Abstract
While it is common knowledge that the engineer Vilfredo Pareto is acknowledged as a forerunner of modern econophysics, his use of analogies with the theory of gases and concepts such as statistical equilibrium are not so clear. Certainly, he had already written his most important works by the time quantum mechanics and statistical physics were taking root, but he had a clear understanding of what was then conceived as statistical equilibrium applied to the study of large aggregates. Instead of introducing a new empirical episode, this chapter attempts to clarify Pareto’s position on these issues.
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- 1.
In his Introduction to Pareto’s sociological writings, Finer places (social) heterogeneity among the pillars on which the whole of Pareto’s theoretical system is grounded. These pillars also include features such as equilibrium, internal and external forces, élite rule, circulation of élites, and economic-cultural cycles, and they recur in Pareto’s major writings. See Finer 1966.
- 2.
Pareto’s idea of aggregate is not very clear. In the 1935 English edition of the Treatise, the notion of “aggregato” is translated as group, which should be conceived as an aggregate of sensation (sec. 991, note 1). The persistence of common sensations regarding some social entities generates an aggregate, which therefore has a sort of “social identity” for the individuals forming a part of it. That is why aggregates are so important for social equilibrium.
- 3.
It was the Italian economist and philosopher Enrico Leone who argued that the political world, as well as the economic one, is populated by individuals with different abilities: in 1931, he said that something similar to the income distribution curve exists for political and governmental aptitudes too (Leone 1931, pp. 51–52). In this case, the upper tail of the curve represents the politicians endowed with more power.
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Tusset, G. (2018). The Dynamics of Aggregates. In: From Galileo to Modern Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95612-1_5
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