The Pareto Theorem Restated and Examined: Democracy and Conservative Imposition of Morality by Law

Abstract

In this paper, I restate and examine the Pareto Theorem in light of recent developments in American society. The Pareto Theorem postulates a direct association between government's interference in private life and power abuse, thus undemocratic outcomes. The Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto originally formulated the Theorem with reference to America. Pareto observed the US government's persistent predilection to impose morality by law and so directly interfere with private lives, resulting in extensive power abuses. The paper extends this observation to argue that such coercive imposition of morality reflects America's permanent conservative revolution with its peculiar dualism or contradiction between oppression in moral life and anarchy in economy. It argues that this contradictory combination of moral tyranny and economic license links American conservatism with traditional despotism and modern authoritarianism. This restatement of the Pareto Theorem aims at denying the scholarly and democratic legitimacy of neo-conservative analyses and projects in the US. Since the Pareto Theorem is almost unknown in American social theory and virtually unexamined in empirical research, this article is among the first endeavors in this direction, thus filling in a void in the literature.