages, society and power are an inseparable pairing. There is no social relationship in which different degrees of freedom do not interact.

This is why, unlike Lasswell claims, there is no need for a voluntary “politicisation” of social relations. Whether we like it or not, each social relationship carries with it a political element. It is not true, therefore, that “any human situation can be converted into a power relation” and that “this can be done if a participant demands certain conduct and ‘thinks he can get away with it’ by threatening or actually inflicting severe deprivation on anyone who deviates”¹⁵⁰: at the very moment in which the interaction occurs, the degrees of freedom and the constraints of the actors involved determine positions of superordination and subordination. In other words, we are already inside a relationship of power. Obviously there are actors who are particularly directed towards to securing degrees of freedom. But their intentions do not ensure them any acquisition. If we remain inside the rule of law (and “socially regulated exchange”), intentions can only connotate the way in which power is exercised.¹⁵¹ No more than that. To go further, it is necessary to enter into the area of adventure. And this is the “destination” towards which Lasswell’s analysis inexorably moves.

His continual emphasis on “severe deprivations” shows that Lasswell had his permanent point of reference in public power. It is no accident that he referred to those sanctions. And he configured homo politicus as he who “displaces his private motives upon public objects, and rationalizes the displacement in terms of public advantage”.¹⁵² But Lasswell should have first of all explained that everyone must always transfer their private motivation onto social objects; for only in this way can they offer something to others and, in exchange, obtain the means to pursue their own ends. And he should have then added that one can channel that motivation towards public objects. By skipping over the first part of that mechanism, he deprived exchange, notwithstanding some momentary and weak oscillation, of one of its legs—what the rulers have to do for the ruled. And there is no value in his declared rejection of the politics of power, understood as “power for the sake of power”.¹⁵³ His rejection is a mere flatus vocis. This becomes obvious with the adoption of the essentially utilitarian postulate of maximisation of values,¹⁵⁴ which opens wide the gates to the “politics of power” itself; something which Lasswell himself fully realised. In fact, he wrote: “The image I refer to is that of the power-hungry man, the person wholly absorbed in getting and holding power, utterly ruthless in his insatiable lust to impose his will upon all men”¹⁵⁵; and also: “Suppose that we refine this traditional conception into a speculative model of the political man comparable with the economic man of the older economic science”.¹⁵⁶

It is true: Lasswell judged the model of homo oeconomicus to be at the same time extreme and inadequate,¹⁵⁷ but that did not prevent him from subscribing to it definitively and claiming that political man is “one who demands the maximization of his power in relation to all his values, who expects power to determine power, and who identifies with the others as means of enhancing power position and potential”.¹⁵⁸

Obviously, if one introduces the idea of maximisation into the territory of politics in the narrower sense of the term, one inevitably falls captive to “power politics”, which is an action having the purpose of exercising power for power’s sake. A ruler turns into an “adventurer”, who cares nothing about any obligations or medium- and long-term considerations. And yet the motivations of an individual are not enough to make political adventure possible. To think so means to forget that power is a relationship and that adventure itself is an intersubjective relationship. So in order to “assault” the rule of law, the adventurer needs to win people over and make promises which are capable of attracting the consent at least of some social groups. And this is indispensable (even when force is resorted to). Then, once he has reached the point of wielding public power or a part of it, he will “justify” his position with the promises which initiated the relationship. But this will be a mere disguise of his personal aims. And, if one analyses this closely, what are decisive are not the intentions but rather the conditions which provide the political actor’s habitat. Which is tantamount to saying that adventure is a mode in which power is acquired and exercised in a situation where mechanisms of selection have failed to adequately operate and where, for a huge variety of reasons, there is a lack of social control, which is basically always due to insufficient competition. It follows that only if the “rule of law” is in a weak or precarious condition is it possible for the adventurer to carry out his plans.

As we know, the notion of homo oeconomicus was generated through a number of serious methodological errors.¹⁵⁹ And the fact of borrowing it reveals the high coefficient of psychologism present in Lasswell’s work. Although he always claimed that the science of politics “states conditions”,¹⁶⁰ he continually channelled energy into constructing the psychological diagram of homo politicus. And, in order to defend himself from the troubling traits attributed to that figure, he resorted to “goodness”: “the sharing of power and respect in adult life depends, in no small part, on basic character structure”; and also: “This is consistent with part, at least, of William Penn’s famous overstatement: ‘If men be good, government cannot be bad’. Penn was also referring to the interlocking bonds of affection that give strength to social structure”.¹⁶¹

As we well know, “good intentions” are not enough to provide a solution to the problems of collective life. By resorting to them, Lasswell ended up in a blind alley: being “good” does not mean being omniscient or mastering the “relevant data”. Human actions produce proximate consequences and medium- and long-term outcomes. Despite “good intentions”, what happens in the immediate, or apparently occurs in the initial phase, may subsequently generate completely different and harmful effects. One should, if anything, require that individuals play by the rules in their conduct. But this is not the product of “intentions”. It is most of all the result of mechanisms of social orientation, of the actual enforcement of norms and their penalties, within which there is incorporated a knowledge which very often escapes us.¹⁶²

Lasswell was well aware, having learnt this from George Herbert Mead at least, that each human being must learn from Others to be an I.¹⁶³ This means that, “if a reduction is to be attempted at all, it would therefore be more hopeful to attempt a reduction or interpretation of psychology in terms of sociology than the other way round”.¹⁶⁴ Accordingly, what is significant is the context in which each interacts and the social process which derives from it. Napoleon Bonaparte remarked: “Vanity made the revolution: liberty was only a pretext”. Discussing “civil heroism” and vanity as well, Ortega y Gasset rightly wrote: “I am not denying that they are both ingredients of revolutions. But in all the great eras of history there is an abundance of both heroism and vanity, without any subversion erupting. In order for both these powers […] to forge a revolution they need to operate within” a specific context¹⁶⁵; meaning that they need to meet the social conditions which make their deployment possible.¹⁶⁶

The cultural context in which he was trained should have allowed Lasswell to make use of the theory of exchange. And, if he had taken that route, he would have subscribed to the view that sees the raison d’être of social science in the identification of the conditions which make a given event or phenomenon possible or impossible. In other words: whatever the actors’ intentions, the social sciences need to address the (positive or negative) unintended consequences associated with that interaction. From which there ensues the attempt to establish norms which, independently of the intentions of the subject, prevent him from causing harm to his neighbour.

Thus configured, the social sciences shed a powerful light on the territory of (voluntary) social cooperation. They highlight the differing degrees of freedom actors benefit from. And, in the attempt of one party to avoid their performance, they identify an amputation of the exchange: the use of a social “justification” for ends which are exclusively personal. But Lasswell embraced a different route: the one suggested by the notion of homo oeconomicus and the short-term maximisation of advantages. It is a theory which prevents exchange from being observed and which conceals the great reality of social exchange. It unrealistically focuses on an actor who knows the “relevant data”, who does not have to undergo the “responses” of the other parties involved and who therefore does not need to concern himself with any consequences. This actor is not confronted by a problem in which the utility of rules can be of help to him. What counts is the utility of a single act. And he can maximise: because the situation denies him nothing. It only asks him to apply himself to an exercise in pure logic.¹⁶⁷ This kind of approach says very little about the economy, social cooperation and politics.