This paper reviews the 1902-03 polemic between Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Scorza, an Italian mathematician, on the validity of what is now referred to as the first law of welfare economics - i.e. the proposition that a point of equilibrium determined under conditions of free competition is...

This paper reviews the 1902-03 polemic between Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Scorza, an Italian mathematician, on the validity of what is now referred to as the first law of welfare economics--i.e. the proposition that a point of equilibrium determined under conditions of free competition is...