LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Vilfredo Pareto: Wealth
built 792 days ago
This metric was named in honor of economist Vilfredo Pareto who created a formula to represent uneven distribution of wealth. This formula came to be known as the 80-20 rule, which asserts that a small number of factors have widespread effects. Dr. J.M. Juran later applied this concept to defect analysis to show that typically a small number of issues within a production environment lead to a majority of unit defects.
Source:
Vilfredo Pareto, a turn-of-the-century Italian economist, studied the distributions of wealth in different countries, concluding that a fairly consistent minority – about 20% – of people controlled the large majority – about 80% – of a society's wealth. This same distribution has been observed in other areas and has been termed the Pareto effect.
Source:
Pareto efficiency does not require a "just" or equitable distribution of wealth. An economy in which the wealthy hold the vast majority of resources can be Pareto efficient. This should, of course, not be understood as criticism of Pareto efficiency itself, but rather of the idea that Pareto efficiency is desirable or even only Pareto efficiency is desirable. Wealthy individuals tend to be the best at generating more wealth, and this shouldn't require that they hold wealth exclusively.
Source:
Pareto's stay in Florence was marked by political activity, much of it fuelled by his own frustrations with government regulators. After the Cavourist liberal government was replaced with a more interventionist government in Italy in 1876, Pareto was quick to identify the vested political interests that lay behind economic regulation, protectionism and nationalization that proceeded. A democratic republican and free-trader by instinct, Pareto deplored aristocratic and government corporatism. He saw the new Italian parliamentary system as a sham, a "pluto-democracy", a fig leaf for the naked power of the nobility and the wealthy. He sided with the radical democratic movements and the liberals whom, he believed, would replace privilege with meritocracy, restore real democracy, pursue free trade and true competition and promote social welfare. Pareto ran unsuccessfully for office on an opposition platform in the district of Pistoia in 1882.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Wealth