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Vilfredo Pareto, Italian political theorist, economist and sociologist, is mysteriously unread today. Of course, anyone involved in commerce knows his famous “80-20” rule and Pareto’s law concerning income distribution. However, he remains notably absent from most academic sociology reading lists. The below is likely to explain why.

Pareto was born in Paris in 1848 of mixed Italian-French ancestry. He was educated in France and Italy; ultimately completing his degree in engineering at the Istituto Politecnico of Turin. He initially worked as a civil engineer but then became interested in economics and politics. Pareto gave private lectures; increasingly attracted controversy. Pareto then retired from active political life and was appointed Professor of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne in 1893. There he established his reputation as a sociologist. He wrote his monumental Treatise on General Sociology, and two smaller volumes, The Rise and Fall of the Elites and The Transformation of Democracy.

A lifelong opponent of Marxism and liberal egalitarianism, Pareto also published a broadside The Socialist Systems aimed against the Marxist-liberal worldview in 1902. Apparently, Lenin lost many nights sleep after reading it. Not surprisingly, in our age saturated with cultural Marxism, this book has not been published in its entirety in English. This is unfortunate because it provides early insights into the failings of our decadent age. For example, Pareto writes:

"A sign which almost invariably presages the decadence of an aristocracy is the intrusion of humanitarian feelings and of affected sentimentalizing which render the aristocracy incapable of defending its position”

Most of the Greek and European elite (present day aristocracy) who very often work together with pseudo human rights activists such as the one found here (the Robert Mugabe of Greek blogging) have succumbed to this sort of sentimentalising. For example, they will show a picture of a poor Kurdish illegal refugee child stranded in Athens or a refugee detention centre on the north Aegean filled with illegal refugees. Invariably, they are attempting to use shallow sentiment and emotion to replace robust rational argument as the method of decision making on issues of national importance. If anyone disagrees with their sentiments, they are branded names or use more sentiment and emotion, rather than engaging in a sensible but vigorous argument. As Pareto alludes to above sentimentalising makes the aristocracy incapable of defending its position 

But despite the empathy we all have for the plight of illegal immigrants, sentiment and emotion should not override serious strategic analysis of the long term deleterious impact of higher illegal migration. The problem is that sentiments, emotions and feelings are different for everyone – there can be no common ground reached because we all react differently towards issues. Sentiments cannot be proven true or false and/or valid or invalid. They are independent of truth.

In contrast, using rational argumentation we can attempt to reach a position which can be mutually agreeable and applied uniformly. The argument can be proven valid or invalid. Of course, sentiment and emotion are part of decision making; particularly in deriving presuppositions and assumptions, but they should not be the only factor.

In addition, sentiment and emotion should be applied more evenly. For example, we often hear about the plight of illegal immigrants and refugees, but we rarely hear about the dangers to national culture. Usually, this is because our sentiments and emotions are more easily aroused for the immediate problems with a human face rather than for problems which will come to fruition in 10 or 20 years time which have more serious consequences. This inability to connect emotionally to problems in the long term future also stops us from developing long term solutions for illegal immigrants themselves. We place all of our energies in housing and feeding illegal immigrants today rather than developing plans to help them stay in their country with their family and community and contribute positively to the development of their nation.

Pareto has a propensity to see things how they really are. He also has this to say:

"When a living creature loses the sentiments which, in given circumstances are necessary to it in order to maintain the struggle for life, this is a certain sign of degeneration, for the absence of these sentiments will, sooner or later, entail the extinction of the species. The living creature which shrinks from giving blow for blow and from shedding its adversary's blood thereby puts itself at the mercy of this adversary”

The ideological foundations of the Greek elite’s rapprochement with long time adversary Turkey, despite the complete lack of reciprocity by Turkey and the machinations of the United States, provides a perfect example of the sentimentalising softness alluded to by Pareto. The Greek elite continue to assume that the Turks will make reference to the same humanistic sentiments as they do resulting in a Utopia of hand holding across the Aegean and Asia Minor. However, reality continues to prove them wrong, and with time, the opportunities for gaining any strategic advantage continue to diminish.

But this complete ignorance of reality is not surprising. The Greek elite have swallowed wholeheartedly or have been bludgeoned by concepts of “soft power” and disciplines such as conflict resolution and peace studies which impede the identification of the looming problems ahead.

Pareto goes on:

"Any elite which is not prepared to join in battle to defend its position is in full decadence, and all that is left to it is to give way to another elite having the virile qualities it lacks. It is pure day-dreaming to imagine that the humanitarian principles it may have proclaimed will be applied to it: its vanquishers will stun it with the implacable cry, 'Vae Victis.'

All over Europe and Greece the elites happily go about their business believing that their values are equally respected by the hordes of people entering their countries. They are oblivious to the fact that their own sentimentalising assumptions are not the ones held by the hordes. Inevitably, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

“The knife of the guillotine was being sharpened in the shadows when, at the end of the eighteenth century, the ruling classes in France were engrossed in developing their 'sensibility.' This idle and frivolous society, living like a parasite off the country, discoursed at its elegant supper parties of delivering the world from superstition, all unsuspecting that it was itself going to be crushed."

It is no wonder Pareto is not on academic sociology reading lists.