Economic Inequality, Pareto, and Sociology

Abstract

Economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) developed a general theory of social inequality inspired by his discovery of similarities in the shape of the income distribution across societies. Pareto’s approach is characterized by (a) a focus on individual, continuous income variation rather than discrete classes; (b) attention paid to the entire socioeconomic distribution rather than summary statistics; (c) an emphasis on social heterogeneity (labor supply) rather than a view of social structure as a collection of empty places (labor demand); and (d) a conception of the inequality structure—and movements of individuals within it—as resulting from the distribution of human abilities interacting with a structure of opportunities (i.e., a structure of social selection). Pareto’s vision—part of the common patrimony of economics and sociology—foreshadows emergent approaches to socioeconomic inequality.