Chapter 11
20% or this Chapter is 80% of the point
Read Time:
Between 4 Minutes 24 Seconds and 5 Minutes 30 Seconds
People who have less than orthodox lives before becoming noticed, even famous – the afore mentioned Van Gogh, Masefield and Hemingway (everyone at Blue Strawberry Elephant) – bring an array of different views to the table. Angles and accents that haven’t been flattened by academia or corporate straight jackets.
Which is good – because most people we work for wouldn’t be running a business if they were true conformists.
And more – you often find synchronicity in their thinking. Unbeknownst to each other, due to separation of distance and centuries. The same subjects and philosophies fascinate them all – like a universal and complex Venn Diagram showing eternally overlapping thoughts.
VILFREDO PARETO was another such. With an early personal journey which reads more like an Alexandre Dumas novel.
I will come to why this story is worth reading later …
Born in Paris on July 15th 1848, his father was the Marquis Raffaele Pareto – true Italian nobilitas – who had thrown away his opportunity of a dazzling military career by joining a republican rebellion against the ruling House of Savoy.
The failed uprising meant exile to Paris was his only option, to avoid a certain imprisonment or likely execution.
Penniless but ambitious he turned away from the military to take his mathematical training into a very successful career in civil engineering.
The love of Raffaele’s life came in the mismatched form of working class citizen Marie Metenier. The joining of her anti-royalist citizenry and the Marquis’ attempt to unseat the Royal House back home must have felt like fate bringing them together, not just as lovers but with shared political ideology.
At the time Europe was still on a tidal wave of Social and Political upheaval. The proof of where the Pareto’s stood in their joined up thinking was elucidated by their son’s given birth name.
After producing two daughters, Aurelia and Cristina, their first son was named Wilifred Fritz Pareto for the German revolutions that happened in the same year.
As he turned ten years old the Italian government announced a political amnesty – the family returned to his father’s homeland and the boy’s name was Italianised to become Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto.
Being brought up in a household that was fiercely political and intellectually passionate, young Vilfredo soaked in his father’s obsession with absolute logic, the purity of mathematical sciences and engineering.
While both parents simultaneously allowed almost dogmatic political fervour to override the logical conclusions of economics.
At age 68, this early life experience must have influenced his conclusion…
“Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, [from what comes later] makes their actions appear to be logical.”
from “Trattato di sociologia generale” (The Mind and Society) published by Pareto in 1916.
Here we are again, back with the Limbic Brain.
101 years before I wrote “The Theory of Up”. Pareto was writing his thoughts on The Limbic Impulse, which he called Residues and Rationalisation and titled the whole as Derivations.
ATTRIBUTION OF MYTH
We’ve spoken of misattributed quotes (Rushdie instead of Weldon, Roosevelt and Socrates credited with Victorian thoughts on social status) but with Pareto his genius led to the attribution of legend.
Legend’s usually arrive from a combination of stories about many long gone heroes, to comfort the masses when times are harsh.
The solace of King Arthur arising from the earth to save Britain, the example of Robin Hood robbing from the rich… the little guys dreaming of a power they never had.
But there are other forms – the incredibly successful entrepreneurs, the most awarded generals, the win all victorious in sporting competition – as though the truth of their achievements isn’t enough, more has to be added.
So it was with Vilfredo Pareto.
His trek across Italy with theodolite and tape measure calculating that 20% of the population owned 80% of the land – never happened – but the story was more inspiring than the calculations he worked on at his office desk in Lausanne, studying highly dense calculations from Tax Data from Italy, England and Germany
As he developed his 80/20 theory the story was embellished again to make quite recent marketing material easier to understand and further inspire – with the myth that the whole theory came from Pareto discovering 80% of his peas came from 20% of his pods.
Although his 80/20 Theory is a sound foundation for planning, development and business growth – the Pea Patch he tended a decade later in life was simply a nice confirmation of what he had already discovered through rigorous mathematical and scientific research.
Isn’t the truth enough?
Vilfredo Pareto
- 1848 (Birth): Born Wilifred Fritz Pareto on July 15 in Paris, to an exiled Italian Aristo and French Citizen of the Republic.
- 1858 Moved back to Northern Italy, receiving the highest quality education majoring in mathematics.
- 1870 Graduated with a degree in Mathematical Engineering. His thesis on the mathematical principles of equilibrium in solid bodies would later define his economic theories.
- 1874–1892 Managed the Italian Railway Company before taking charge of a major iron and steel manufacturing firm in Florence. Growing increasingly angry and frustrated with government corruption, red tape, and state interference in free markets.
- 1893 At the age of 45, he was appointed Professor and Chair of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
He had caught the attention of academia by writing fiercely anti-government political articles. - 1896 His first major academic work, Cours d’économie politique [Class in Political Economy] was published. It included his mathematical law of income distribution, noting that wealth distributes itself naturally in a predictable asymmetric pattern.
- 1901 Living in Switzerland, he noticed the 80/20 distribution in his garden pea pods, cementing his belief that inequality and imbalance are mathematical laws of nature, not just human constructs – the pre-launch of many a Social Media and Marketing Guru construct, as though this was all his theory consisted of.
- 1906 Pareto Published Manuale di economia politica, introducing the concept of “Pareto Efficiency” (or Pareto Optimality)—the economic actuality where one person cannot be made better off without making someone else worse off.
- 1907 The turn of the century equivalent of a Lottery Jackpot win – also known as an Uncle leaving him a massive inheritance, allowing him to retire to a grand villa in Céligny, Switzerland, where he spent his time with huge quantities of fine wine – and dozens of Angora cats.
- 1916 and his genius shifted from numbers to human behaviour, publishing Trattato di sociologia generale (Mind and Society)
.
See our mutual respect for Limbic influence above. - 1923 Pareto’s reputation for deep thought was Briefly targeted and co-opted by Benito Mussolini’s rising Fascist regime in Italy, who named him a Senator – but Pareto never attended a single session of the Senate and warned against the Dictator’s restriction of free speech.
- On August 19, 1923: Vilfredo died in Céligny, Switzerland, aged 75
With a life story like this – why would the lily need to be gilded?
Simple – Human nature.
For the same reason we have a Mother of Dragons, Wildlings and horrors to invent a Game of Thrones – instead of simply dramatising the REAL History of the War of the Roses.
Over dramatisation and myth making, is not recommended for B2B marketing, but it is a great reminder that attention isn’t often grabbed by being boring.
And if later – when your company is recognised by a fraction of your logo without having to see your name even – they can make up as many positive myths about you as they want.
Afterall – Peas were never bad for Signor Pareto.
