PARETO ON CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY: ‘PER LA VERITÀ’

In this essay, I investigate Pareto’s understanding of classical political economy as a science, with particular emphasis on the themes of surplus, value and the cost of production. For those themes, this study reveals that Pareto considered substantive economic knowledge to have developed asymptotically. In reaching that view, and in emphasising the substantive continuity in the progress of economics from classical political economy to the economics of the Lausanne school, I attempt to clarify why Francesco Ferrara’s critical assessment of, and positive contribution to, classical political economy was important for Pareto’s appreciation of the classical approach.