1st Edition

Re-Reading Pareto on Elite Power and Societal Bipolarisation A Critical Perspective on Metapolitics and Democracy

By Alasdair J. Marshall Copyright 2026
282 Pages
by Routledge

282 Pages
by Routledge

Assessing Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological reworkings of Machiavelli’s Fox and Lion animal spirits as friend-enemy codings, this book offers a unique insight into the growing division today between relatively liberal elites and relatively conservative non-elites. Re-Reading Pareto on Elite Power and Societal Bipolarisation utilises key ideas common to Pareto’s elite theory, general... Read more

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

Biography

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.