Pareto and Trump

Post date: Nov 13, 2016 11:47:01 PM

Pareto ... witnessing, at the turn of twentieth century Italy, the simultaneous and steady increase in the power of the “class of wealthy speculators and the class of wage earners,” the former representing a “plutocratic” tendency, while the growing power of wage earners a “democratic” tendency” (1984, p. 55), recognized that they were political allies profiting from the weakness of the Italian state—and that therefore neither side would support any restraint on their freedom. Pareto understood that the “plutocrats” had an advantage:

plutocrats are able to forge an effective union because they are astute and can deceive the masses by manipulating public sentiment. This gives rise to the widely observed phenomenon of demagogic plutocracy (p. 55).

This self-serving strategy of manipulation by financial elites, Pareto thought would eventually lead to a “transformation of democracy,” as the masses understood the deception of the plutocrats and began vying for a stronger elite to bring the plutocrats under control. Military plutocrats, elites who recognized the dislocations and suffering eventually created by speculators, would capitalize on discontent to propose an authoritarian solution to the crisis, argued Pareto.40 Unlike speculators, who relied on manipulation and cunning, military plutocrats would resort to force and coercion. Pareto thus predicted the rise of Fascism.

In the United States, Pareto would similarly predict the emergence of an authoritarian, militaristic, and repressive state, precisely because, unlike early twentieth century Italy, where a new, previously marginalized class—the working class –was now a political participant, in early twenty first century United States no organized class of debt holders exists. Thus one could argue that in the US context, the demagogical potential of a military-plutocratic turn would find no organized obstacle. Whether this is realistic in the current US context is partly a matter of speculation ... (pp.379-80)

Polillo, Simone. 2011. “Wildcats in Banking Fields: The Politics of Financial Inclusion.” Theory and Society 40(4):347–83.