Pareto presents political and social history as a recurring process in which one elite loses influence while another rises to replace it. By an “elite”, he means a comparatively powerful and capable minority, without implying that its members are morally superior. His argument is that such groups do not remain dominant indefinitely.

The quotation expresses a central idea in Pareto’s theory of the circulation of elites. Established elites may decline as their organisation, circumstances or characteristics change, while competing groups acquire the strength needed to gain influence. Political change can therefore involve the replacement of one governing minority by another rather than the disappearance of elite rule itself.

This is a theory of how Pareto believed power operates, rather than an established law of history. It can be used to examine changes in political leadership, ruling groups and institutions while leaving open questions about how widely the model applies.

Full quotation

“Except during short intervals of time, peoples are always governed by an elite. I use the word elite (It. aristrocrazia) in its etymological sense, meaning the strongest, the most energetic, and most capable—for good as well as evil. However, due to an important physiological law, elites do not last. Hence, the history of man is the history of the continuous replacement of certain elites: as one ascends, another declines. Such is the real phenomenon, though to us it may often appear under another form.”