An extension of Maclaurin's inequalities

We give a combinatorial extension of the classical inequalities of Maclaurin about symmetric functions of several variables. We discuss two problems - one analytical and another combinatorial - and show that they are in some sense equaivalent. These results complete and extend earlier results of Motzkin and Straus, Khadzhiivanov, Sos and Straus, Fisher and Ryan, and Petingi and Rodriguez.