Although Pareto seems to have believed that his theory of residues and derivations constituted his major contribution to sociological thought, it would seem difficult to concur in his appraisal. Writing from the perspective of an age that has been deeply marked by Freud, contemporary analysts feel by and large that the doctrine of residues and derivations lacks psychological depth. It does not amount to much more than another classification of allegedly basic human drives and propensities, like so many produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The alleged explanations turn out, upon inspection, to be tautologies or mere pseudo-explanations; at best they can lead to a classi- fication of character types such as have more recently been advanced by Erich Fromm or David Riesman.

Pareto's enduring importance lies elsewhere. We owe to him the first precise statement of the idea of a social system that can be analyzed in terms of the interrelations and mutual dependencies between constituent parts. We owe to him a theory of the elite and of the circulation of elites, a theory that has continued to inspire concrete investigation into the functions of the upper strata of both governmental and nongovernmental units and that has given major impetus to studies of the origins of and recruitment into such upper strata. The analysis of elites has come to be seen as a vital counterpart of, but emphatically not as a substitute for, analyses of class factors. Theories of stratification would be seriously amiss were they to neglect, say, the ideologies, propensities, and interests of such elite groupings as technocrats, military pro- fessionals, or top legal practitioners. Pareto's distinctions between types of non- logical theories, and between utility of and utility for the community, have considerable analytical power.

Much of what Pareto wrote is only the fruit of the labors of an embittered, disillusioned, and resentful man who felt that his times had let him down. But many of his ideas can be put to use by those who reject his ideological stance while profiting from his genius.

From Coser, 1977:401-402.