Re-Reading Pareto on Elite Power and Societal Bipolarisation

Alasdair J. Marshall is an associate professor at the Business School at Southampton University and has authored close to a hundred publications – several of them on Pareto and many more relating to diverse matters of risk, uncertainty, culture and ethics within organisations.

• Part One - A New Reading of Pareto, 1.0 Introduction, 1.1 Metapolitical Conflict: Liberal Elites vs. Conservative Non-elites, 1.2 The debt to Machiavelli, 1.3 Animal Spirits, 1.4 Dissident Mindset, 1.5 A Projection-Adjusted Reading of Pareto, 1.6 Dissident Paretian Analysis as Striving for Authenticity, 1.7 The Core Theory: Mind-Society Interaction, 1.8 Paretian Sociology as Critical Guidance for Elites, 1.9 (Meta)Political Character Types, Part Two - Pareto’s Open elites, 2.0 Why we need Pareto Today, 2.1 Pareto’s Elites, 2.2 Pareto’s ‘Mirror for Elites’ Guidance as Open elites Advocacy, 2.3 The Idea of a Paretian Theory of Democracy, 2.4 Elite Power – and the Futility of Challenge from Below, 2.5 Elite Categories, 2.6 Elite Social Character, 2.7 Political Elites and Counter-Elites, 2.8 Elite vs Non-elite Bipolarisation, 2.9 Open Elites vs Open Societies, Part Three – A Forward-Looking Theory, 3.0 Social Forecasting and Modelling for Societal Bipolarisation, 3.1 Pareto’s Final Warning: Demagogic Plutocracy, 3.2 Conflict Containment across Lower Elite Echelons, 3.3 A Paretian ‘Difference Engine’ Explanation for recurring Elite vs Non-Elite Conflict, 3.4 A Paretian Risk Barometer for Fundamental Social Conflict, 3.5 There’s this Lion…, 3.6 General Conclusion