About the Work
The text under consideration is not a single book but a scholarly article by Vilfredo Pareto, “Parliamentary Government in Italy,” published in the Political Science Quarterly, a review devoted to the historical, statistical, and comparative study of politics, economics, and public law. The journal was edited by the University Faculty of Political Science of Columbia College and issued by Ginn and Company, with agents in London and Berlin. The volume in which Pareto’s piece appears is the eighth, and the issue belongs to the early 1890s. The article sits within a dense table of contents that includes leading essays on American diplomacy, monetary policy, taxation, penal reform, and the concentration of wealth, alongside an extensive record of political events and a long list of book notices. Pareto’s contribution is thus one voice in a transatlantic conversation among political scientists, economists, and legal scholars of the late nineteenth century.
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The form of the work is that of a review essay or analytical article rather than a treatise. It is written for an educated readership already familiar with the broad outlines of European parliamentary systems, and it assumes some knowledge of Italian political history. Its style is comparative and institutional: Pareto examines the machinery of Italian parliamentary government, the behavior of its parties, the role of the monarchy, the functioning of the suffrage, and the relation between formal constitutional rules and actual political practice. Because the piece appears in a journal of political science rather than in a party pamphlet, its tone is analytical and often critical, but it is not neutral in the sense of being detached from moral judgment. Pareto writes as a scholar who has observed Italian politics closely and who is willing to name what he sees as its pathologies.
The article is embedded in a volume that also contains George K. Holmes’s study of wealth concentration in the United States, Lindley M. Keasbey’s essay on the economic state, Ernst Freund’s examination of private claims against the state, and I. S. Leadam’s review of Vinogradoff on villainage in England. This context matters for understanding Pareto’s piece. He is writing in a period when political science was increasingly comparative and statistical, when scholars were trying to move beyond formal legal description toward an understanding of how institutions actually worked. The journal’s subtitle—”A Review Devoted to the Historical Statistical and Comparative Study of Politics Economics and Public Law”—announces the intellectual project to which Pareto’s article belongs. His essay on parliamentary government in Italy is an attempt to apply that project to the specific case of his own country.
Context
Pareto’s article appeared at a moment when Italy was still a relatively young nation-state. The unification of the peninsula had been completed only a few decades earlier, and the parliamentary system had been grafted onto a country with deep regional divisions, a largely agrarian economy, and a restricted electorate. The Italian parliament of the 1890s was not the product of a long, organic evolution like the British Parliament; it was a constitution imposed from above, or at least granted by the monarchy, and its legitimacy was still contested in some quarters. The suffrage was narrow, and the Chamber of Deputies was dominated by notables, local bosses, and factions rather than by modern mass parties. Transformism—the practice by which individual deputies shifted allegiances in exchange for favors, offices, or policy concessions—was a defining feature of Italian political life. Governments rose and fell with bewildering frequency, and the distinction between government and opposition was often blurred.
The broader European context was one of anxiety about parliamentary institutions. In France, the Third Republic was still consolidating itself after the upheavals of the Paris Commune and the constitutional crises of the 1870s. In Germany, the Reichstag coexisted with a powerful chancellor and an imperial executive that was not responsible to it. In Austria-Hungary, parliamentary government was complicated by nationalities conflicts. In Britain, the extension of the franchise and the rise of organized labor were beginning to transform the old two-party system. Pareto’s article on Italy thus speaks to a wider debate about whether parliamentary government was a universal model or a historically specific product of Anglo-Saxon conditions. The journal in which he published was itself a product of that debate, and its readers would have been interested in Italy as a test case of whether parliamentary institutions could be successfully transplanted.
Pareto’s own intellectual formation is relevant here. He was trained as an engineer and had worked in the railway industry before turning to economics and sociology. His approach to politics was shaped by a positivist and mathematical cast of mind, and he was suspicious of idealistic or juridical accounts of institutions. He was also a critic of protectionism, state intervention, and what he saw as the demagogic tendencies of parliamentary democracy. By the time he wrote this article, he had already begun to develop the ideas that would later culminate in his theory of the circulation of elites and his critique of humanitarian ideology. The article on parliamentary government in Italy can be read as an early application of that critical perspective to the concrete workings of a specific political system.
Structure of the Book
The article is not divided into numbered chapters or sections in the manner of a formal treatise. It proceeds as a continuous analytical essay, moving from a general characterization of Italian parliamentary government to specific features of its operation. Pareto begins by describing the formal constitutional framework—the role of the monarchy, the composition of the Chamber of Deputies, the nature of the suffrage—and then turns to the informal realities that shape political life. He examines the party system, or rather the absence of a genuine party system, and the prevalence of personal factions and clientelistic networks. He discusses the practice of transformism, the weakness of the executive, and the difficulty of maintaining stable governments. He considers the relationship between the Chamber and the bureaucracy, the role of the press, and the influence of local interests. Throughout, he compares Italian institutions with those of other countries, especially Britain and France, in order to highlight what he sees as distinctive about the Italian case.
The essay moves toward a critical assessment of the prospects for parliamentary reform in Italy. Pareto is skeptical of proposals to import foreign models wholesale, and he insists that institutions must be understood in relation to the social and economic conditions of the country. He is particularly critical of the extension of the suffrage without corresponding changes in the structure of political organization, arguing that it would only strengthen the power of demagogues and local bosses. He also discusses the role of the monarchy as a stabilizing force and the dangers of a purely parliamentary regime in a country with deep social divisions. The article concludes with reflections on the future of Italian parliamentary government, though Pareto is careful not to offer simple predictions.
The structure of the essay is thus thematic rather than chronological. It does not narrate the history of Italian parliamentary government from unification to the present; instead, it analyzes its characteristic features and underlying dynamics. This makes the piece demanding for a reader unfamiliar with Italian politics, but it also gives it a timeless quality as a study of how formal institutions interact with informal practices.
Inside the Book
The Political Science Quarterly and Its Contents
The volume opens with Google’s standard public-domain scanning notice, explaining that the book was preserved on library shelves before being digitized so that world books might be discoverable online, that its copyright had expired, and that marks and marginalia from the original would appear in the file. Usage guidelines request non-commercial personal use, no automated querying, and maintenance of the Google watermark. What follows is the front matter of the Political Science Quarterly, a review devoted to the historical, statistical, and comparative study of politics, economics, and public law, edited by the University Faculty of Political Science of Columbia College. Volume Eight is published by Ginn and Company in New York, Boston, and Chicago, with agents in London and Berlin. The editors listed are John W. Burgess, Richmond Mayo-Smith, Munroe Smith, Frank J. Goodnow as managing editor, Edwin R. A. Seligman, Frederick W. Whitridge, William A. Dunning, Herbert L. Osgood, and John Bassett Moore.
The contents announce a wide range of leading articles: Sidney Webster on Marcy and the Cuban question, John Bassett Moore on Sparks’s diplomatic correspondence, Goodnow on interest in mandamus cases, Huffcut on officialism in England, Willcox’s study in vital statistics, Hobson on the influence of machinery, Mayo-Smith on Levasseur’s La Population Française, Andrews on the Brussels Monetary Conference, Seligman on progressive taxation, Noyes on stock exchange clearing houses, Webster on responsibility for secession, Ostrogorski on the caucus in England, Strong on the fueros of northern Spain, Doyle on Campbell’s Puritan in Holland, Spahr on Giffen’s case against bimetallism, Max West on the theory of the inheritance tax, Winter on the modern spirit in penology, Moore on the late Chilian controversy, Osgood on the Prussian archives, Cunningham on Ashley’s English economic history, G. K. Holmes on the concentration of wealth, Keasbey on the economic state, Freund on private claims against the state, Leadam on villainage in England, Vilfredo Pareto on parliamentary government in Italy, and E. A. Ross on the unseen foundations of society, followed by Dunning’s record of political events and extensive book notices.
Holmes on the Concentration of Wealth
The first article to unfold is George K. Holmes’s study of wealth concentration, which opens by conceding that distribution is an elusive problem admitting only tentative determination, since only empirical and deductive methods with slight statistical reinforcement have been available, and these permit bias to affect conclusions. No direct attack is possible except through estimates of individual wealth based chiefly on property and income assessments and reputed large fortunes, aided by savings-bank deposits; so little is truly known of the wealth of the rich that direct estimation carries large error. Holmes therefore examines the wealth of the poorer class, newly possible through census-office statistics, believing the rich’s wealth is better determined by subtraction.
The census published farm and home proprietorship findings for twenty-two states and territories plus the District of Columbia, recording for each family whether it owned or hired its farm or home and, for resident owners, whether the property was incumbered. Consolidating these figures and applying them to the whole country, Holmes finds that thirty-two per cent of farm families and sixty-three per cent of home families are tenants. Among farm-owning families, thirty per cent carry incumbrances averaging $1,130 on farms averaging $3,190; among home-owners, twenty-nine per cent carry incumbrances averaging $1,139 on homes averaging $3,254. Assuming 4,500,000 farms and 8,190,152 families in non-farm homes, and allowing $150 above debts per farm-tenant family and $500 per home-tenant family, fifty-two per cent of families are set aside as worth less than one-twentieth of the nation’s wealth, estimated at about sixty billion dollars.
Holmes then addresses the difficulty of valuing unencumbered farms and homes, whose values are unpublished, adopting figures from encumbered properties and crediting each free-farm family of the poorer class $1,000 beyond farm value and each home family $2,000 after deducting unknown debts. His wealth-distribution table totals 11,593,887 families worth $17,351,137,343. Thus ninety-one per cent of the 12,690,152 families own about twenty-nine per cent of wealth, while nine per cent own about seventy-one per cent. Among the 1,096,265 families holding that seventy-one per cent, further concentration exists: the New York Tribune’s list of 4,047 millionaires, checked against Thomas G. Shearman’s estimate in the Forum of November 1889, leads Holmes to conclude the millionaires are worth not less than ten or more than fifteen billions—say twelve billions, about one-fifth of the nation’s wealth, averaging about $3,000,000 each.
Holmes characterizes the result starkly: twenty per cent of wealth owned by three-hundredths of one per cent of families; fifty-one per cent by nine per cent excluding millionaires; seventy-one per cent by nine per cent including them; twenty-nine per cent by ninety-one per cent. Only nine per cent is owned by tenant families and poorer incumbered owners—sixty-four per cent of all families—and 4,047 families possess about seven-tenths as much as 11,593,887 families. He calls this almost incredible and inconsistent with appearances, yet probably approximately correct; even if recomputation gave one-third of wealth to the poorer families, sixty-seven per cent would still be owned by nine per cent. Collateral support comes from private debt: more than one-quarter of the nation’s wealth is in private debtors’ hands, and his 1890 minimum-debt table lists quasi-public corporations at $5,000,000,000 and private corporations and individuals at $11,000,000,000, for a total private debt of $16,000,000,000.
The Economic State: From Deduction to History
A separate piece then turns from statistics to theory, noting that English lacks a generally accepted word for the conscious activity of human beings jointly satisfying individual desires—”production” being too narrow—and adopting “economy” in this active sense. Before analyzing actual conditions, the author uses pure reason to form an abstract idea of an economy: the earth’s surface with its annuity of heat, light, air, and moisture, and the human beings inhabiting it. Self-examination reveals human nature as dual—a particular and a universal self—and both have wants requiring gratification. Outer nature is chary of gifts, returning life-giving elements only on condition of physical exertion, so human life is essentially a struggle for existence. By nature we are averse to labor, yet cravings are limitless; physical science shows land yields decreasing returns beyond a point. Were land and labor the sole factors, the struggle would be hopeless, so a third factor is essential: capital, “the first fruits of man’s economic genius,” the creature of pure thought, instituted by inventive genius, realized by physical labor, amassed by the spirit of saving.
Land, labor, and capital alone would never suffice, for land is strictly limited while wants are limitless, and universal striving would produce a war of extermination. Beyond economic desires, self-examination reveals political wants emanating from our universal nature—peace, cooperation, harmony—and Darwin is cited as in doubt whether these social instincts arose through natural selection or long-continued habit.
Keasbey on the Economic State and International Industrial Union
Keasbey closes his argument by insisting that “freedom of contract,” “freedom of labor and capital,” and “freedom of business and market” can only mean the freedom the state permits; industrial liberty is therefore not the final battlefield between individualism and socialism but a question of expediency the state decides relative to time, place, and organic growth, and may redecide as new majorities rise against antiquated governments. The industrial organism of the modern national state he calls the fairest flower of economic evolution, though the tree still grows. Geographic unities of the temperate zone are naturally fitted to different forms of production, and nations have developed capital along independent inventive lines, so each state faces a choice: satisfy all its diverse wants from its own soil, or exploit its territory in the way it is best adapted to—the latter requiring that other national organisms follow the same plan, lest surplus production go unexchanged and wants unsatisfied.
Early development found division of labor and exchange advantageous first nationally, then internationally among industrial states. Just as individuals of a common ethnic type united under one state organization, so now national states of one white race family, common culture, and common aims are drawn into closer union—with the cardinal distinction that in national union the organization is supreme over individuals, while in international union the national organic units retain sovereignty. The political side of this incipient world-organism is slightly developed, since political wants are better satisfied along national lines; the economic side is significant because economic wants have outgrown national production. National economies are crystallizing internationally and moulding political alliances, though nations remain loath to submit to extraneous control. Notably, while international political law recognizes no ultimate authority but force of arms, international commercial law is actually enforced in the courts of national states—another road to the world-empire idea, its authority deriving from the free will of the states forming it. These buds of world-economy lie beyond inductive analysis but in plain view.
Viewing the industrial tree, Keasbey admires its proportions and symmetry, insisting the economic organism is infused with life and cannot be called “the dismal science.” The germ of life is the necessity of existence and the insatiable desire for something more. Human evolution differs because man’s desires became two-fold: beyond physical wants lie the aspirations of a universal self, pure thought being the complement and outgrowth of pure sensation. As physical well-being conditions spiritual elevation, the economic tree is rooted in material earth; only on the stout limbs of materialism can the flowers of idealism bloom, and only through industrial utilitarianism have modern society’s ideals been made possible. One should study the tree’s growth from roots to tiniest shoots, for only then may one prune it and concentrate its vital energy to bring forth reason’s ideal fruits.
Private Claims Against the State: From Petition of Right to Legislative Relief
Before tribunals existed to hear claims against government, civil responsibility toward private parties received little judicial discussion. Obligations were often undoubted but lacked ordinary remedies; the aggrieved could not summon the government, only raise set-off where the government invoked jurisdiction, or where its rights could be adjudged without direct subjection to the court. Common law held the sovereign cannot be sued except by consent, since courts acted under the sovereign’s authority and issued mandates in his name. In England voluntary submission of the crown was granted early: the petition of right, said to originate under Edward I, and the monstrans de droit under Edward VI. The petition of right, though granted as grace, was the subject’s birthright where other remedies failed; upon filing, the king’s fiat “let right be done” was granted by the attorney-general, with issues triable in chancery or exchequer. The crown enjoyed privileges, and Brougham’s law-reform speech forcefully stated the defects from the petitioner’s view; the most serious theoretical objection was the lack of redress if the attorney-general refused his fiat, though as a rule it issued as of course. English law is now regulated on the former practice by 23 and 24 Victoria, chapter 34.
Neither English remedy became part of American common law upon independence. In England and the colonies the crown represented sovereignty in property relations; here the crown’s rights devolved upon the people. Upon constitutional organization, the judiciary succeeded to the powers of English courts, but the executive received only powers expressed in written constitutions. All residuary public power, even non-legislative, remained in the legislature—including disposition of public property formerly the crown’s. The legislature alone could release rights vested in the people, validate void contracts, waive rights and defences, or recognize claims against the state for damages. Petition for redress of grievances was guaranteed by federal and most state constitutions, and petitions of right went to the legislature. But the English practice of delegating investigation and adjudication to courts was not followed; legislatures passed on all claims, granting relief by statute—a discharge of judicial functions that proved inadequate and unsatisfactory.
Safeguards, Jurisdiction, and the Tucker Act
Special safeguards against fraudulent claims are justifiable, since government is more exposed to fraud than an individual and the public interest—”the interest of nobody in particular”—may justly claim the law’s special protection to counterbalance the watchfulness guarding private interests. But governmental privileges should not exceed what these natural disadvantages require. Under neither federal nor New York law are issues of fact tried by a jury; this is not strictly a governmental privilege but characterizes the relief, showing the constitutional guaranty of trial by jury is not considered applicable. More important than these privilegia fisci are limitations on the jurisdiction of tribunals hearing claims against the government. Such limitations do not absolutely deny governmental liability but leave the claimant where all claimants formerly stood: relegated to the common-law and constitutional right of petitioning the legislature. The legislature can by special act provide for judicial hearing, creating jurisdiction; Congress frequently does so, and power to refer specific controverted questions to the court of claims is vested in either house, any committee, or any executive department.
The court of claims’ jurisdiction originally embraced claims founded on any law of Congress, executive-department regulation, express or implied contract with the United States, and all claims referred by either house, later extended to government counter-claims and other classes. Congress’s desire to promote suits against the government led to the March 1887 Tucker Act, extending jurisdiction of the court of claims and concurrent jurisdiction of circuit and district courts to all claims founded on the Constitution or laws of Congress (except pensions), contracts, or damages not sounding in tort, where the party would be entitled to redress in law, equity, or admiralty if the United States were suable. This seemed to cover all private causes except tort, but the Supreme Court held jurisdiction extended only to money demands, since the law provided only for money judgments. The Court refused to compel issuance and delivery of a land patent; Justices Miller and Field dissented, arguing Congress intended materially to enlarge the right of suit and the remedy in law, equity, and admiralty. As construed by the majority, the 1887 act made only slight advance, seemingly covering claims requiring specific performance and ejectment suits.
The New York law marks a distinct step forward, conferring on the board of claims jurisdiction over all private claims against the state and counter-claims. “Private claims”
The Debate over Villainage and Serfdom
The segment opens with a scholarly article from the Political Science Quarterly titled “Villainage in England,” which engages critically with Mr. Vinogradoff’s work on dependent classes. The discussion begins with the Institutes, which abolished distinctions among forms of dependent status, declaring that in the condition of slaves there is no difference. Fleta copies these words, and Britton paraphrases them, but the rift in the theory’s symmetrical uniformity appears when applied to English custom. Britton’s French text states that no one can be viler than another, since all are of vile condition. The author argues that Britton’s felt need to amplify Justinian’s simple proposition raises suspicion about how far his theory matched what he saw. Britton uses three terms — villains, serfs, and pure serfs — where the Latin has one. An anonymous contemporary commentator draws three distinctions within the class Britton pronounced indistinguishable: a naify or native is a hereditary serf; a villain is one who comes afresh into servitude, from which he cannot depart though of free stock.
Turning to the English school in Le Myrrour, its author insists that villains are not serfs, and heads his chapter on serfs with “De Naifie,” identifying naifs with serfs. Le Myrrour states serfs can purchase nothing but for the lord’s use; they do not know in the evening what service they shall do in the morning; lords may put them in irons, stocks, imprison and chastise them at will, saving life and limb. This uncertainty of service marked serfs — what Bracton, forgetting doctrine and falling back on fact, calls pure villains. Le Myrrour says villains are cultivators of fiefs dwelling in villages upland; villains are mentioned in the Charter of the Franchises, where a villain may not be so grievously amerced that his tillage is not preserved to him; of serfs it makes no mention, for they have nothing of their own to lose. The author appeals to the days of King Edward, the Golden Age to thirteenth-century Englishmen, condemning lords of his own day who by wrongful distresses and evictions sought to reduce villains to serfdom.
The author then tests Mr. Vinogradoff’s exposition. Vinogradoff reduces dependent classes to a dead level of serfdom and misreads evidence. He says a villain is born in a nest, which makes him a bondman, citing a 1303 case and Bracton; but both examples use the term for a nativus or naif. That these were different classes appears from another case Vinogradoff selects: in 1274 two tenants summon their landlord before the king’s court, alleging they hold by fixed customs and services. The defendant demurs, claiming they possess no cause of action save for life, limbs, or bodily injury, being his hereditary serfs. In light of Le Myrrour, the court’s refusal to interfere is understandable. Vinogradoff’s preconception of villains’ and serfs’ identity creates difficulties on tenure. The serf was normally at the mercy of uncertain customs; from this Vinogradoff rashly derives that certain customs mark a free man. Testing this by his case from Bracton’s Note Book, an assise of novel disseisin tried in 1224-25, where the defendant excepts against the plaintiff as his villain; the court finds he is a villain, yet decides William may hold the land if he consents to perform the service. Vinogradoff concludes procedure and theory were wrong. The author calls this a strong line for a nineteenth-century lay writer on a six-century-old judicial process, affirming instead the judgment was sound and consistent with practice, justified in Le Myrrour.
Leadam’s Critique and the Bigod Case
Leadam argues that Vinogradoff found the key to villainage problems in the distinction between the lord’s demesne and the tenant’s customary land, but failed to recognize the full extent of its application. Leadam holds that this explains the anomaly of tenure in ancient demesne and the secret of villainage generally: the land in ancient demesne was conceived not as customary land proper but as demesne held upon customary tenure. This explains the doctrine that the king could not irrevocably part with it — in theory it was bordland for the sovereign’s sustenance. Customary tenure had early been found more convenient than exacting labor from serfs, and this was felt earlier on royal than private estates because the king’s existence was a perpetual progress. With the Conquest, the movement toward customary tenure was arrested, leaving customary holders and serfs as two distinct bodies.
Leadam contends that had Vinogradoff appreciated his own point about holdings on the lord’s demesne, he would have used it to explain the position of natives or serfs in ancient demesne and elsewhere. Instead, Vinogradoff tended to follow the lawyers’ attempt to identify serfs with villains. On ancient demesne he could not confound serfs with sokemen, whose different name protected them, yet he said nothing of their presence and dismissed a case turning on their status as astonishing, just as he condemned the decision of 1225. The case: in 1294 some Norfolk men tried to get justice against Roger Bigod, the celebrated defender of English liberties. They said they had pleaded against him for twenty years and gave definite references. The jury summoned declared in their favor. The earl opposed them with the astonishing answer that they were not his tenants at all. It ended with the plaintiffs’ collapse for no apparent reason; they did not come into court, and the jurors pleaded guilty of a false verdict.
Leadam then gives the original record. According to the plaintiffs, the manor was ancient demesne. As tenants of ancient demesne they claimed to hold by fixed services, and complained that Roger Bygod and his predecessor in title had exacted services villain and uncertain. Roger Bygod answered that the plaintiffs set out in the writ that they were the men of the same Roger of the manor aforesaid and tenants of the same manor, the which William and others were not the men of the same Roger of the manor aforesaid, nor did they hold any tenements in the manor aforesaid. The plaintiffs were six. Two traversed the earl’s denial and set out their holdings: one claimed one messuage, one croft and half an acre of marsh land; a second, one messuage and eight acres of marsh land. Both repeated that they were the homines of the earl. The other four traversed otherwise: they said they sued out a writ against him twenty years before, being then the earl’s homines and tenants of the manor, and had prosecuted uninterruptedly ever since, reviving the writ whenever it abated. This plea probably refers to Bygod’s employment in military service, whether in Edward I’s expedition to Palestine or in Wales. The service of the king, per Bracton, was a cause of abatement. The plaintiffs added that the earl’s eviction of them during the pendency of the litigation ought not to found a plea against their claims as tenants. The earl took the technical objection that they had not revived the writ; this was the first issue tried. That he had evicted them may therefore be taken as true. On the day appointed to try the issue as to the writ these four failed to appear, and they and their pledges were at mercy. From this it may be inferred that in their case the objection was good.
Patronage, the Church, and the Schools
An immense governmental patronage has grown up in Italy, comparable to that of the later Roman Republic. Every enterprise enjoying state protection gathers hangers-on who share its gains and are bound to defend the privileges that produce them; as in ancient Rome, elections are largely controlled by those with an indirect stake in government contracts. Beyond economics, the state’s influence is preponderant in nearly every field of social activity, with one exception: religion. The quarrel between papacy and monarchy has fortunately placed the clergy beyond government reach, and this—not anti-religious feeling—is the real reason Italian politicians resent the papacy. Most feel neither for nor against religion; they simply regret losing the clergy’s influence as a prop to their authority, and many would welcome a concordat like Napoleon’s. A pamphlet by the deputy Toscanelli, a good Catholic once deputed by Depretis to negotiate with the pope, illustrates the spirit: the pope’s politics should be censured in the schools, and the state should refuse to recognize any pope not proposed by the government.
In default of the church remain the schools. Whereas American and English professors are absolutely independent, and some French savants escape control through reputation, nearly all Italian higher instructors depend completely on the government—even in institutions supported by the provinces. At Bari, the economist Pantaleoni, director of the higher commercial school, published a scientific study on the drawbacks of alcohol that criticized deputies’ interference; unnoticed in Italy, it was quoted abroad and drew the government’s resentment. The school’s president complained that Pantaleoni had turned the government against them “while he knew the school had need of its help”; Pantaleoni was censured, refused to submit, and lost his place. Bonghi suffered a similar inquiry over two newspaper articles. Such cases are rare because the government need not punish independence—it merely proportions rewards to zeal in serving it.
The Courts and Electoral Corruption
Government influence reaches the courts. Italy, unlike the United States, has no absolutely independent judiciary, and though legal dependence need not destroy judicial independence in fact, the evidence here is damning—especially from judges themselves. An official journal admitted that public opinion regards the judiciary as less impartial than it should be, blaming the parliamentary system: once judges bowed to one tyrant, now they submit to the will of thousands, watching the smiles of syndics and prefects, the benevolent looks of legal deputies whose golden medals at audiences promise promotion and change of place.
Electoral corruption is pervasive and effectively unpunished. Local support reduces the cost of a seat; England’s former example shows purchased elections are compatible with parliamentary government, and a deputy who has bought his seat may be fairly independent. One such deputy, pressed to follow the government in all its evolutions, lost patience: he had paid his electors, they were quits, and he would vote by his conscience. Such cases are exceptional; generally the outlay is an investment expected to return with profit. Laws against corruption exist but are never enforced—a justice of the peace and a prosecutor in Venice who took them seriously were removed under di Rudini, and newspapers declared it ridiculous to punish vote-buying, now a general custom. Government support is more effective than money, above all the appointing and removing of officials: Nicotera told the Chamber in 1886 he could list clerks in Avellino recalled or dismissed for electoral reasons, adding that “certain things may be done, but they must be done well.” Cavallotti catalogued the tariff of abuses—a franc per name at Cagli, a franc fifty at Arezzo, six francs at Modena, up to a hundred at Alatri, subsidies and loans and a pardoned convict at Ferri. Di Rudini himself warned that administration, assemblies, and schools had become parts of a great vote-getting machine.
The Triple Alliance and the Burden of Taxation
Italy’s foreign policy has long clung to the alliance with Germany and Austria. The court fears republican government passing from France into Italy and believes the German alliance favors the dynasty’s permanence; to become a minister one must accept the Triple Alliance, so aspiring Radicals have retracted and praised it. Protectionist interests, expecting advantage from higher duties, favored economic rupture with France; great contractors, including the Terni steelworks, profited by spreading fear of war. Beyond profit, part of the bourgeoisie was haunted by what Senator Jacini called “megalomania”: the revolution was the bourgeoisie’s work, and many who grew rich turned to the expensive luxury of glory. Bismarck, a profound connoisseur of human passions, gratified this vanity at no cost and bought Italy’s alliance. Yet Italy’s independence is not truly threatened by France; other powers would intervene regardless of formal alliances.
To measure the burden on the country, Pareto turns to consumption taxes collected by state, communes, and provinces: 437 million francs in 1871, 641 in 1882, 806 in 1889. Wealth barely grew from 1882 to 1889—consumption of corn and wool even fell—so the rising proceeds mean the people’s condition has worsened, partly explaining increased emigration. Consumption taxes remain the point of least resistance: landowners resisted property taxes and even won a reduction of two-tenths on land tax precisely as expenses soared; house proprietors consented to a slight increase because tenants pay through rents, and owners connive at undervaluations. Income-tax returns are scandalous—deputies living on sixty thousand francs listed at twelve thousand—while political coteries enjoy immunity, so the burden falls on plain people. Only if the governing class itself were forced to pay would policy change, and the examples of Spain and Portugal show a Latin country may approach ruin first.
The Bank of Rome and the Panama Parallel
That the Bank of Rome malversations find their counterpart in France’s Panama scandal is no chance: similar effects from similar causes. Opportunism in France and Transformism in Italy exist solely to confer benefits on adherents, and such a system must breed scandals. Crispi declared that Tanlongo, director of the Bank of Rome, had no perception of having done wrong—credible, since uprightness is deadened in a corrupt atmosphere. In both countries scandalous acts done with impunity were known to the government long before the public; ministers of unquestioned private integrity never reflected that a government’s foremost reason for existing is to prevent crimes. Even after the public learned, governments impeded justice, consenting only reluctantly to prosecution and wishing only to hide everything—intelligible in a statesman avoiding scandal, but hard to understand why the sentiment does not manifest while there is still time to arrest the offences.
As early as 1879 the government knew of irregular bank practices; Ministers Magliani and Maiorana-Calatabiano warned that minor establishments might collapse without serious reform, yet ten years passed with nothing done except extracting funds for political needs. In 1889 an examination entrusted to Senator Alvisi and Biagini found a secret, illegal circulation of 25,976,358 francs in bank-notes, with accounting imperfect, issues abnormal, circulation partly fictitious, and the balance-sheet confused. With this report before them, the ministers took no steps except to keep it secret. Worse than passive, they relieved the Bank of Rome of redeeming its notes; but for Colajanni’s courageous opposition, a law would have prolonged for six years the legal-tender quality of the notes, including those illegally issued.
Giddings on Payne’s American History
Franklin H. Giddings reviewed Mr. Payne’s volume on American history and found it to be two things at once: a concrete history with definite limits of time and place, and an original study in the philosophy of history. From internal evidence alone, Giddings wrote, one cannot tell whether the completed work will be chiefly history or philosophy, and Payne’s preface does not say whether he cares most for the story of the New World as a chapter of human life to be explained or for the theory of civilization by which he interprets events. Perhaps he found he could not write American history intelligently without reconstructing the philosophy of history, perceiving in the evolution of social life on this continent the clearest revelation of universal laws of human progress. The present volume includes an opening book on the discovery of the New World and part of a second on aboriginal America, superficially resembling the first volume of Mr. Fiske’s series. Both works aim to account for events before and since the voyages of Columbus in naturalistic or evolutionist terms, but beneath this likeness lie radical differences. Fiske’s first serious writing, published in the North American Review at age nineteen, criticized Buckle’s explanation of civilization by purely physical causes such as topography, soil and climate; in his latest work he still holds that history and heredity are more important than environment, explaining the downfall of Spanish and French power in the New World by inherited psychology and institutions. Payne, by contrast, revives Buckle’s view with modifications suggested by later knowledge. His account of the discovery is valuable chiefly for the prominence given to purely physical causes such as ocean currents and continental configuration in determining the time and circumstances of the great voyages; the second book studies physical geography’s influence on aboriginal culture and, through it, on colonization and white civilization, surpassing all previous work in this direction.
Payne shows that the direction of American history cannot be explained by European influences only. Under papal authority Spain possessed the whole continent except part of tropical South America, the north-east angle, which fell to Portugal. Her claim was independent of settlement; England and France could found claims only on discovery, actual occupation and settlement. Yet when they entered seriously upon colonization, the portions of North America best adapted to European civilization were still virgin land, because Spain had expended her energies conquering and plundering the populations of Mexico, Central America and Peru. Spain followed this policy because these populations, unlike the northern tribes, were politically and religiously organized, permanently established on the soil, agricultural and industrial, and rich enough to be worth robbing. The causes determining their development, confining it to regions where white civilization could never flourish, were the true antecedents of American history — American, not European, causes. Those causes were the conditions enabling the populations of the table lands, and no others, to advance from a natural to an artificial food supply — the true beginning of civilization everywhere. Physical conditions determine the possibilities of change because they determine the distribution of domesticable animals and cultivable plants. The Old World had an immense advantage: the New had no animal larger than the llama fit for both food and labor. Tribes not depending chiefly on artificial food remain in savagery; because meat is preferred to vegetables and grain, most North American tribes, lacking domesticable animals, remained savage hunters. The transition to artificial food transforms social organization, religion, thought and morals; when completed, a population is civilized. If accomplished on the material side only, while thought and manners remain savage, the population is barbarian. To reach true civilization, a people must maintain a warrior class protecting the agricultural class against surrounding savagery. No American population got so far; none got beyond barbarism, and barbarism was maintained only in regions at once cultivable and relatively inaccessible — the mountain table-lands.
Giddings criticized Payne for interpreting civilization in economic terms — a long stride in the right direction, since civilization is at bottom an economic fact and economic phenomena ultimately shape legal, political and even religious conceptions. Payne examines religion’s relation to the economic basis of society shrewdly, explaining how household and tribal gods undergo selection, survivors owing their fortune to supposed utility (health, luck, fertility), and suggesting monotheism has an advantage over polytheism in reducing the costs of sacrifice, so that a non-sacrificial, spiritual religion like Christianity is the only one compatible with high civilization. But Payne does not go far enough: he does not show how or why a change from natural to artificial food supply may or must take place, or why it must effect social transformations. These problems require modern theorems of utility, cost and value from recent political economy. A minor criticism: Payne’s notions on the origin of spirit worship and gods are unclear; he brushes aside Mr. Spencer’s ghost theory, evidently thinking belief in spirits precedes savage reasoning on dreams and shadows. The animism versus ghostism controversy is becoming absurd; all facts are best explained by supposing both are too subtle and complicated to be primitive, slowly differentiated from a jumble of ideas. Payne’s amazing assumption that spirits were “invented” is indefensible; but what he says on the origin of totemism is admirable.
Beer on Lowell’s France
George Louis Beer reviewed Mr. Lowell’s study of social and political conditions in the reign of Louis XVI. Two great historians, de Tocqueville and Taine, had written elaborate works on the ancien régime as introductions to studies of the French Revolution, emphasizing the vicious sides of French social structure. Mr. Lowell describes those conditions without reference to subsequent events — a better plan, but he lacks his precursors’ intellectual depth and vigor. His materials were mainly contemporary memoirs, economists and philosophers, parliamentary archives, the cahiers, and modern French works; he is most indebted to M. Babeau. Modern German historians and economists, except von Sybel, are largely neglected.
Dunning on Fowler’s Ancient State
Wm. A. Dunning reviewed a book on the ancient state by Mr. Fowler. Dunning conceded the author’s prefatory claim that “there is absolutely nothing new in it,” yet expected few readers to quarrel with its publication, since ancient history and politics have never been so attractive a priori that any healthy stimulus to work in the field is superfluous. Fowler’s survey sketches all salient points in the development, structure, action, and decay of the city-state as a type of state life, with a suggestive method and readable style. The birth of the city-state in the East is assigned to the dim centuries between Mycenaean and political Hellas; in the western peninsula the date is absolutely unknown. In Hellas, Fowler traces the system’s development in Athens to its culmination in a perfect democracy; in Rome, to its climax in a perfect oligarchy. Democracy and oligarchy alike are then described in their decay, while the city-state sinks into the grave prepared by the empire. Dunning praised the concise but adequate descriptions of institutions, sound historical judgment in analyzing social aims and tendencies, and sympathetic appreciation of Athenian and Roman character. He noted that enthusiasm for the age of Pericles may have brought the author slightly into conflict with the sound Hellenic maxim μηδὲν ἄγαν, but only a Philistine would seriously censure that in a work designed as a stimulus to loftier culture. The author’s temporary habit of the superlative may account for describing Greek democracy as unsurpassed in political and legal conservatism until the advent of the great American democracy, though shortly afterward he asserts that “the conservative instinct . . . was far stronger in the Roman than in the Greek.” Dunning’
The “And Otherwise” Amendment and the Independent Treasury
The final stretch of the book opens mid-argument over a legislative citation concerning national finance, where the writer insists that “and” is not equivalent to “or” in matters involving hundreds of millions of dollars, and that treating the one as the other would be a frivolous basis for constructing a new system of national finance. The bill as originally reported did not contain the words “and otherwise”; a colloquy in the House of Representatives on April 2, 1864, is cited to show how they were inserted. Mr. Hooper moved to amend the forty-fifth section by inserting after the word “bonds” the words “and otherwise,” so that the Secretary of the Treasury might require of the designated associations satisfactory security by the deposit of United States bonds and otherwise for safe keeping. Mr. Holman asked what other securities were meant; Mr. Hooper replied that the department already required a personal bond in addition to the deposit of United States stock, and the amendment was offered to cover that point. Mr. Stevens corrected that the words are “and otherwise,” not “or otherwise,” and the amendment was agreed to.
The text then turns to a review of Mr. Kinley’s book. Kinley begins with a sketch of the second Bank of the United States, which the reviewer calls brief and not as good as a brief one ought to be, then describes the country’s condition and Treasury operations when it used state banks as depositories—a chapter called good, especially the part on Tyler’s veto of the Bank Bill passed at his own suggestion, a veto that broke the Whig Party’s heart and ruined Tyler politically. Yet Kinley holds it fortunate the bill did not become law; the reviewer thinks this probably true but the reasons assigned unsatisfactory. One provision limited the bank’s dealings to coin, bullion, notes and inland bills of exchange, with no loan over six months and no renewal—rules of sound banking, yet Kinley finds them unsuited to an approaching commercial crisis because contrary to the “method of freely discounting” sanctioned by wise bankers’ experience.
The reviewer challenges this recurring thought. A crisis and panic occurred a few months earlier; bankers saw its approach sooner and more clearly than others. That was the time to “discount freely,” says Kinley. Instead banks shut down on all discounts, becoming unyielding as iron, and began borrowing from each other on security of what they had previously lent customers, until New York banks had $38,000,000 of loan certificates outstanding; even then they were weeks in semi-suspension. Had they done the opposite and discounted freely, most if not all would have been wholly closed instead of half closed, and the community would have suffered far more. Wise, experienced bankers in New York would hardly say salvation last July lay in discounting freely. Perhaps Kinley would say banks ought to discount as freely as they can on a crisis’s approach—but that is a truism every banker affirms. The reviewer notes space prevents detail; more in Kinley’s pages deserves praise than blame, since he gathered much scattered information from financial archives and laws, and his conclusions are generally sound. Yet his book, a vademecum for the familiar, is not a safe guide for the uninstructed; it is inordinately spun out, Kinley has not learned condensation, and his chapter on “Crises” is extremely nebulous and would improve the book if omitted. The reviewer’s opinion is that Kinley’s substitute for the Independent Treasury would be worse than the disease, yet agrees it is a disease, though dormant—dormant because the Treasury has no surplus to hoard, drawing money from business channels in a stream to discharge in a flood. Eventually this evil must be dealt with sternly, but governments attend only to pressing things, and this is not now pressing. Gauging public receipts by public expenditures annually may cure most of the evil, besides curing the profligacy attending a surplus; a residue of temporary accumulation in the Treasury can only be prevented, as other governments prevent it, by depositing in banks. Signed Horace White.
The Behring Sea Arbitration and the Record of Political Events
The passage then begins the “Record of Political Events” from May 1 to November 5, 1893, covering the United States. Under foreign relations, the seal fisheries arbitration concluded, fixing principles for that long-discussed problem. Mr. Carter, counsel for the United States, finished his address May 2, followed by Mr. Coudert on the same side. For Great Britain Sir Charles Russell spoke May 10–31, and Sir Richard Webster June 1–7. After other counsel, pleadings closed with Mr. Phelps’s address for the United States, June 22–July 8. The decision was delivered August 15 and the court dissolved. The cases fell under two heads: the question of United States jurisdiction over sealing outside the three-mile limit, and the joint regulations necessary to preserve the seals if the United States was not accorded sole jurisdiction. Under the first head the court was required to answer five questions proposed in the treaty of arbitration. The United States stressed the fifth question, arguing that the law of nations is substantially identical with the law of nature, founded on mankind’s moral sense, which condemns extinction of any animal species contributing largely to human desires; the fur seal is such a species, and hunting it on the high sea during breeding season tends strongly to extinction, so pelagic sealing is
Chinese Exclusion, Pensions, and the Indian Bureau
The passage opens mid-discussion of enforcement of registration provisions reenacting older legislation. Federal judges generally found grounds to avoid applying penalties for non-registration; the net result of the act appears to have been the deportation of a single Chinaman in August from San Francisco. Some hundred or more seized persons were held in prison pending appeals to the Supreme Court on their right to habeas corpus; they were released upon passage of the new act in November.
A decision by the secretary of the interior, May 27, instituted an important change in pension policy. Under a ruling of the preceding administration, disabilities under the Dependent Pension Act of 1890 had been assimilated in rating to like disabilities of service origin, so that any disability which, if of service origin, would have been rated over $12 per month was rated at $12, the maximum under the 1890 act. Considering a case where $12 had been allowed for “slight deafness” because $15 was the minimum for such disability of service origin, the department declared the earlier ruling untenable. It held disabilities under the 1890 act could not be treated like service-origin disabilities, because that act introduced an entirely different standard: service-origin disabilities were ratable by law regardless of ability to work, while the 1890 act referred only to disability that “incapacitates them from the performance of manual labor in such a degree as to render them unable to earn a support,” with rates proportioned between six and twelve dollars according to degree. The decision declared the earlier ruling had superseded the law and that disregarding degree of inability to perform manual labor was illegal. As a result, and stimulated by discovery of frauds by pension agents in several parts of the country, a thoroughgoing revision of the lists under the 1890 act was inaugurated. It was announced the maximum rate would not be allowed anyone able to do any manual labor; notices were sent to pensioners whose records lacked prima facie evidence of total disability, suspending pensions and giving sixty days to bring proof, with the alternative of being dropped.
Main Arguments
Pareto’s central argument is that parliamentary government in Italy does not function as its formal constitutional description would suggest. The legal framework—a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliament, a responsible ministry, and a restricted suffrage—creates the appearance of a system in which the executive is accountable to the legislature and the legislature is accountable to the electorate. In practice, however, the system operates through a network of personal relationships, local interests, and factional bargains that bear little resemblance to the idealized model of parliamentary democracy. The Chamber of Deputies is not organized around coherent programmatic parties but around shifting coalitions of notables, each of whom controls a small block of votes and expects to be rewarded with patronage or policy concessions. Governments are formed and dissolved not on the basis of clear ideological divisions but through the maneuvering of these factions. The result is a chronic instability of ministries and a blurring of the line between government and opposition.
A second argument concerns the role of the suffrage. Pareto observes that the Italian electorate is narrow, but he does not conclude that its extension would necessarily improve the quality of parliamentary government. On the contrary, he suggests that a broader suffrage, in the absence of strong and disciplined parties, would simply increase the power of local bosses and demagogues. The problem is not the size of the electorate but the nature of political organization. In countries like Britain, where parties have deep roots in civil society and are capable of mobilizing voters around coherent programs, a broad suffrage can produce responsible government. In Italy, where such parties do not exist, a broad suffrage would only exacerbate the existing tendencies toward clientelism and corruption. This argument reflects Pareto’s broader skepticism about the benefits of democratization without corresponding changes in social and economic structure.
A third argument concerns the relationship between the monarchy and parliament. Pareto does not advocate a return to absolutism, but he does suggest that the monarchy plays a necessary stabilizing role in the Italian system. The king, as the head of state, can dissolve the Chamber, appoint and dismiss ministers, and serve as a symbol of national unity above the fray of factional politics. In a country with deep regional and social divisions, the monarchy provides a degree of continuity and coherence that the parliament alone cannot supply. Pareto is careful not to overstate this argument; he recognizes that the monarchy is not immune to political pressure and that its powers must be exercised with discretion. But he insists that any realistic assessment of Italian parliamentary government must take the monarchy into account as a constitutive element of the system, not merely as a decorative survival.
A fourth argument concerns the relationship between parliamentary government and economic development. Pareto suggests that the instability and clientelism of Italian parliamentary government are not merely political problems; they have economic consequences. The constant turnover of ministries makes it difficult to pursue consistent economic policies, and the need to satisfy factional demands leads to wasteful public spending and protectionist measures that benefit narrow interests at the expense of the general welfare. Pareto, who was a critic of protectionism and state intervention, sees parliamentary government in Italy as reinforcing the worst tendencies of the economic system. This argument connects his political analysis to his broader economic and sociological views.
Finally, Pareto argues that parliamentary government in Italy is not simply a copy of the British model but a distinct system with its own logic. He rejects the idea that Italy can be understood by applying categories derived from British or French experience. The Italian system has its own history, its own social base, and its own characteristic pathologies. This does not mean that it is immune to criticism or incapable of reform, but it does mean that reform must be based on a realistic understanding of how the system actually works, not on abstract models imported from abroad.
Key Concepts
Several concepts recur throughout Pareto’s analysis and give it its distinctive shape. The first is the distinction between the “legal” and the “real” constitution. Pareto is constantly concerned to show that the formal rules of the constitutional order do not determine the actual behavior of political actors. The legal constitution of Italy provides for a responsible ministry, a sovereign parliament, and an independent judiciary; the real constitution is a system of personal factions, patronage networks, and informal bargains. This distinction is not unique to Pareto, but he applies it with particular force to the Italian case.
The second concept is “transformism.” This term, which Pareto uses to describe the characteristic practice of Italian parliamentary politics, refers to the tendency of deputies to change their political allegiances in response to changing circumstances, without any corresponding change in their fundamental principles or programs. Transformism is not simply opportunism; it is a structural feature of a system in which there are no strong programmatic parties and in which individual deputies must constantly negotiate their position within shifting coalitions. Pareto sees transformism as both a symptom and a cause of the weakness of Italian parliamentary government. It makes it difficult for voters to hold their representatives accountable, and it reinforces the dominance of personal and local interests over national policy.
The third concept is “clientelism,” or the exchange of political support for material benefits. Pareto describes how deputies build and maintain their electoral base by distributing favors, jobs, and public works to their constituents. This practice is not unique to Italy, but Pareto argues that it is particularly pervasive there because of the weakness of programmatic parties and the narrowness of the suffrage. Clientelism creates a bond between deputy and voter that is based on mutual material interest rather than on shared political principles, and it makes it difficult to build broad coalitions around national issues.
The fourth concept is the “circulation of elites,” though Pareto does not use this exact phrase in the article. He describes how political power in Italy tends to circulate among a relatively small number of families and factions, with new groups entering the elite only gradually and often by adopting the practices of the old. This idea, which Pareto would later develop into a general sociological theory, is present here in embryonic form. It helps to explain why parliamentary government in Italy has not produced the kind of open competition for power that its formal rules would suggest.
The fifth concept is the “demagogic” tendency of parliamentary government. Pareto is critical of politicians who appeal to the passions and prejudices of the masses in order to gain power, and he sees this tendency as inherent in a system where the suffrage is broad but political organization is weak. Demagogy, in his view, is not simply a moral failing of individual politicians; it is a structural feature of a system that rewards those who can mobilize voters through emotional appeals rather than through reasoned argument. This concept connects Pareto’s political analysis to his broader critique of humanitarian ideology and his defense of what he saw as the classical virtues of restraint, discipline, and hierarchy.
Themes
The most prominent theme of the article is the gap between appearance and reality in political institutions. Pareto is fascinated by the ways in which formal rules can coexist with informal practices that subvert them. The Italian parliament, on paper, is a sovereign body that holds the executive accountable; in practice, it is a collection of factions that trade support for favors. The suffrage, on paper, gives citizens a voice in their government; in practice, it gives local bosses a mechanism for controlling their clients. This theme gives the article a skeptical, almost cynical tone, but it also reflects a serious methodological commitment: Pareto believes that political science must study what actually happens, not what is supposed to happen.
A second theme is the relationship between political institutions and social structure. Pareto insists that institutions cannot be understood in isolation from the society in which they operate. The weaknesses of Italian parliamentary government are not simply the result of bad laws or corrupt politicians; they reflect deeper features of Italian society, including regional divisions, economic backwardness, and the absence of a strong tradition of civic association. This theme connects Pareto’s article to the broader tradition of comparative political analysis, which seeks to explain institutional variation by reference to social and economic conditions.
A third theme is the tension between liberty and order. Pareto is not a defender of authoritarian government, but he is skeptical of the idea that parliamentary government automatically produces liberty. In a country with deep social divisions and weak political institutions, he suggests, parliamentary government can produce instability, demagogy, and the tyranny of local bosses. The monarchy, in his view, provides a necessary counterweight, a source of order and continuity that the parliament alone cannot supply. This theme reflects Pareto’s broader political philosophy, which emphasized the need for a balance between the forces of change and the forces of stability.
A fourth theme is the problem of political accountability. Pareto is concerned with the question of how citizens can hold their representatives accountable when the formal mechanisms of accountability—elections, parliamentary scrutiny, a free press—are weak or distorted. He suggests that in Italy, the absence of strong programmatic parties makes it difficult for voters to know what their representatives stand for, and the prevalence of clientelism makes it difficult for them to punish representatives who fail to deliver. This theme connects Pareto’s analysis to contemporary debates about democratic accountability and the conditions under which it can function effectively.
A fifth theme is the relationship between Italy and the broader European experience. Pareto is constantly comparing Italy with Britain and France, and he is interested in the question of whether parliamentary government is a universal model or a historically specific product of particular national conditions. He suggests that Italy cannot simply copy the British model, because the social and political conditions are different. This theme gives the article a comparative dimension that makes it relevant beyond the Italian case.
The Author’s Conclusions
Pareto’s conclusions are cautious and qualified. He does not predict the collapse of Italian parliamentary government, nor does he offer a blueprint for its reform. Instead, he suggests that the system is likely to continue in its present form, with all its weaknesses and contradictions, because there is no powerful force capable of transforming it. The monarchy, the bureaucracy, the church, and the army all have an interest in the status quo, and the fragmented nature of the Chamber of Deputies makes it difficult to build a coalition for reform. Pareto is skeptical of proposals to extend the suffrage, to strengthen the executive, or to introduce new parties, because he believes that such reforms would not address the underlying social and economic conditions that produce the system’s pathologies.
At the same time, Pareto does not rule out the possibility of change. He notes that Italian society is evolving, that new social groups are emerging, and that the balance of forces within the political system may shift over time. He is particularly interested in the rise of organized labor and the socialist movement, which he sees as a potential challenge to the existing order. But he is not optimistic about the prospects for a peaceful and orderly transition. The article ends on a note of uncertainty, with Pareto suggesting that the future of Italian parliamentary government will depend on forces that are beyond the control of any single actor or party.
The final impression left by the article is one of a system caught between the old and the new. The old world of notables, factions, and clientelism is still dominant, but it is being challenged by new social forces that it cannot easily accommodate. Pareto does not offer a resolution to this tension; he simply describes it and leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions. This open-ended quality is characteristic of his approach, which is analytical rather than prescriptive, and which seeks to understand rather than to judge.
Significance
The article is significant in several respects. First, it is an early example of the comparative study of parliamentary government, written by a scholar who would later become one of the founders of modern sociology. It shows Pareto applying his analytical skills to a concrete political system, and it reveals the continuity between his early work in economics and political science and his later work on elites and social equilibrium. Second, the article provides a valuable snapshot of Italian politics in the 1890s, a period of transition between the era of the Risorgimento and the era of mass politics. It captures the texture of parliamentary life in a country that was still struggling to consolidate its national institutions, and it offers insights that remain relevant to students of Italian history and politics.
Third, the article is significant as a contribution to the debate about the conditions under which parliamentary government can function effectively. Pareto’s emphasis on the importance of strong programmatic parties, a responsible electorate, and a balance between the executive and the legislature anticipates later work in comparative politics and political sociology. His skepticism about the automatic benefits of democratization, while controversial, raises questions that are still debated today. Fourth, the article is significant as a document of Pareto’s intellectual development. It shows him moving away from pure economics toward the broader sociological perspective that would characterize his later work, and it reveals the origins of some of his most characteristic ideas, including the circulation of elites and the critique of humanitarian ideology.
Finally, the article is significant as a piece of writing. Pareto’s prose is dense and allusive, but it is also precise and often witty. He has a gift for the telling detail and the illuminating comparison, and he is not afraid to express unpopular opinions. The article is not an easy read, but it rewards the effort. It offers a window into a vanished world of parliamentary politics, and it raises questions that are still with us today about the nature of democracy, the role of institutions, and the relationship between political forms and social realities. For readers interested in Italian history, comparative politics, or the history of political thought, Pareto’s essay on parliamentary government in Italy remains a valuable and provocative work.
