Academic economists are notoriously ill-read within their own discipline. Many economics professors have never read Adam Smith, Ricardo, J. S. Mill, Walras, Marshall or Menger. Pareto's Manuel is another forgotten classic. It's influence on the economics profession is tremendous. This is probably the most brilliant and forceful presentation of Equilibrium economics ever put down on paper. But, oddly enough, it wasn't translated into English until 1971, over sixty years after it was first published.

What I found most interesting about the Manuel is that the book is strongest precisely in those chapters that don't have anything to do with Equilibrium economics. Perhaps this is the reason why the book has been ignored. Pareto was something of an ultra-positivist. He believed that economics should be a science, which meant it had to be drearily quantitative. When the Swiss economist Leon Walras inflicted his equilibrium-based, mathematical vision of economics upon the scholarly world, Pareto became an eager convert. Soon he was not merely Walras' successor at Lausanne, but the world's most preeminent exponent of mathematical economics. Pareto, however, was not content to restrict his scholarship to concocting arid economical theories. He had too much learning for that. Besides being an economist, an engineer, a successful businessman, a manager of railroads, and a member of the Italian aristocracy, Pareto was also one of the great classical scholars of his age. A man of irascible temperament, Pareto could never bring himself to accept the insipidities of common opinion among academics and pamphleteers posing as experts. He saw too clearly that the humanitarianism and the childish faith in progress that dominated intellectuals of his age were based on nothing more than shoddy scholarship and wishful thinking. Eager to describe social reality as it really exists, Pareto extended his economic research well beyond the sterile equilibrium analysis that dominates the middle chapters of the Manuel. In the last three chapters, equilibrium analysis is all but ignored. What we have instead is some of the most clear-headed descriptions of economic reality ever put to paper. Pareto discusses social heterogeneity, income distribution, social circulation, population, social hierarchy, stability, capital, rent, savings, retailing, trusts and syndicates, monopoly, free trade, protectionism, and economic crises. What he has to say on nearly all these topics is extremely insightful, original, and extremely important. His sophisticated examination of free trade, which transcends the simplistic dogmas of free traders on one side and protectionists on the other, is alone worth the price of the book. Pareto is the most underrated of all the great social thinkers of the last two hundred years, and his sociology and non-mathematical economics deserve greater appreciation.

Now if only someone would get around to translating Pareto's great work on social spolation, "Les Systemes Socialistes"!

We can thank the academic world, the intellectuals, the "clercs," for keeping this book out of stock. Ever since the Second World War, Pareto has a been a persona non grata among the chattering classes and within the reality-cloistered groves of academe. Left-wing intellectuals cannot forgive him for writing "Mind and Society." Why are they so upset? Because Pareto dared to tell the truth about nature of society. Instead of concocting some sterile utopia or whining about the disadvantaged and the poor, Pareto set out to describe society as he found it. And he went about his business in a manner that was certain to offend the sensitive souls of intellectual's and left-wing idealogues everywhere. The study of society, Pareto makes clear in this treatise, is not about wishful thinking or curing the ills of humanity. No, it is about discovering uniformities in the social order, which means: discovering what makes society tick. Pareto traces the motive forces behind social change to human nature. Ruling elites tend to be one of two predominant types: they are either "lions" or "foxes." Lions try to rule through force; foxes try to rule through chicanery. The trouble with lions is that they tend to be rigid in their views. They dislike innovation and oppose progress. The trouble with foxes is that they shrink from the use of force and are susceptible to the excesses of humanitarianism. If a nation is to have a stable ruling elite, it needs a mixture of lions and foxes. Otherwise, you have social disequilibrium and crisis.

Pareto's scientific approach to sociology is refreshing in an age when everyone wants to interpret social and political issues in purely ideological terms. His prose is lively, engaging, and often very witty. His rampages against humanitarianism and ideology are hilarious. I would recommend using Amazon.com's search service to find a used copy of either the two volume or four volume versions of this work. It is well worth the trouble. Social science doesn't get any better, nor more readable, than this.