I have some doubts about the Pareto principle too. It's like the great man theory of history, which fits too well with libertarianism. We put the elites on pedestals, but that's partly to scapegoat them when things go wrong. The common person's humility may be false, to some extent, since the elites couldn't do anything without the masses, just as the master needs his slaves.

I'm afraid my google search for that trichotomy turned up empty. I'm not sure who said it first. The distinction maps on to my adaptation of the ethological one between alphas, betas, and omegas. In human societies, we have the elites, the masses, and the outsiders (whose creativity is based on their forced objectivity, their detachment from the ruling norms).