The dominant model of economic and social action in the twentieth century was goal-rational. It supposed that chosen goals could be achieved by planned actions. Another view, beginning with the economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, observed that the model of successful goal-rational action applied mostly to work tasks. The society-wide application of purposive rationality was limited. Pareto-style realism emphasized that creativity together with permanence and were much more significant in economic and social behavior than the methodical pursuit of goals. Pareto’s insight was that what mattered in society was the ability to fuse opposites into patterns along with the persistence of those patterns once they were created. Successful economies and societies mix innovation and durability. They exhibit the paradoxical characteristics of the fox and the lion.