More fully, the speculator capitalist is evidently a daring entrepreneur who is quick to take advantage of those high risk,

high gain opportunities which economic prosperity brings. When this willingness to take risks becomes prevalent throughout the economic elite, the economic cycle is driven at a greater pace through its phase of capital expansion. The rentier capitalist, on the other hand, prefers low risk, low gain strategies which are conducive to the process of capital contraction and consolidation which inevitably follows once the speculator elite has exhausted levels of socially available capital. To stress this point, Pareto clearly believed that the speculator and rentiers were distinguishable psychologically. We are told that the speculator are usually expansive personalities, eager to take up with anything new. And pareto even went so far as to describe the rentiers as mere savers who are often quiet, timorous souls sitting at all times with their ears cocked in apprehension, like rabbits, hoping little and fearing much from any change.