1It is well known that the First World War is also a watershed in the history of sociological thought. Before then, theorization could still employ the consolidated opposite categories of friend and foe elaborated by the juridical tradition and the philosophy of politics, or even believe that progress would make the war itself anachronistic, as great positivist sociologists as Comte and Spencer thought. After this, it became clear that an era had closed and a new one had been inaugurated, in which technology showed its own terrible face in making possible the construction of deadly weapons, while humanity itself seemed capable of plunging into a new barbarity.
2Vilfredo Pareto, who published his monumental Treatise on General Sociology (1916) when the war was already raging, was an exceptional witness to all this. He devoted lucid, interesting articles both to the war itself (1914a; 1914b) and to the post-war period, in which the vanquished countries and most of the victorious countries went through a deep social and economic crisis (1918a; 1918b). Published in book form for the first time in 1921, The Transformation of Democracy is, so to speak, a small treasure within this production of Pareto’s last years, sometimes considered simply, wrongly, as minor.
3The following pages deal with one aspect that has been investigated less than others, namely the analysis of the international scene as it appears in the pages of The Transformation. In the first part, I will show how Pareto looked with apprehension at the consequences of the First World War, which were obviously economic but also and above all, more broadly, social or psycho-social. In particular, I will explain how concrete he considered the danger of an upheaval similar to that brought about in Russia by the Bolsheviks and, in his eyes, made more likely by the stupidity and weakness of the bourgeois elites. The latter, in fact, had first been responsible for the imperialism that had led to a terrible global war and subsequently seemed to lack the energy necessary to fight their political opponents.
4I will therefore devote the second part to highlighting what I consider to be the most authentic sense of the position expressed by this great sociologist in the face of the fragile balance following the peace treaties. In spite of the opinions of those who have seen or continue to see him as a thinker who exalts strength, Pareto in fact shows himself to be primarily a realist theorist who raised the question of hegemony but also the problem of the limitation of conflict. Thus he was lucid enough to condemn expansionism and nationalism for their tendency to keep enmity between peoples alive, but also to understand that neither of the two opposing universalist and pacifist platforms of that time, whether Wilson’s democratic one or the revolutionary one of Bolshevism, was able to prevent the danger of future bloody wars.
5Also in the light of the theoretical framework that is already present in his Treatise, I will then try to make it clear that Pareto, as a social thinker of complexity, offered elements to go beyond political realism itself. Far from exalting the Leviathan, he understood that states were not intended to be the only protagonists of the international scenario, since the orientation and action of public opinion could play a significant, even decisive role in defining the nature of the relations among the various parts of the world. Moreover, factually overcoming methodological nationalism at a time when nations themselves were showing all their strength, he conceived social science as a study of the whole of humanity seen in its expressions, fragmentations and recompositions.
6For these reasons too, Pareto is a great author worth reading and rereading, still able to make people think and even to be astonished. In particular, joining considerable sharpness with a strong sense of history, as well as delving further into many previous Paretian reflections, the dense and precious writing that goes under the title of The Transformation of Democracy is proof. A small book that can take us beyond many appearances and commonplaces.
7Comparing the arguments contained in The Transformation of Democracy with the previous Paretian theorization, the most evident innovations are undoubtedly the diagnosis on the crumbling of central sovereignty and the pair of opposites represented by the «centrifugal force» and the «centripetal force».
8We are obviously dealing with a thematization that came to life primarily from observing the disorders and struggles that had taken place especially in Italy during the “red biennium”. Pareto believed that the motion leading to the concentration of power in a single higher location had been exhausted and also that a dynamic of power fragmentation had begun. While many subjects were commanding, or at least claiming command more and more, «the bourgeois state» was «tottering, and the power of central authority» was «being eroded» (1921a, 71) and divided among the trade union heads and various groups of workers. A situation that certainly worried Pareto deeply, as is also evident in the testimonies of the people who were in direct contact with him in the post-war years (Zingarelli, 1967).
9However, The Transformation also shows another level of analysis, which is no less interesting. It focuses not so much on the possible revolutionary upheaval of this or that state, but rather on the international scenario outlined during the nineteenth century and subsequently modified by the events of the first twenty years of the twentieth century. It is true that Pareto takes much of all this for granted, mostly limiting himself to synthetic observations or recalling works already published, especially the important article in French that had appeared in Coenobium in 1918, entitled Après quatre ans de guerre (1918b; see Pareto, 1921a, 61). However, it is very interesting to recall and connect the Paretian observations contained both in the four articles of The Transformation and in its final appendix and, in so doing, to grasp the link that Paretian sociology established between the national-state plan and the international-global plan.
10This interweaving is particularly evident when one considers the Paretian analysis of the consequences, not only economic, of the world conflict. The war had not only caused great expenditure of wealth to support armies with weapons and provisions. According to The Transformation, it had created a war economy, with the appearance of layers of the “new rich” and, more generally speaking, the beginning of dynamics that were practically impossible to stop, let alone reverse. That was particularly the case with inflation, which did not concern only Germany or the countries that had lost the war, but also winning nations like Italy and France (1918b; 1921a, 61).
11Besides, no less important to Pareto was a series of other effects only indirectly attributable to the economic sphere. Firstly, the effects of social conflicts in weakening the central sovereignty already mentioned. It was a general phenomenon too, which had manifested itself not only among peoples of the defeated countries, understandably resentful of their rulers, but also among peoples of the victorious ones, mobilized in a gigantic war effort at the cost of heavy sacrifices and therefore tired and dissatisfied.
12Speaking of all this, Pareto showed that he fully grasped the new character assumed by war with the outbreak of the first world conflict. Gone were the times of the professional armies, «when armies were smaller and doubled as work brigades» and sovereigns «could sustain the luxury of incessant wars that bled their people»; yet there were still wars. Moreover, in spite of predictions and dreams of many positivist sociologists, and far from disappearing, war had become increasingly destructive, sweeping away the very distinction between combatants and populations (Pareto, 1921a, 42).
13It is precisely to such a full, unanimous mobilization that the psychosocial consequences recorded by The Transformation are mainly due. The war, in fact, modified the balance of power between the social classes, making popular masses and workers more demanding and prone to rebellion. As a result, riots and protests were rampant and, in Pareto’s opinion, they were not only the effects of the subversive propaganda of revolutionary leaders and anarcho-syndicalists, but also the unintentional consequences of the ideological mobilization carried out by the upper classes in wartime. War ideology had insisted on the unity of the people beyond social and economic differences; therefore on the one hand, the masses, deceived by rhetorical appeals to unity, had become over-ambitious, while on the other, the elites themselves had lost any sense of their superiority. Thus, Pareto could only repeat the strongly negative judgment on the bourgeoisie of his time already expressed in his Treatise on General Sociology: «The bourgeoisie is as degenerate as any elite in a state of decay» (ivi, 47). But to this severe criticism he added a particularly contemptuous judgment for those «plutocrats» who «allowed themselves to be misled by the same derivations they once used to deceive others and to induce the masses to stay in the trenches»: «One can really say in this case that the snake bit the swindler. A person who is sly is eventually deceived by someone even more cunning» (ivi, 59).
14In the face of what appeared to him to be the spread of the disease of humanitarianism among the ruling classes, the author of The Transformation therefore reaffirmed the conviction already expressed several times in the Treatise and in almost all his earlier works: strength alone is decisive in social clashes and class struggles; only force decides who can command and who must resign himself to obey (ivi, 78). However, the Paretian reasoning is in this case clearly addressed in a very particular way to Italy, that is the country which at that moment appeared to the author most exposed to the risk of a revolution. In fact, unlike what happened in France for example, Italy lacked that large category of «small farm owners» tending to be conservative and hostile to progressive and revolutionary messages (ivi, 58). Moreover, although Italy was one of the countries that had won the First World War, in Italian public opinion the myth of the “mutilated victory” had taken hold (Guerri, 2008, 186-218), but Pareto saw this as one of the causes of general demoralization and disillusionment with nationalist ideals (1921a, 51). So, obviously mistakenly, he went so far as to say that the Italian nationalists were «few» and destined to remain irrelevant from a political point of view (ivi, 78).
15However, it would be wrong to consider The Transformation simply as a study of the Italian case or even a sort of manifesto aimed at the Italian bourgeoisie. In fact, Pareto’s gaze was much wider and extended to the whole of Europe and beyond. To the East, he clearly saw the looming threat represented by revolutionary and anti-capitalist Russia, stressing the fact that «the Russian revolutionaries» had «allies inside the other nations, allies which» were «powerful and dangerous» (ivi, 59). So, given the psychic condition of «the cowardly and idiotic bourgeoisie», he depicted as more than concrete the possibility that a «new elite» formed by the «followers of someone like Lenin» could take power, most of all because they were «energetic» and immune to humanitarian theories rampant in the old elite (ivi, 47). Focusing instead on the heart of Europe, Pareto saw with regret the collapse of the central empires and of Germany in particular; before the World War Germany had been a bulwark of conservation featuring the strong power of the military caste, later to become democratic or, to put it in the manner of Pareto himself, «demagogic» (ivi, 55). And, as evidence of the regret felt for this change, it can be noted that The Transformation reproached, in a certain sense, the Central Empires for not having formed an alliance with Czarist Russia, as conservative and as much the enemy of revolution as Germany and Austria themselves (ivi, 42).
16In any case, we are dealing here with considerations that must also be read in the light of the previous Paretian theorization. Even before writing the articles collected in The Transformation, and even when the first conflict had just broken out (1914a; 1914b), this great sociologist had in fact spoken of the World War also or mainly as a clash between plutocratic regimes. On one of the two fronts, he saw the demagogic plutocracies such as France, Italy and England (based on consensus and compromise with popular forces) and, on the other, the military plutocracies such as the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires (based, on the contrary, on order and hierarchy). And it is important to stress that he thought that neither side could boast any cultural or moral superiority over the other, since each country was simply driven by a will to power that pushed it to enrich itself by dominating other peoples.
17The point of view of The Transformation is therefore not entirely new. Once again, Pareto proposed to «disregard the insincere patriot making ethical pronouncements about the “defense of right and justice”, the “barbarity of the enemy”, and so on» and, looking to the recent past, repeated that the World War looked like «a conflict between military plutocracy and demagogic plutocracy in which the Russian bureaucracy intervened». And, not without a good dose of provocation, he even adopted the analysis circulating among the socialists speaking about a «bourgeois war» (1921a, 58). Nevertheless, as an element of novelty, he clearly interpreted the recent war not only as a generic manifestation of a will to power, but also as being objectively in consonance with Lenin’s reading (1917). In fact, he affirmed that the War had been the result of the imperialist dynamic, that is of opposing «plans for dominating the terrestrial globe» that resulted in a gigantic, bloody, global confrontation (1921a, 68).
18However, Pareto reiterated what he had already said about the excessive duration of the conflict ending in 1918: «prolongation of the war» had been «a grave mistake for the demagogic plutocracy. It would have been comparatively advantageous had peace been declared in 1917. But prolongation of the war caused damaging change in popular sentiments and interests» (Pareto, 1921a, 75). In short, the powers should have reached peace sooner, more precisely before the October Revolution, when the popular masses were not yet so restless and the vanquished could perhaps have obtained better peace conditions. But things had gone differently, with immediate, short-sighted interests prevailing: «plutocracies did not know how to stop in time». On one side, the «countries of the Entente wanted to win»; on the other, «the Central Empires could not be resigned to the inevitable sacrifices required if one is to minimize losses by admitting defeat» (ivi, 59). What’s more, the consequences of these choices were very serious in Pareto’s opinion, since they concerned the possibility of opening a new chapter in history, certainly no better than the one that was closing:
Now the demagogic plutocracy is tottering and the whole bourgeois order has been shaken. This is happening because of disagreements and war caused by excessive greed. Capitalists have employed the imperialist “religion” too excessively. Their positions would have been secure had they made peace in 1917, but one side insisted on total victory, and the other side would not admit to defeat. The adversaries of the bourgeoisie acted wisely in letting them writhe in vain with indissoluble difficulties (ivi, 42).
19It should be pointed out that the opponents of whom Pareto spoke were not in his view the socialists of the old type. In his opinion, «classical socialists or Marxists» had been «weakened ideologically by the ties they established with “democrats” for ephemeral practical advantages» and «under the pretext of patriotism» (ivi, 51). So they risked falling together with the bourgeoisie, once their adversaries. The real danger was the advent of a regime similar to that of the new Russia, a mixture of nationalism and authoritarianism (Pareto, 1919; 1921b).
20While Bolshevism really seemed to be knocking at the doors of many countries, The Transformation pointed out that the ruling classes were responsible: they were not only cowardly, but also tragically short-sighted.
21However, it should be pointed out that it would be restrictive to read the Paretian considerations about the excessive prolongation of the war only as a manifestation of hostility towards Bolshevism or of regret for the end of the central empires. Properly understood, in fact, Pareto also proved to be a lucid theorist and supporter of the limitation of conflict.
22Innumerable references to the importance of the use of force are actually present both in his Treatise and in almost all of his writings. Nevertheless, Pareto was obviously well aware that such use was qualitatively and intrinsically different whether it occurred within a state or else in the relationship among states or populations. While in the first case it allowed the maintenance of class order, indeed also of social order itself, in the second case it took on the appearance of war, what’s more of a war that, with the unfolding of modernity, could throw into despair and destroy millions of human beings.
23This was already clearly demonstrated by the history of colonial expansion, with a series of wars that were not considered such only because they were conducted against peoples seen as inferior and destined to be dominated by the whites (1901-1902, 136). Then, before or on the sidelines of the First World War, there had been various “minor” but cruel military expeditions, such as that of the United States against Mexico, against which the Treatise pronounced a vibrant denunciation (1916, par. 2256, par. 2267 fn.). Finally and above all, the colossal, long-lasting carnage of the world conflict itself had shown unequivocally what the use of armed force on a global scale could produce.
24Faced with all this, Pareto was certainly not a pacifist nor did he want to be so. His sarcastic liquidation of humanitarianism and non-violence as manifestations of the upper-class decadence and cowardice is indeed well known, among other things reaffirmed in The Transformation with regard to the «Tolstoyan theories» then in vogue (1921b, 47). Nor should one forget that, in the early years of the twentieth century, he had seemed to go so far as to invoke a great war as the only chance to distract the masses from the socialist faith, in so doing driving back socialism itself for half a century (1904, 414-415).
25However, The Transformation shows an author who had been able to learn from the recent events, seriously concerned that the conflict, or better the accumulation of conflicts resulting in the First World War, had not yet ended. So he condemned the exasperated nationalism found among the elites by comparing the Crusaders who left to free the Holy Sepulchre to the «capitalists» who were still «so eager to make war». While the former were good Christians but also unscrupulous adventurers, the latter were «good patriots» but also «profiteers» who put at risk the survival of both their own class and the capitalist economy itself (1921b, 31).
26More generally, one may say that Pareto was obviously aware that wars could be advantageous from the economic and political point of view and considered it unrealistic to think that human beings would ever be able to stop making war. Nevertheless, one should also add that he was not mistaken in believing that heavily ideological wars tended to be worse, crueller and harder to stop than the others were. And this, among other things, makes it possible to understand more fully his criticism of democracy, since he remarked that the democratic regimes had a particularly strong tendency to ideologically burden their conflicts against the outside world, whether they were expeditions to dominate lands of the supposedly uncivilized peoples or real symmetrical wars with other European or Western states.
27In Pareto’s opinion, the case of President Wilson was emblematic in this sense. While Wilson had sparked the hopes of many both with his own “Fourteen points” and his own attempt to create the League of Nations in order to prevent future wars, Pareto in fact thought very differently, recalling in The Transformation what he had already said in his article about the World War published in «Coenobium» mentioned above (1918b). In essence, he reiterated that projects such as those formulated by Wilson were only ways in which powers tried to gain or maintain a position of hegemony in the international context (1921b, 61). Looking in particular at the aspect of ideological transfiguration, he then pointed out that democracies’ will to power tended to assume pacifist, internationalist appearances, to the point that one could see the patriotism that «pushed whole “nations” into war and imperial adventure» and the cosmopolitan «humanitarianism» cherished by the dreamers of Kant’s universal peace as two sides of the same coin (ivi, 64).
28What’s more, considering the «myths and prophecies» common in the post-war period, Pareto could hardly go wrong in observing that the democratic pacifism exemplarily expressed by Wilson was dividing the scene with a project or utopia somehow similar even if opposite:
Some say that the League of Nations represents the triumph “of the defenders of goodness and justice” (others would even add “liberty”) and that the League will bring peace and joy to the world. Still other people believe that Bolshevism will bring that same peace and joy to the world. Certainly, a number of them do not really believe what they say, but many others are quite sincere and have the conviction which faith provides. Even if it may seem strange, there are still those who are persuaded, despite recent disappointing events, that the League of Nations will cure all the ills of the world. There are those, although they are few, who keep faith with Wilson’s Fourteen points. More than any previous thinker, Wilson was able to isolate the foundation for a good republic (ivi, 30-31).
29Both the Leninism spreading among the masses and the democratic vision prospected by President Wilson promised humanity a future of brotherhood in which Pareto could not believe. Still, while his hostility to Bolshevism was mostly taken for granted, his opposition to the Wilsonian platform could provide further proof to those interpreters who saw Pareto as a rigid conservative, or even as an exasperated cantor of force or an ante-litteram supporter of 20th century totalitarianism (Gurvitch, 1966, 121-137; Perrin, 1966; Aron, 1993).
30What I would like to say is that Pareto was rather and above all a political realist. As such, he certainly placed the two post-war opposing internationalist platforms on the same level, but he was also able to focus on the issue of the limitation of conflict. In this perspective, he was interested in focusing not only on the recent or probable transformations of democracy, but also on the transformations of hegemony exerted on a global scale. So he continued to look to England, a country that clearly showed that demagogic plutocracy prospered not only through a pact between the capitalists and the “aristocracy” among the workers, but also and above all through colonial expansion and the exploitation of populations outside the West. And in this the British Empire was to his eyes superior even to the Roman Empire, since «Rome exploited only the Mediterranean basin» while England was exploiting «a large part of the terrestrial globe» (Pareto, 1921b, 59).
31Nevertheless, Pareto also saw the rising hegemony of the United States, led at that time by Wilson, a politician who particularly claimed his democratic and progressive faith. Certainly not a fan of democracy, Pareto mocked the Wilsonian pacifist program formulated at the end of the First World War, but not even this position can be evidence of his presumed warmongering. For example, one may think that even a great figure like Sigmund Freud was certainly not tender towards the personality of this President. Drawing a portrait of Wilson in the early 1930s, Freud had in fact mocked what appeared to him as an excessive, even pathological moral pathos, remembering in particular that this American statesman felt invested by a mission from the Most High in person (1987). Or one could quote an economist still as highly appreciated as Keynes, unlike Freud born a citizen of the British Empire and not of a power defeated in the war like the Austrian Empire. In 1919, after having actually placed some hope in the Wilsonian ideas and proposals, Keynes came to express very profound disappointment in President Wilson himself, whom he found blinded by a mystical ideological conviction and not animated by the farsightedness and the political flair indispensable to a true leader (Keynes, 1920; Kissinger, 1994; Losurdo, 1999).
32It is indeed the comparison with Keynes that can make us understand that, rather than thinking of a Pareto exalting war and warlike leaders therefore denigrating politicians who were committed to peace among peoples, it is ultimately correct to think of a Pareto who did not believe that the nascent US hegemony could produce peace. After the end of the First World War, in fact, Keynes looked with great concern at the harsh conditions of peace imposed on Germany, aware that in the short term, they would throw the Germans into the deepest misery and, in the medium term, they would push the Germans themselves to seek revenge against their enemies (1920). Similarly, in The Transformation of Democracy we find the following consideration expressed:
Determining what indemnity Germany “must” pay after its defeat was a legal exercise – more accurately a pseudo-logical exercise – in international morality, equity, etc. determining how to exact an indemnity without using that term, because using the term would hurt Wilson, exemplifies the use of derivations. But all this cannot substitute, as far as practical effects are concerned, efforts to determine what Germany “can” pay and what is “useful” for the winners to ask (1921b, 32).
33While the idealist position persisted in reasoning about the “right” compensation with which Germany should atone for its faults, Paretian realism wanted to respond by looking concretely to the future and to the predictable outcomes of excessive humiliations imposed on the losers.
34In addition, we must not forget the opinions expressed in a famous article published in 1918 by the periodical «Rivista d’Italia». By reasoning about the «supposed principle of nationality» from which the idealists expected the regulation of international relations and the prevention of armed conflicts to settle disputes, Pareto was not mistaken in observing that the right to form a new national unit could be invoked by an unspecified and virtually infinite number of subjects (1918a). What clearly moved his scepticism towards the hope shared by many progressives was not so much the conviction that nothing could prevent wars, but the idea that the principle of nationality exposed everyone to the danger of a gigantic heterogenesis of ends. In other words, the remedy devised against conflict could produce the enlargement of conflict itself.
35This also applies to the case of the defeated Germany, which shows that Pareto was not wrong in objectively distancing himself from the Germanophobia at that time spreading throughout Europe, and that he was very worried about the possible consequences of the chauvinism that he saw increasingly present in practically all European nations. This state of mind is already visible in an annotation written in 1918 in the Paretian Mon Journal. Taking a strong stand for scientific truth and against all fanatics, Pareto there mocked both supporters of the superiority of the «Latin ‘civilization’» and supporters of the superiority of «German Kultur» for being blind and intolerant. Then he clearly warned against the excesses of patriotism:
The holiness of the different ‘civilizations’, the different ‘homelands’ is not much different from that of the countless gods for whom men have delighted in building pantheons. These beliefs could be useful from a social point of view and certainly are so, within certain limits, but that fails to make them less detrimental when they overstep those limits, or more understandable from an experimental point of view (1967, 82 our translation).
36As Julien Freund has already done (1974, 192), we can compare these reflections by Pareto to others by Max Weber, indeed much better known, expressed in a more suggestive manner. In that same year, 1918, Weber wrote in his Wissenschaft als Beruf:
I do not know how one might wish to decide ‘scientifically’ the value of French and German culture; for here, too, different gods struggle with one other, now and for all times to come. We live as did the ancients when their world was not yet disenchanted of its gods and demons, only we live in a different sense. As Hellenic man at times sacrificed to Aphrodite and at other times to Apollo, and, above all, as everybody sacrificed to the gods of his city, so do we still nowadays […]. Fate, and certainly not ‘science’, holds sway over their gods and their struggles. One can only understand what the godhead is for the one order or for the other, or better, what godhead is in the one or in the other order (1919, 148).
37Emphasizing that both Pareto and Weber placed science above ideological partisan visions, Freund has affirmed that both these great sociologists were able to look at the beliefs professed by men in the perspective of a precious and wise «polytheism». However, I think one should also add that they were both reflecting on the conclusion of the First World War and, above all, expressing a clear rejection of the nationalistic exaltation then still rampant among both the winners and the vanquished. So, while they worked to keep science above ideological disputes, they condemned intolerance as a source of resentment and hostility among peoples.
38In any case, to think that Pareto was judging the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles very negatively because he was lenient towards anti-democratic powers means to grasp, at the most, only one aspect of his position, and not even an essential one. It is true that The Transformation did not charge any particular responsibility for the World War to Germany, moreover ironically observing that there was no great difference between the rupture of the international order made in 1914 by the «German barbarians» and the subsequent claim of the «divine proletariat» to dictate its own law internationally (1921b, 85). However, one must also bear in mind other enlightening pages besides those of The Transformation, where we can read a brief but significant reference to the ideological climate that was developing in Germany in the years leading up to the World War.
39I refer in particular to two consecutive paragraphs of the Treatise devoted to the racist ideology that had accompanied colonial expansion and still characterized the relationship between the Western nations and the rest of the world. In the first, without any indulgence for the cruelties committed by the colonists, Pareto observed that the so called «“civilized” countries continue conquering the lands of so called barbarous peoples or maintaining their former rule over them spreading death, affliction, and ruin in all such territories». And, in his analysis, he united the European powers, which felt entitled to dominate populations considered inferior, to the «ultra-civilized Americans», of whom he recalled the «lynchings of Negroes» together with «their treatment of the wretched natives of the Philippines and the remnants of the Redskins» (1916, par. 1050, fn. 1). Then, in the paragraph immediately following, he did not fail to turn his gaze to Germany, in which he saw signs of extension and radicalization of the racial ideology:
The theory of the superiority of the civilized peoples is for the most part used only against non-Europeans. But Prussians use it also against the Poles; and there are Germans who would use it against the Latin peoples, regarding them as barbarians in comparison with the surpassingly excellent, moral, virtuous, intelligent, civilized and so on, Germanic stock (1916, par. 1051).
40Far from believing in some superiority of Germany, Pareto seemed to foresee what would have happen in the First and even in the Second World War. Somehow, in fact, his was a tragic omen, grasping a link between the “old” theory of alleged racial superiority, long invoked to justify the oppression of black and coloured populations, and the theory of alleged superiority of the Aryan race.
41I have tried to show why I think it is correct to consider Pareto also as an exponent of the long tradition of political realism. Now I would like to add that I am fully aware that there is a long, illustrious tradition of interpreters and commentators who have already insisted on this point. Firstly, mention should be made of Burnham (1945), who counted Pareto among the western Machiavellians «defenders of freedom» emphasizing his ability to tackle the art of politics without being fooled by ideological cover-ups. We should then recall Aron, who dedicated important pages to the author of the Treatise, passing from a strongly negative judgment that traced in Pareto himself the genesis of the political devices of totalitarianism (1993) to a substantial appreciation for the Paretian criticism of the ultra-progressive ideologies (1967). Nor should we forget Fiorot (1969, 1975), who highlighted Pareto’s ability to respond to the crisis that Europe and Italy in particular were experiencing, though grafting elements of Paretian authoritarianism onto an overall moderate and liberal vision. Last but not least, we should mention the studies by Femia (2006, 2012), who in quite recent times has relaunched the idea of a Pareto heir to the Italian tradition going back to Machiavelli, hence able to offer a decisive contribution to a realistic, scientific investigation of policy.
42Without going into detail as I deal with each of the above interpretations, I would like to make at least three comments here. The first one concerns in particular Burnham, who was perhaps more attentive to the international scenario after the Second World War than to understanding the Paretian work, but it could, within certain limits, apply to other analyses about Paretian realism. Basically, I would like to stress that interpreting Pareto as a proud theorizer of Western freedom appears too limiting, since his greatness lies also in his going beyond the ethnocentric vision, at least in his best pages such those criticizing the alleged superiority of the Western civilization.
43My second comment is more general, concerning the Paretian ability to go beyond political realism itself. The very way in which Pareto intended his sociology is proof, showing a perspective addressed not simply to this or that state but rather to «human society in general» (1916, par.1), which means to «humanity as a whole» (1921b, 71, fn. 3), although conceived as a whole that can be broken down into various interrelated parts and expressions (Susca, 2014).
44Moreover, it is not true that Pareto always placed above all the strength of the armies that only the states could have. This can be understood by carefully rereading a paragraph of the Treatise expressing concisely extremely “realistic”, even brutal considerations on the «theories of “peace through law”» and all the various «sophistries» invented to establish what was right or wrong in the matter of international law. On the contrary, reiterating once again the importance of «force», two examples were given in particular: that of Poland, subject to the hegemonic aims of Prussia, Austria and Russia, and that of Russia itself, defeated in 1905 by Japan and then forced to renounce the conquest of Korea (1916, par. 1508).
45Pareto therefore seemed to confirm at least one of the “realist” cornerstones here, since he described international politics as a tangle of antagonism and conflicting interests, moreover stressing that only force could play a decisive role (directly in the event of a confrontation between two states or indirectly if actors are engaged in alliance systems).However, one should also pay attention to the theory given immediately before, which actually mitigates his realistic position almost to the point of subverting it:
The usual objection urged against [the theories of peace through law] is that law with no force to uphold it is worth little or nothing […]. The objection is valid only in part. In the first place many norms of social life are enforced without any resort to violence, and it is not to think that some at least, if not all, of the rules of a given body of international law can be enforced by public opinion, by the sentiments that are active in individual human beings. That to some extent is actually taking place already. In the second place war might not disappear, but it would occur less frequently, if there were an international power to enforce a given system of law, just as acts of private violence decrease in numbers in a society where there is a public police to enforce its will upon individuals (Pareto, 1916, par. 1508, emphasis added).
46Considering simply the fact that Pareto was writing at a time when he was witnessing the triumph of nations and nationalisms, one can easily understand that he could not foresee in the short term the advent of a different international framework. The reality he had before his eyes was in fact populated by some Leviathans eager to dominate and exploit the weakest and other Leviathans losing their own autonomy and integrity whenever not strong enough or clever enough in choosing their partners.
47In spite of this, he neither could nor would exclude a different future, with some form of supranational or even global government substituting anarchy in international relations. Indeed, he explicitly referred to the possibility of preventing or at least reducing the use of force due to an «international power» enforcing a «body of international law». Moreover, he recognized that the Leviathans, strong in their armies and diplomacy, were not the only actors in international politics, since «public opinion» could become a real force able to counterbalance the self-interest of governments and even, potentially, to dictate less selfish and more fraternal norms.
48This is also a perspective to keep in mind in reading The Transformation of Democracy. While it is indisputable that Pareto derided the utopian ideal of universal peace, this does not mean that he did not know how to imagine a future world in which wars would become less and less frequent because of a widespread preference for peace among peoples.
49Turning to my third and final point concerning the limits of Paretian political realism, I will in general terms stress that Pareto did not intend to be a political scientist. On the contrary, his interest in politics itself must be understood as part of his much broader sociological vision. This means that, rather than elaborating abstract categories to think autonomously and a-historically about the political sphere, he intended to explain the complex intertwining of factors and forces shaping society through history. In short, though never posing as a prophet, he adopted a very long diachronic perspective both towards the past and the plausible future. He was therefore able to understand in a non-trivial way his own time and also, in some respects, what was yet to come. It is worth bearing this point in mind in re-reading the conclusion of The Transformation:
[…] the colonial exploitation of wide areas of Asia and Africa […] is of particular benefit to England, the United States, and France. It will not really benefit Italy, which must be content with crumbs that fall from the table of those other greedy eaters. A policy like the one adopted at the end of the Roman Empire, which allows the demagogy to have its way within a country under the supposition that domestic prosperity can be maintained via the exploitation of foreign territories, will fail countries like Italy. That kind of policy can only benefit the most successful colonial powers.
One question remains unanswered. How can one establish a balance between the two types of countries? Will they ever come into direct conflict? This might be one way in which the catastrophe could materialize. Afterward a new cycle would begin (1921b, 84).
50Pareto unquestionably believed that the First World War had closed a cycle. So, looking above all to the crisis that was gripping Italy, he spoke about the possibility of the collapse of the bourgeois order (centred both on state and market) and the subsequent advent of a condition of anarchy or, better, of a sort of new feudalism in which various heads of the working classes would share power and resources. However, in concluding The Transformation more “realistically”, he was lucidly reasoning on the probable consequences of protracting and exacerbating the colonial competition. In this perspective, the terrible conflict that had just ended might even have appeared to him as it actually was: a World War I that would be followed by a World War II or, to put it another way, simply the first phase of the Second Thirty Years’ War (Neumann, 1946).
51At the end of my analysis, I am aware that I have dealt only with some of the aspects present in the last Paretian production. In particular, apart from a brief remark concerning Pareto’s prediction regarding the scarce political importance of Italian nationalists, I have completely set to one side the controversial issue of this great sociologist’s appreciation of Mussolini’s nascent regime (Montini, 1974; Barbieri, 2003, 2017; Susca, 2010; Mornati, 2020, 149-182).
52It was, of course, my choice, due mainly to the fact that I conducted my reading by primarily focusing on The Transformation of Democracy, a volume collecting articles written before the foundation of the Fascist National Party, obviously before the March on Rome. However, I think it is right to give due emphasis to the Paretian reflections on the crisis triggered by the First World War, both within individual nations and on the international, global level. From this point of view, The Transformation itself saw the light at a particularly favourable time, when it was evident that old balances were definitely broken, but that fascist reaction had not yet come about; a reaction in which towards the end of his life Pareto, like other prestigious representatives of Italian culture, saw a possible solution.
53While it remains impossible to say to what extent or how long Pareto would have continued to look with some sympathy on Mussolini’s government, it is nevertheless difficult to doubt that he would have grasped the contradictions on which that regime was to rest. Spreading the myth of the construction of the new Roman Empire certainly meant distracting the Italian masses from the opposing socialist or communist myth of universal brotherhood. However, building such an empire effectively meant engaging in a series of colonial wars that might be the prelude to a new gigantic world war. That is exactly what happened. And that is precisely what Pareto saw on the horizon when composing his appendix of The Transformation: a forthcoming «catastrophe» towards which both Italy and the whole world were unwittingly travelling.
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