Revision summary
Pareto: elites are the highest in any activity, governing and non-governing. They circulate; aristocracies die. Lions use force and persistence; foxes use combination and cunning. Derivations are the stories they tell. Mills and Indian caste-class closure qualify the psychology.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Vilfredo Pareto treated elites as the highest stratum in any field of activity, circulating rather than disappearing. Their basic characteristics are superiority of talent in that field, use of force and persuasion, and a mix of residues that he labelled lions and foxes.
Body
Who the elite are
- A small governing elite plus a non-governing elite of talent in other spheres.
- Not a moral elect. Elite means the best at a given activity, including crime.
Basic characteristics
- Circulation: elites decay and are replaced; history is a graveyard of aristocracies.
- Residues: Class I combination (foxes, cunning, innovation) and Class II persistence of aggregates (lions, force, tradition).
- Derivations: the justifications elites tell, which are not the real motors.
- Use of force and fraud; foxes who cannot use force fall to lions.
- Psychic and social heterogeneity: the mass is not a uniform people in the Rousseau sense.
Discussion
- Pareto criticised both Marxist class monopoly and democratic self-rule as derivations.
- C. Wright Mills later named a power elite of institutions, more structural than residues.
- Indian illustration: a political fox-like combinational elite beside a force-backed local lion stratum; circulation through elections is partial.
Limit
- Residue psychology underplays property and caste as durable closure.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD EL[Elite top stratum] --> CIRC[Circulation] EL --> L[Lions force] EL --> F[Foxes cunning] DER[Derivations] --> JUST[Public justifications]
Conclusion
Pareto’s elites are the top performers who rule by force and cunning, circulate, and justify themselves with derivations. Lions and foxes are the basic types. Use the scheme for circulation; add class and caste that Pareto thinned out.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Explain how sociology has emerged as a distinct discipline based on rationality and scientific tamper
Next question on this syllabus topic (2017 · Q1(a)). View answer →
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Did Pareto deny democracy?
He treated it as a derivation that still hides elite rule.
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Is every talented person elite?
In his definition, elite is the top of a stratified activity, not a scattered talent.
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