Vilfredo Pareto on Labor

A Critical Re-examination

Bibliographic Data

ID12068063
AuthorsMorihiko Okada (0000-0002-9025-2548, Konan University, corresponding author), Motohiro Okada
Year2015
Volume45
Issue1
Pages19-40
Publication date2015-04-28
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueForum for Social Economics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0736-0932 • E-ISSN: 1874-6381
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07360932.2015.1036764
OpenAlexW1998145448
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited14

This article comprehensively examines Vilfredo Pareto's thoughts on labor and highlights their significance within his body of work. Like the other pioneers in neoclassical economics, Pareto disregarded worker subjectivity toward labor performance and the resulting variability in the substance of labor. Thus emasculating the human traits of labor, in his theory of pure economics, Pareto identified the nature of labor exchange with that of the exchange of nonhuman objects, thereby subsuming the former under his general equilibrium system. This neoclassical principle of rationalizing the market determination of labor exchange on its deindividuation governed Pareto's speculations throughout his work. Even his arguments in applied economics in favor of worker solidarity and strikes were grounded on this principle. It remained the basis for Pareto's opinions on actual labor relations. Pareto's frustration here turned him into an anti-unionist, but it also helped to mold his prime ideas regarding sociology and his awareness of the limits of economics. However, Pareto's adherence to his former concept of labor exchange contradicting its nature became a chief cause of his failure to integrate his economic thinking with its sociological counterpart and occasioned his sympathy with Fascism. Thus, this article concludes that Pareto's thoughts on labor profoundly affected his entire body of thought and that their flaw is not exclusive to him but inherent in neoclassical economics

Economics · Labor relations · Labour economics · Neoclassical economics · Operations management · Pareto principle · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Solidarity · Sympathy · Economic Theory and Institutions · Economic Theory and Policy · Law · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychology · Social Psychology

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