Pareto began his career as a university professor in Lausanne exactly three years after his unfortunate enforced departure from the management of the ironworks. This swift transformation was largely down to chance but was also due to Pareto’s determination to seize any welcome opportunity for work, as well as to the new intellectual skills he had acquired in the meantime.
Following his resignation, pending new opportunities in management which appear not to have materialised, Pareto pursued his work in amateur journalism, maintaining his former spirit of minority liberal activism, as we will see in some detail in Chap. 2. Pareto’s interest for pure economics seems to have been sparked by his fortuitous contacts with Pantaleoni together with their shared passion for radical liberalism, both political and economic. Through Pantaleoni, Pareto duly made contact with Walras and thereafter decided to devote himself systematically to mathematical economics, which initially had represented for him simply an original method of consolidating free-trade theories. His early publications in this field drew the attention of Walras, who had decided to retire from teaching but had been unable, despite all his efforts, to find a worthy successor, and who therefore resolved, urged by Pantaleoni, to support Pareto’s candidacy.
We are able to reconstruct many of the phases of the complex official relations between Pareto and the University of Lausanne,1 corresponding to the periods of his first contacts (Sect. 1.1), of his appointment (Sect. 1.2), of his succession (Sect. 1.3), of his role in the foundation of the École des Sciences Sociales (School of Social Sciences) (Sect. 1.4), of his teaching activities in political economy (Sect. 1.5) and of the history of the institution itself in that period (Sect. 1.6).
1.1 First Contacts
In reply to a letter of homage written by Pareto, on the 15th of October 1892, Walras, who recognised his own limitations in regard to “formal analysis”, expressed his hope that Pareto himself might be able to re-establish his own economic theories on a more advanced mathematical basis, referring to recent articles by Pareto2 representing what Walras considered to be “the most serious and the most gifted work on questions relating to mathematical political economy”. On the same occasion Walras informed Pareto of his decision to stop teaching and to request early retirement on grounds of ill-health.3
On the 23rd of October, Pareto thanked Pantaleoni, to whom he had sent Walras’ letter,4 for having contemplated him as successor, adding, however, that he considered himself to be “too little known to be chosen”.5 In any case, on the following 3rd of November, Pantaleoni informed Walras of his intention to insist with Pareto, whom he considered “the person best-equipped to be able continue the tradition” which Walras had initiated,6 that he should put himself forward as candidate. Walras replied immediately that he too had Pareto in mind7 and that he intended to ask the government of the canton to appoint an extraordinary professor for two courses (in pure and applied economics) to be taught directly in the current academic year, in the hope that thereafter he could be offered a chair definitively, stating that he would support “Mr. Pareto in every way within [his] power to conclude these arrangements”.8
On the 7th of November9 Pareto confided to Pantaleoni that “if the thing could be achieved, it would be a great honour” for him. However, he needed to “find a way…. to accept this much-desired post” while avoiding “grave consequences” in Italy.10 Thus, he answered Walras that it would be “a very great honour” for him to be called to give courses in Lausanne but that he could not come immediately, partly due to existing commitments11 and partly because, were the trial period in Lausanne not to lead to a definitive appointment, he would have to “organise things in such a way as not to entirely forsake [his] activities [in Italy], so as to be in a position to take them up again on [his] return”.12
In any case, on the 14th of November, Pareto assured Walras that, if he were to be appointed in Lausanne, he would settle there “for good”, because he was now convinced that the battle for free trade was lost in Italy and consequently it would be preferable for him to dedicate himself to the study of science. Lastly, he was confident that “[his] teaching would meet with success” because “all the people who had heard [him] speaking in public in French had told [him] that [his] diction was clear and easy to follow”.13 Pareto added that he was interested in the opportunity in Lausanne because the Italian government had prohibited him from giving courses in public, so this would allow him to “expound [his] ideas … to a fresh audience each year”, especially given that he could not afford “the luxury of publishing scientific work at [his] own expense”.14
On the 20th of January 1893, Walras informed Pareto that his chances of success appeared good, assuring him that it was characteristic of the minister responsible, Eugène Ruffy (1854–1919)15 to put off making decisions for as long as possible.16 For his part Ruffy, on the basis of Walras’ letter in which he recommended Pareto as his successor (designating him “one of [his] most brilliant disciples [and] the best-equipped to continue” his teaching in pure political economy)17 together with the letter of application sent to him by Pareto himself,18 had duly contacted the Swiss Ambassador in Paris (Charles Lardy) to check the references communicated to him by Walras19 (particularly in regard to the publishers of the “Journal des Economistes” and of the “Revue des Deux Mondes”).
In the early Spring, having given up the prospect of the move to Lausanne as lost in bureaucratic delays, Pareto commented that he would “have been very happy if it had been possible”.20 Thus, it was with evident enthusiasm that, instead, he was able to announce to Pantaleoni that on the 19th of April, following an interview21 which had taken place at his house in Fiesole with Ruffy and the Dean of the law faculty,22 Louis Grenier (1846–1919), “everything [had] been settled”23 and that, in response to the wishes of his interlocutors, he would travel to Lausanne at the beginning of May in order to “start teaching” straightaway.24 To be precise, Pareto’s appointment was as “extraordinary Professor” for a period of a year, with a promise from Ruffy that “if the results of [his] courses [were] satisfactory”, he would be offered a chair25 at Easter 1894.
On the 24th of April 1893, the professors Grenier, Jacques Berney (1863–1898), Heinrich Ermann (1857–1940) and Ernest Roguin (1851–1939)26 were present at the meeting of the Law Faculty board, which unanimously approved Pareto’s appointment as extraordinary professor of political economy, expressing “the desire that, if possible, the teaching of pure political economy should begin this summer”.27 On the 25th of...