ABSTRACT
The Transformation of Democracy reveals Pareto’s theoretical insights in their most dramatic splendor. A society is ruined when too many people hunger for easy money. Pareto begins with the premise that deep-seated value orientations determine peoples’ proclivities for deceit and squandering the resources of others. Building on this premise, he concludes that a society in which people have forgotten how to work, and dream instead of growing rich through speculation or through legal maneuvering or political largesse, is a society which will impoverish itself. This is a story that would, Pareto feared, be replayed over and over again in history.
