\n"}\n\nFrancis was introduced to this school of thought by his study of \nVilfredo Pareto, whom he discovered through the work of James Burnham. \nPareto was an early-twentieth-century Italian sociologist who sought to \nconstruct a \u201cscience of power\u201d (in \u00adBurnham\u2019s words) by observing \nrecurring patterns of change in political history. With this approach, \n\u00adPareto believed, it was possible to discern universal laws of social \norganization. He argued that all political societies, except for the \nmost primitive, were dominated by an elite minority. Even modern \nsocieties that called themselves democratic in fact functioned as \noligarchies. Pareto did not endorse elite government in the form of \naristocracy, and he denied that elites were better, wiser, or more \nvirtuous than the multitude. Elites were simply inevitable, and \npolitical history was the story of how the composition of the dominant \nclass \u201ccirculated\u201d over time, according to the changing character of a \nnation.
\nPareto explained minority rule through its use of ideology, whose \nnature, he argued, was hidden even from its beneficiaries. Elites \ngoverned society largely for their own benefit, but they rarely ruled \nthrough violence or intimidation. They ruled through myths, stories, and\n ideals that justified their domination by endowing it with moral \ncredibility. Pareto was one of the first scholars of ideology, and he \ncarefully examined discrepancies between the abstract content of \npolitical rhetoric and its real-world uses. He distinguished between the\n \u201cformal\u201d and \u201creal\u201d meanings of political ideology. The formal meaning \nof an ideology is communicated by its explicit concepts and values, and \ncan be understood philosophically. Its real meaning is revealed through \nits intended effects on political behavior, which are disguised by its \nrhetoric. Though Pareto saw ideologies as self-serving, he did not \nbelieve their sole purpose was to deceive the masses. They reflected a \ngenuine human desire, shared by both rulers and ruled, to live together \non the perceived basis of morality rather than force.
\nFrancis used Pareto\u2019s work to explain the impotence of American \nconservatism. Why had conservatives, despite election victories, failed \nto reduce the size of government or stop social liberalization? Francis \nhad a cynical view of Republican politicians, attacking even Reagan at \nthe height of his popularity. But he placed the blame on conservative \nintellectuals, who had made two compounding errors. The first was to \ntake the formal meaning of liberalism at face value. Under the popular \nslogan \u201cideas have consequences,\u201d they had assumed that liberal ideas, \nrather than the political interests they advanced, were their primary \nenemy. Francis\u2019s writing in the 1980s frequently attacked influential \nconservatives such as Irving Kristol, George Will, and Richard John \n\u00adNeuhaus, criticizing their \u201cesoteric\u201d preoccupations. While \nconservatives were staging conferences to ponder the moral foundations \nof democracy, liberal intellectuals were perfecting strategies for \nseizing institutional power. Neuhaus may have offered \u201cformal defenses\u201d \nof traditional institutions, \u00adFrancis complained, but his respect for \ncivil debate only served to \u201clegitimize managerial control.\u201d
\nTradcaths at First Things wrote a piece on Sam Francis
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