Vilfredo Pareto

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), Italian sociologist and economist, born in Paris to an Italian family living in exile, and educated at the University of Turin. Pareto became an engineer and a director of a railway. Later he began writing on economic problems and studying politics and philosophy. In 1893 he accepted a position as Professor of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and remained in that country for the rest of his life. In later life, Pareto became interested in sociology and in 1916 wrote his most important work, Mind and Society (translated 1935), in which he explored the nature of individual and social action. He was widely known for his controversial theory concerning the “superiority” of an elite class, and his theories were generally associated with the development of fascism in Italy.