Pareto's contribution to the theory and statistics of income has been universally recognized as a decisive step in the study of the personal distribution of income and wealth, perhaps even as the fi rst contribution in applied econometrics. His "income law" is certainly not as universal as he thought; however, it has been shown to be a heuristic instrument of undoubted cognitive potential, which is furthermore effi cient and still valid for describing the upper tail of the distribution of wealth. On the other hand, Pareto's concept of inequality has remained in a sort of shadow zone, and particularly so the index that he had proposed for measuring it. 1 There is a double reason for this: fi rst, the index α identifi ed by Pareto had no universal value, being applicable only to the strictly "Paretian" distributions; 2 second, and paradoxically, the interpretation of
Abstract. At the end of the 19th century, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Otto Ammon founded a school of thought denominated “social anthropology” or “anthropo‐sociology,” aimed at placing racism on a scientific basis. Their intent was to create a new discipline into which the themes of biological heredity, natural selection, social stratification, and political organization were to converge. This paper intends to demonstrate the wide resonance that anthroposociology had in the economic literature, analyzing the thought of authors such as Carlos C. Closson, Vilfredo Pareto, and Thorstein Veblen. A particular focus will be on the racial and eugenic arguments used as explanation of social and economic inequality.
At the end of the 19 th century, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Otto Ammon founded a school of thought denominated "social anthropology" or "anthropo-sociology," aimed at placing racism on a scientific basis. Their intent was to create a new discipline into which the themes of biological heredity, natural selection, social stratification, and political organization were to converge. This paper intends to demonstrate the wide resonance that anthroposociology had in the economic literature, analyzing the thought of authors such as Carlos C. Closson, Vilfredo Pareto, and Thorstein Veblen. A particular focus will be on the racial and eugenic arguments used as explanation of social and economic inequality.Social anthropology is today considered a flourishing branch of human knowledge, promoted all over the world by specialist journals and scientific institutions. 1 However, the social anthropology dealt with in these pages has little to do with this reality. At present his research activity mainly deals with the problem of inequality and, in particular, the "Pareto law." He would like to thank the anonymous readers of AJES and Laurence Moss for their helpful comments. He is extremely grateful to Francesco Asso, Fabrizio Bientinesi, Luca Fiorito, and Tiziana Foresti for their bibliographical support. None of them are, of course, responsible for any errors.
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