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Library of America #147
Демократия в Америке
Книга французского государственного деятеля, историка и литератора Алексиса де Токвиля (1805 — 1859) — выдающееся сочинение из большого числа тех, что написаны европейскими путешественниками об Америке. Она представляет собой весьма сложный сплав путевых заметок, исследования, документа, философского эссе и публицистики. Автор всесторонне анализирует объективные условия существования, государственно–политическое устройство и духовную жизнь Соединённых Штатов Америки, превращавшихся буквально на глазах поколения Токвиля из "окраины цивилизации", из полулегендарного Нового Света в реальный фактор европейской и мировой политики.
554 pages, Hardcover
First published January 31, 1835
About the author
Alexis de Tocqueville
988 books1,398 followersAlexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, usually known as just Tocqueville, was a French aristocrat, diplomat, sociologist, political scientist, political philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analyzed the living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.
Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville argued the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under Louis XIV. He believed the failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals.
Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government and was skeptical of the extremes of majoritarianism. During his time in parliament, he was first a member of the centre-left before moving to the centre-right, and the complex and restless nature of his liberalism has led to contrasting interpretations and admirers across the political spectrum.
Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville argued the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under Louis XIV. He believed the failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals.
Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government and was skeptical of the extremes of majoritarianism. During his time in parliament, he was first a member of the centre-left before moving to the centre-right, and the complex and restless nature of his liberalism has led to contrasting interpretations and admirers across the political spectrum.
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July 16, 2013
I struggle to penetrate God’s point of view, from which vantage point I try to observe and judge human affairs.
A few months ago, bored at work and with no other obligations to tie me to New York, I decided that I would look into employment in Europe; and now, several months and an irksome visa process later, I am on the verge of setting off to Madrid. Unsurprisingly, I’m very excited to go; but of course leaving one’s home is always bittersweet. This is partly why I picked up Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, as a sort of literary good-bye kiss to this odd, uncouth, chaotic, and fantastic place which has, up until now, molded my character, sustained my body, and contained my thoughts.
This turned out to be an excellent choice, for this book is without a doubt the best book ever written on the United States. I am able to say this, even though I haven’t even read a fraction of the books written on this country, because I simply can’t imagine how anyone could have done it better. As it is, I can hardly believe that Tocqueville could understand so much in the short span of his life; and when I recall that he wrote this book after only 9 months in America, while he was still in his thirties, I am doubly astounded. This seems scarcely human.
Part of the reason for his seemingly miraculous ability is that, with Tocqueville, you find two things conjoined which are normally encountered separately: extremely keen powers of observation, and a forceful analytic mind. With most travel writers, you encounter only the former; and with most political philosophers, only the latter. The product of this combination is a nearly perfect marriage of facts and reasoning, of survey and criticism, the ideas always hovering just above the reality, transforming the apparently senseless fabric of society into a sensible and intelligible whole. Almost everything he sees, he understands; and not only does he understand what he sees, but so often hits upon the why.
Although this book covers an enormous amount of ground—religion, slavery, culture, government, the role of women, just to name a few topics—there is one central question that runs through every subject: What does the appearance of democracy mean for the future of humanity? Tocqueville sees this question as the most pressing and significant one of his time; for, as he perceived, what was happening then in America was destined to inspire Europe and perhaps the whole world to adopt this new form of government, which would forever change the face of society. In short, Tocqueville is seeking to understand America so that he could understand the future; and the plan of the book follows these two goals successively. The first volume, published in 1835, is a thorough analysis of the United States; and the second volume, published in 1840, is a comparison of democracy and aristocracy, an attempt to pinpoint how a switch to a democratic government causes far-reaching changes in the whole culture.
Tocqueville is famously ambivalent about American democracy. He often sounds greatly impressed at what he finds, noting how hardworking and self-reliant are most Americans; and yet so often, particularly in the second volume, Tocqueville sounds gloomy and pessimistic about what the future holds. Much of his analysis is centered on the idea of social equality. He often reminds the reader—and by the way, Tocqueville wrote this for a French audience—that Americans, rich or poor, famous or obscure, will treat everyone as an equal. The entire idea of castes or classes has, in Tocqueville’s opinion, been abolished; and this has had many effects. Most obviously, it gives free reign to American ambition, for anyone can potentially climb from the bottom to the top; thus results the ceaseless activity and endless financial scheming of Americans. And even those who are quite well-off are not spared from this fever of ambition, for the lack of inherited wealth and stable fortunes means that the rich must continually exert effort to maintain their fortunes. (Whether this is true anymore is another story.)
Thus we find a kind of money-obsession, where everyone must constantly keep their minds in their wallets. In America, money is not only real currency, but cultural currency as well, a marker of success; and in this context, the creature comforts of life, which after all only money can buy, are elevated to great importance. Rich food, warm beds, spacious houses—these are praised above the simpler pleasures in life, such as agreeable conversation or pleasant walks on sunny days, as the former require money while the latter are free and available to anyone. The central irony of a classless society is that it forces everyone to focus constantly on their status, as it is always in jeopardy. You can imagine how shocking this must have been for Tocqueville, the son of an aristocratic family. There simply was no class of Americans who had the leisure of retiring from the cares of the world and contemplating the “higher” but less practical things in life. All thought was consumed in activity.
This results in a society of the ordinary individual. In America, there are few “great men” (as Tocqueville would say) but a great many good ones. Americans are self-reliant, but not daring; they are often decent, but never saintly. They will sometimes risk their lives in pursuit of a fortune, but never their fortunes for the sake their lives. An American might temporarily accept hardship if there is a financial reward on the other end; but how many Americans would forsake their fortunes, their comforts, their houses and property, for the sake of an idea, a principle, a dream? Thus a kind of narrow ambition pervades the society, where everyone is hoping to better their lot, but almost nobody is hoping to do something beyond acquiring money and things. One can easily imagine the young Tocqueville, his mind filled with Machiavelli and Montesquieu, meeting American after American with no time or inclination for something as intangible as knowledge.
In the midst of his large-scale cultural analysis, Tocqueville sometimes pauses for a time, putting off the role of philosopher to take up the role of prophet. Tocqueville does get many of his predictions wrong. For example, he did not at all foresee the Civil War—and in fact he thought Americans would never willingly risk their property fighting each other—and instead he thought that there would be a gigantic race war between blacks and whites in the south. But Tocqueville was otherwise quite right about race relations in the slave-owning states. He predicts that slavery could not possibly last, and that it would soon be abolished; and he notes that abolishing slavery will probably be the easiest task in improving the relationship between blacks and whites. For although slavery can be destroyed through legal action, the effects of slavery, the deep-rooted racial prejudice and hatred, cannot so easily be wiped clean. In support of this view, Tocqueville notes how badly treated are free blacks in the northern states, where slavery is banned. Without a place in society, they are shunned and fall into poverty. The persistence of the color line in America is a testament to Tocqueville’s genius and our failure to prove him wrong.
But perhaps the most arresting prediction Tocqueville makes is about the future rivalry of the United States with Russia. Here are his words:
Americans struggle against obstacles placed there by nature; Russians are in conflict with men. The former fight the wilderness and barbarity; the latter, civilization with all its weaponry: thus, American victories are achieved with the plowshare, Russia’s with the soldier’s sword.
To achieve their aim, the former rely upon self-interest and allow free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of individuals.
The latter focus the whole power of society upon a single man.
The former deploy freedom as their main mode of action; the latter, slavish obedience.
The point of departure is different, their paths are diverse but each of them seems destined by some secret providential design to hold in their hands the fate of half the world at some date in the future.
While discussing such an obviously brilliant man as was Tocqueville, whose ideas have become foundational in the study of American society, it seems almost petty to praise his prose style. But I would be doing an injustice to any readers of this review if I failed to mention that Tocqueville is an extraordinary writer. I was consistently captivated by his ability to sum up his thoughts into crisp aphorisms and to compress his analyses into perfectly composed paragraphs. I can only imagine how much better it is in the original French. Here is only a brief example:
Commerce is a natural opponent of all violent passions. It likes moderation, delights in compromise, carefully avoids angry outbursts. It is patient, flexible, subtle, and has recourse to extreme measures only when absolute necessity obliges it to do so. Commerce makes men independent of each other, gives them quite another idea of their personal value, persuades them to manage their own affairs, and teaches them to be successful. Hence it inclines them to liberty but draws them away from revolutions.
In the brief space of a book review—even a long one—I cannot hope to do justice to such a wide-ranging, carefully argued, and incisive book as this. So I hope that I have managed to persuade you to at least add this work to your to-read list, long as it may be already. For my part, I can’t imagine a better book to have read as I prepare myself to visit a new continent, about the same age as was Tocqueville when he visited these shores, for my own travels in a strange place. And although, lowly American that I am, I cannot hope to achieve even a fraction of what Tocqueville has, perhaps his voice echoing in my ears will be enough to encourage me to look, to listen, and to understand.
June 14, 2013
I don’t mind admitting that Alexis de Toqueville’s
Democracy in America
is quite possible the most demanding piece of exposition I’ve read since Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Mind.
I suspect it’s one of those books — analogous, if you will, to Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Melville’s Moby Dick, Proust’s
In Search of Lost Time
or Musil’s
Man Without Qualities
— that avid readers want to have read, but never have.
I finally did.
If you can find the time (and the quiet) to read fifty pages of this book a day, you can accomplish it in under three weeks. If you can devote yourself to more than fifty pages a day — and have the concentration necessary to make sense of what you’re reading — you’re a better (wo)man than I am.
I couldn’t. In spite of my best efforts and virtually ideal conditions (most often in some secluded spot in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden), I found myself having to read many sentences two and three times over.
Democracy in America is no doubt more worthy of a dissertation than of a review. And I suspect that thousands of dissertations have been written on this oeuvre. The book is dense — with a capital “D” — and any sort of commentary on it could rival exegesis of the Torah.
Dense it is. But also prescient — with a capital “P.” If you can’t find the time or the circumstances to devote yourself to a reading of the entire work, read just Chapter 10 of Part II, Volume One (“Some Considerations Concerning the Present State and Probable Future of the Three Races that Inhabit the Territory of the United States”). And keep in mind that Volume One was published in 1835; the “Trail of Tears” (the expulsion of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia to a circumscribed territory in Oklahoma) happened only three years later; and the Civil War was still relatively far off!
But what of de Tocqueville’s observation at the conclusion of Volume One concerning Americans and Russians — ions before the start of the Cold War? Allow me to quote at length from pp. 475-476, as I don’t want to shortchange the man:
"There are today two great peoples on earth, who, though they started from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.
Both grew in obscurity, and while humanity’s gaze was focused elsewhere, they abruptly vaulted to the first rank among nations: the world learned almost simultaneously of their birth and of their grandeur.
All other peoples seem close to achieving the limits traced for them by nature and henceforth need only to preserve what they already have; but these two are still growing. All the others have stopped, or move forward only with the greatest of effort. Only these two march with an easy and rapid stride down a road whose end no eye can yet perceive.
The American does battle with the obstacles that nature has placed before him; the Russian grapples with men. One combats wilderness and barbarity; the other, civilization with all its arms. The American makes his conquests with the farmer’s ploughshare, the Russian with the soldier’s sword.
To achieve his goal, the American relies on personal interest and allows individuals to exercise their strength and reason without guidance.
The Russian in a sense concentrates all of society in the power of one man.
The American’s principal means of action is liberty; the Russian’s, servitude.
Their points of departure are different, their ways diverse. Yet each seems called by a secret design of Providence some day to sway the destinies of half the globe."
Just as prescient are de Tocqueville’s observations in Volume Two, Part II, Chapter 20 (pp. 649 – 652 in the Arthur Goldhammer/Literary Classics of the United States, © 2004 edition I’ve just read). In these four pages (titled “How Industry Could Give Rise to an Aristocracy”), de Tocqueville not only foresees the dangers of the industrial process known as “Taylorism” introduced decades later by the Ford Motor Company, but also adumbrates the condition of alienation between worker and owner/manager, haves and have-nots, into which we in the U. S. are now inexorably slipping. (Should you have any interest in understanding more about this latter development, I would respectfully refer you to Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, which I reviewed here at Goodreads at the end of last month.)
And what of this concluding observation 150 years before the deluge of widgets and gadgets in which most of the current generation of digital addicts would appear to be drowning? “Habitual inattention must be regarded as the greatest defect of the democratic mind (last sentence on p. 718).” There are no doubt other good reasons for the seemingly constant state of distraction of so many young minds — and de Tocqueville carefully lays out his argument in the pages leading up to his conclusion. And yet, one has to wonder whether the “democratic mind” as it has come to be in these United States and elsewhere in the Western World at the beginning of the twenty-first century was the incubator or the egg in our so-called “high-tech (r)evolution.”
Please allow me to return to p. 198 to conclude with one last citation, even if I could go on and on with others worth their aphoristic weight in gold. “Time no more stops for nations than it does for individuals. Both advance daily toward a future of which they know nothing.”
“…(A) future of which they know nothing.” Scary stuff — but worthwhile (to say the least!) reading.
RRB
6/14/13
Brooklyn, NY
I finally did.
If you can find the time (and the quiet) to read fifty pages of this book a day, you can accomplish it in under three weeks. If you can devote yourself to more than fifty pages a day — and have the concentration necessary to make sense of what you’re reading — you’re a better (wo)man than I am.
I couldn’t. In spite of my best efforts and virtually ideal conditions (most often in some secluded spot in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden), I found myself having to read many sentences two and three times over.
Democracy in America is no doubt more worthy of a dissertation than of a review. And I suspect that thousands of dissertations have been written on this oeuvre. The book is dense — with a capital “D” — and any sort of commentary on it could rival exegesis of the Torah.
Dense it is. But also prescient — with a capital “P.” If you can’t find the time or the circumstances to devote yourself to a reading of the entire work, read just Chapter 10 of Part II, Volume One (“Some Considerations Concerning the Present State and Probable Future of the Three Races that Inhabit the Territory of the United States”). And keep in mind that Volume One was published in 1835; the “Trail of Tears” (the expulsion of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia to a circumscribed territory in Oklahoma) happened only three years later; and the Civil War was still relatively far off!
But what of de Tocqueville’s observation at the conclusion of Volume One concerning Americans and Russians — ions before the start of the Cold War? Allow me to quote at length from pp. 475-476, as I don’t want to shortchange the man:
"There are today two great peoples on earth, who, though they started from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.
Both grew in obscurity, and while humanity’s gaze was focused elsewhere, they abruptly vaulted to the first rank among nations: the world learned almost simultaneously of their birth and of their grandeur.
All other peoples seem close to achieving the limits traced for them by nature and henceforth need only to preserve what they already have; but these two are still growing. All the others have stopped, or move forward only with the greatest of effort. Only these two march with an easy and rapid stride down a road whose end no eye can yet perceive.
The American does battle with the obstacles that nature has placed before him; the Russian grapples with men. One combats wilderness and barbarity; the other, civilization with all its arms. The American makes his conquests with the farmer’s ploughshare, the Russian with the soldier’s sword.
To achieve his goal, the American relies on personal interest and allows individuals to exercise their strength and reason without guidance.
The Russian in a sense concentrates all of society in the power of one man.
The American’s principal means of action is liberty; the Russian’s, servitude.
Their points of departure are different, their ways diverse. Yet each seems called by a secret design of Providence some day to sway the destinies of half the globe."
Just as prescient are de Tocqueville’s observations in Volume Two, Part II, Chapter 20 (pp. 649 – 652 in the Arthur Goldhammer/Literary Classics of the United States, © 2004 edition I’ve just read). In these four pages (titled “How Industry Could Give Rise to an Aristocracy”), de Tocqueville not only foresees the dangers of the industrial process known as “Taylorism” introduced decades later by the Ford Motor Company, but also adumbrates the condition of alienation between worker and owner/manager, haves and have-nots, into which we in the U. S. are now inexorably slipping. (Should you have any interest in understanding more about this latter development, I would respectfully refer you to Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, which I reviewed here at Goodreads at the end of last month.)
And what of this concluding observation 150 years before the deluge of widgets and gadgets in which most of the current generation of digital addicts would appear to be drowning? “Habitual inattention must be regarded as the greatest defect of the democratic mind (last sentence on p. 718).” There are no doubt other good reasons for the seemingly constant state of distraction of so many young minds — and de Tocqueville carefully lays out his argument in the pages leading up to his conclusion. And yet, one has to wonder whether the “democratic mind” as it has come to be in these United States and elsewhere in the Western World at the beginning of the twenty-first century was the incubator or the egg in our so-called “high-tech (r)evolution.”
Please allow me to return to p. 198 to conclude with one last citation, even if I could go on and on with others worth their aphoristic weight in gold. “Time no more stops for nations than it does for individuals. Both advance daily toward a future of which they know nothing.”
“…(A) future of which they know nothing.” Scary stuff — but worthwhile (to say the least!) reading.
RRB
6/14/13
Brooklyn, NY
June 13, 2024
A true classic. Worth reading today as much as ever.
Few have put the American experiment into perspective quite like the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America in 1831 and 1832.
A close observer of the young nation, de Tocqueville traveled across the country--coast to coast--with a notepad in his hand. The resulting book, Democracy in America, is a key work in American political science. And he’s been revered for capturing the true essence of America like few others have, before or since.
His observations were both about the new political system (how it was structured and functioned) and also the ethos of the American people themselves (how they thought and behaved). America's success has been rooted in both equally.
My favorite de Tocqueville’s quote is that the “greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
With the presidential election fast approaching, today's America is putting this thesis through a searing test. And we'll find out, soon enough, whether or not it’s still true.
Few have put the American experiment into perspective quite like the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America in 1831 and 1832.
A close observer of the young nation, de Tocqueville traveled across the country--coast to coast--with a notepad in his hand. The resulting book, Democracy in America, is a key work in American political science. And he’s been revered for capturing the true essence of America like few others have, before or since.
His observations were both about the new political system (how it was structured and functioned) and also the ethos of the American people themselves (how they thought and behaved). America's success has been rooted in both equally.
My favorite de Tocqueville’s quote is that the “greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
With the presidential election fast approaching, today's America is putting this thesis through a searing test. And we'll find out, soon enough, whether or not it’s still true.
Read
June 15, 2011I had thought to come back to this after reading a general history of the early history of the US republic, but instead a sudden batch of newspaper articles wondering about the end of Democracy brought me back to it.
Reading this book I felt that the unfinished The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution was Tocqueville's masterpiece and in so far as Democracy in America has renown, I feel it is because there are a lot of Americans, and naturally it is nice when a foreigner takes your country and its institutions seriously and discusses them soberly as something of world historical significance (although in places he is plainly exasperated by his hosts).
I feel it is important to say that it is not a travelogue, nor is it a systematic study of American institutions circa 1830. de Tocqueville's big idea, I guess, is that a culture or civilisation is by definition congruent so that on the basis of a couple of key data points one can infer or deduce the entire nature of that culture and civilisation. On the one hand he is wonderfully inventive coming close to describing alienation and deskilling as a consequence of industrial labour organisation - what will become of the man's mind, he asks, if all he does is make pin heads all day for years on end, on the other hand he plainly suffers from the absence of conceptual language which will be invented later and suffers from a fondness of logic and deduction, for example in his opinion at the time of writing there was no American literature but, because he perceives the nature of the culture of the USA, he gives us a chapter about what American and indeed all democratic countries' literature will be like, ditto poetry, theatre, history writing and how the USA will conduct wars (book 2 Chapter XIII onwards). He suffers from Observational bias too - because Andrew Jackson was President during his visit he assumes that the trend from then on will be for the Federal structures to become weaker and state ones stronger . Here his biases may also be due to his sources both books and the people he meet in the USA who by implication seem to have been well to do persons opposed to the Democratic party.
Having read the thing twice, I feel as though I am a person on their death bed regretting that they didn't do more unpaid overtime while they had the chance : there need be no shame in reading a selection or an abridged version, Tocqueville would have benefited from an imaginative and kind editor, he spends pages expressing one idea but in lots of slightly different ways, it is possible to imagine a condensed version a couple of hundred pages long. He suffers strongly from being innovative, later generations would devise concepts like 'conventional wisdom' or collect statistics, or indeed establish more ostensibly democratic states and providing more data to chew over. It is a book more admirable in its ambition than likeable in it's delivery.
In studying democracy in America we notice two obvious separate subjects - America and Democracy, and the USA we can further say in the 1830s was a colonial society, a frontier society, a capitalist society which had a degree of industrialisation, had regions with a slave economy, as well as regions absorbing immigrants from overseas and regions absorbing internal migrants and all these factors worked together in a dynamic way. Tocqueville doesn't pull all these elements apart nor can he know what was typical of democratic societies in general or only of America because they wasn't much to compare the USA with (he doesn't much like Switzerland as it wasn't federal enough for his liking in the 1830s) in his lifetime.
Tocqueville was very interested in the role of religion, he observes that Christianity is essential democratic - even Catholicism because he holds that everyone is equal beneath the priest, for his contemporaries and indeed Europeans for a further hundred years or so this would have been a provocative position to take - the hostility in some countries to democratic tendencies from churches was marked and turf wars over education, welfare and social policy generally were and have been an ongoing process, I recall in the context of Italian unification that a Pope forbade Italians from participating in elections which I guess gave people something extra to talk about in the confessional box. Religion, like Aristocracy (meaning potentially any elite group in society) functions in a dualistic manner, both are anti-democratic and underpin democracy simultaneously they tend towards tyranny (majoritarian culture in the case of religion, generally being anti-democratic in the case of elites) while at the same time promoting a unifying culture and protecting privileges and rights for all. That nothing has a simple effect in the social dynamic, but is at least two-faced was a useful insight.
de Tocqueville was hardly a disinterested or neutral observer, he was an aristocrat, but he believed that the trend was towards democratic governments in politics. He also felt that governments would be increasingly centralised and would have greater and greater scope than ever before, this meant that when democratic governments flipped in to despotism these despotic governments would be more powerful than any tyranny seen before 1830, democratic society would be vulnerable to tyranny because of the drive to equality, there would be no institutions or individuals capable of resisting despotism - which seems a curious position since Aristocrats and provincial liberties in his native France hadn't been so successful in restraining the ambitions of mighty kings.
Implicit in his thinking is French history, he assumes that all governments are essentially programmatic and are always working to achieve a certain programme coherent across centuries, he also seems to have the likes of Turgot and Sully in mind in believing that there are great statesmen, philosophes perhaps at heart, public spirited and of considerable intellect who really ought to be ruling over everybody, for him President Washington and the early leadership of the USA were of that ilk (but things have been going downhill since Jefferson in his opinion).
For Tocqueville pure or model forms of government are practically irrelevant, politics is human interaction. The history, social complexion and geography of the country shape how the democracy will actually function in practise. At times this felt deterministic, if history is destiny then can we only say that democratic countries will remain so and non-democratic societies remain so for all time? But Tocqueville believes that through education a society can become more (and presumably less too) democratic. By education he means involvement in democratic activities holding political office and involvement in running public affairs. In terms of the future of representative governments this seems to me a disturbing observation, are there countries where one can still observe a functioning Cursus honorum with aspiring politicians working up from fly catcher general to head of state? Jury service he believes too is educative it teaches everybody that citizens are the ultimate power and are the ones with the right to decide and govern. In this I feel the weakness of his trust in logic and deduction. I feel that what he says makes sense but if it actually has that effect on society generally I am not sure, and while we can feel that the transition from non-democratic to democratic society is unlikely to be smooth or easy, but that seems too simplistic a view too.
In addition to despotism Tocqueville's picture of the tyranny of the majority is strikingly pessimistic - majority culture indeed looks worse than a despotism "what I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom that prevails there but the shortage of any guarantee against tyranny" (p.294) in Tocqueville's vision of America the government represents the majority whose values and ideas will also be reflected throughout the legal system and public service general, he tells of observing an election in Pennslyvania and asking if free Blacks have the vote, he is told -yes, but they don't dare to vote (presumably for fear of violence), of course Tocqueville himself was also part of the majority in some ways, he reflects that everybody imaginable has the vote in the USA in the 1830s despite being in correspondence with J.S. Mill he doesn't imagine giving women the vote and thinks it normal that servants (not just slaves) don't have the vote either. Even if you do have the vote, as we noticed, exercising it is another issue and cultural change to shift the position of the majority is something else again. Perhaps it begins to make sense that when French President Louis Napoleon held a referendum asking 'This democracy business is a bit rubbish really, do you agree that I must become your lawful Emperor, Napoleon III' that a majority voted yes
I get the impression that Tocqueville has been mined as a source of an idealised view of the USA, how far his view of essentially the North and North-west of the USA of the 1830 was (a) realistic and (b) remained similar as the country continued to develop I am sure many others will have their own ideas. Thinking of some of the quotes below I see I've read him in a similar light playing the game of what he 'got right' or 'got wrong' this is I guess to fall into the Texas sharp shooter fallacy, the USA even in 1830, was already a pretty big target, and the future is not so small either .
On the remarkable side I think is his view of slavery that a particular (and not so visible) evil is how the slave internalises the negative view that the slave society has of them and that the downfall of a civilisation need not be sudden, catastrophic and violent - he anticipates the Needham Question by seeing the state of early nineteenth China as a warning - you can be a forerunner yet still end up falling way behind without the need for any barbarians charging down the streets.
Reading this book I felt that the unfinished The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution was Tocqueville's masterpiece and in so far as Democracy in America has renown, I feel it is because there are a lot of Americans, and naturally it is nice when a foreigner takes your country and its institutions seriously and discusses them soberly as something of world historical significance (although in places he is plainly exasperated by his hosts).
I feel it is important to say that it is not a travelogue, nor is it a systematic study of American institutions circa 1830. de Tocqueville's big idea, I guess, is that a culture or civilisation is by definition congruent so that on the basis of a couple of key data points one can infer or deduce the entire nature of that culture and civilisation. On the one hand he is wonderfully inventive coming close to describing alienation and deskilling as a consequence of industrial labour organisation - what will become of the man's mind, he asks, if all he does is make pin heads all day for years on end, on the other hand he plainly suffers from the absence of conceptual language which will be invented later and suffers from a fondness of logic and deduction, for example in his opinion at the time of writing there was no American literature but, because he perceives the nature of the culture of the USA, he gives us a chapter about what American and indeed all democratic countries' literature will be like, ditto poetry, theatre, history writing and how the USA will conduct wars (book 2 Chapter XIII onwards). He suffers from Observational bias too - because Andrew Jackson was President during his visit he assumes that the trend from then on will be for the Federal structures to become weaker and state ones stronger . Here his biases may also be due to his sources both books and the people he meet in the USA who by implication seem to have been well to do persons opposed to the Democratic party.
Having read the thing twice, I feel as though I am a person on their death bed regretting that they didn't do more unpaid overtime while they had the chance : there need be no shame in reading a selection or an abridged version, Tocqueville would have benefited from an imaginative and kind editor, he spends pages expressing one idea but in lots of slightly different ways, it is possible to imagine a condensed version a couple of hundred pages long. He suffers strongly from being innovative, later generations would devise concepts like 'conventional wisdom' or collect statistics, or indeed establish more ostensibly democratic states and providing more data to chew over. It is a book more admirable in its ambition than likeable in it's delivery.
In studying democracy in America we notice two obvious separate subjects - America and Democracy, and the USA we can further say in the 1830s was a colonial society, a frontier society, a capitalist society which had a degree of industrialisation, had regions with a slave economy, as well as regions absorbing immigrants from overseas and regions absorbing internal migrants and all these factors worked together in a dynamic way. Tocqueville doesn't pull all these elements apart nor can he know what was typical of democratic societies in general or only of America because they wasn't much to compare the USA with (he doesn't much like Switzerland as it wasn't federal enough for his liking in the 1830s) in his lifetime.
Tocqueville was very interested in the role of religion, he observes that Christianity is essential democratic - even Catholicism because he holds that everyone is equal beneath the priest, for his contemporaries and indeed Europeans for a further hundred years or so this would have been a provocative position to take - the hostility in some countries to democratic tendencies from churches was marked and turf wars over education, welfare and social policy generally were and have been an ongoing process, I recall in the context of Italian unification that a Pope forbade Italians from participating in elections which I guess gave people something extra to talk about in the confessional box. Religion, like Aristocracy (meaning potentially any elite group in society) functions in a dualistic manner, both are anti-democratic and underpin democracy simultaneously they tend towards tyranny (majoritarian culture in the case of religion, generally being anti-democratic in the case of elites) while at the same time promoting a unifying culture and protecting privileges and rights for all. That nothing has a simple effect in the social dynamic, but is at least two-faced was a useful insight.
de Tocqueville was hardly a disinterested or neutral observer, he was an aristocrat, but he believed that the trend was towards democratic governments in politics. He also felt that governments would be increasingly centralised and would have greater and greater scope than ever before, this meant that when democratic governments flipped in to despotism these despotic governments would be more powerful than any tyranny seen before 1830, democratic society would be vulnerable to tyranny because of the drive to equality, there would be no institutions or individuals capable of resisting despotism - which seems a curious position since Aristocrats and provincial liberties in his native France hadn't been so successful in restraining the ambitions of mighty kings.
Implicit in his thinking is French history, he assumes that all governments are essentially programmatic and are always working to achieve a certain programme coherent across centuries, he also seems to have the likes of Turgot and Sully in mind in believing that there are great statesmen, philosophes perhaps at heart, public spirited and of considerable intellect who really ought to be ruling over everybody, for him President Washington and the early leadership of the USA were of that ilk (but things have been going downhill since Jefferson in his opinion).
For Tocqueville pure or model forms of government are practically irrelevant, politics is human interaction. The history, social complexion and geography of the country shape how the democracy will actually function in practise. At times this felt deterministic, if history is destiny then can we only say that democratic countries will remain so and non-democratic societies remain so for all time? But Tocqueville believes that through education a society can become more (and presumably less too) democratic. By education he means involvement in democratic activities holding political office and involvement in running public affairs. In terms of the future of representative governments this seems to me a disturbing observation, are there countries where one can still observe a functioning Cursus honorum with aspiring politicians working up from fly catcher general to head of state? Jury service he believes too is educative it teaches everybody that citizens are the ultimate power and are the ones with the right to decide and govern. In this I feel the weakness of his trust in logic and deduction. I feel that what he says makes sense but if it actually has that effect on society generally I am not sure, and while we can feel that the transition from non-democratic to democratic society is unlikely to be smooth or easy, but that seems too simplistic a view too.
In addition to despotism Tocqueville's picture of the tyranny of the majority is strikingly pessimistic - majority culture indeed looks worse than a despotism "what I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom that prevails there but the shortage of any guarantee against tyranny" (p.294) in Tocqueville's vision of America the government represents the majority whose values and ideas will also be reflected throughout the legal system and public service general, he tells of observing an election in Pennslyvania and asking if free Blacks have the vote, he is told -yes, but they don't dare to vote (presumably for fear of violence), of course Tocqueville himself was also part of the majority in some ways, he reflects that everybody imaginable has the vote in the USA in the 1830s despite being in correspondence with J.S. Mill he doesn't imagine giving women the vote and thinks it normal that servants (not just slaves) don't have the vote either. Even if you do have the vote, as we noticed, exercising it is another issue and cultural change to shift the position of the majority is something else again. Perhaps it begins to make sense that when French President Louis Napoleon held a referendum asking 'This democracy business is a bit rubbish really, do you agree that I must become your lawful Emperor, Napoleon III' that a majority voted yes
I get the impression that Tocqueville has been mined as a source of an idealised view of the USA, how far his view of essentially the North and North-west of the USA of the 1830 was (a) realistic and (b) remained similar as the country continued to develop I am sure many others will have their own ideas. Thinking of some of the quotes below I see I've read him in a similar light playing the game of what he 'got right' or 'got wrong' this is I guess to fall into the Texas sharp shooter fallacy, the USA even in 1830, was already a pretty big target, and the future is not so small either .
On the remarkable side I think is his view of slavery that a particular (and not so visible) evil is how the slave internalises the negative view that the slave society has of them and that the downfall of a civilisation need not be sudden, catastrophic and violent - he anticipates the Needham Question by seeing the state of early nineteenth China as a warning - you can be a forerunner yet still end up falling way behind without the need for any barbarians charging down the streets.
Read
September 19, 2019
Alexis de Tocqueville captures the spirit of American democracy back when he wrote his classic in 1835. But what of the spirit of democracy in current day America where every citizen has the God given right to be a spectator or participate in exciting entertainment? The following fiction by author Lawrence Millman hits the bull's-eye.
THE ORIGIN OF DEMOCRACY
A few years ago the Murmansk Opera came to town. And my friend Clint decided to take his wife Erma to a production of The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia at the local grange. Now Clint had never been near an opera before. Closet he had come was the tri-annual demolition derby sponsored by the Loyal Order of moose. So you can imagine his confusion when, by the middle of the second act, not a single junker had gone to meet its Maker. He had hoped at least to see a skirmish of Ladas and Moskvitches, with perhaps something from the Eastern Block, like a Skoda, thrown in. "When they gonna bring on the cars? he asked Erma. Sh-h-h, said the man sitting behind him. Nor did any cars show up the the end of the third act. Clint felt cheated. "If the next act don't have a bang-up," he said, "I'm gettin' our money back. Sh-h-h, hissed the man behind him. At which point Clint turned around: "It's a goddamn free country. I got every right to speak my mind. It's guaranteed by the, um, constipation." "Constitution," whispered Erma. "Like I said," Clint said. And when the next act brought only an apotheosis or two, he stormed out of the grange. Minutes later he reappeared driving his Dodge-Studebacker pickup mix. He drove it right onto the stage, sideswiping a baritone and dispersing the Chorus of the Russian People. "Ain't no Communist gonna destroy the sacred privilege of a car." Clint said. The audience gave him a standing ovation. And soon a whole armada of Fords, Chevys, Dodge Darts, and Buicks was crowding onto the stage, honking and cruising and bashing each other. The man who'd been sitting behind Clint kept yelling, "Quiet! Quiet! I want to hear the opera." But it was too late. The majority ruled.
*The Origin of Democracy by Lawrence Millman appeared in Unscheduled Departures - The Asylum Anthology of Short Fiction edited by Greg Boyd
December 15, 2019
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
de Tocqueville, a young French diplomat, wrote this remarkable essay in two books based on his travels to the United States in the 1830s. He was a student of the consequences of the French revolution and had a very disdainful view of power for a diplomat — in particular the elite’s ability to eventually exploit the loopholes and take power back from the people. It quickly becomes obvious from this treatise that de Tocqueville had enormous admiration for America’s experiment in democracy and also her progress. He also points out sadly that some day the experiment would come to an end.
de Tocqueville came to the U.S. in part to better understand sociology and prison reform. His real aim and his lasting work, that congealed in his mind along the way, became America and her democratic system. In his analyses here he often uses England, France and the South American countries as points of comparison to counterbalance the U.S. study because these were the countries of importance that had constitutions or most resembled democracies that he was most familiar with.
Beyond a brief history lesson of very early America that is quite interesting, de Tocqueville dissects America’s local, state and federal levels of government and the different branches of the federal government. Many of his observations are still fresh and one even could say prescient given our political situation in the United States. Of course he came decades after Washington and Adams and Jefferson and does not spend much time discussing these key people but rather the systems of government. Here are some key takeaways.
1. de Tocqueville believed the biggest reason for the success of America’s democratic experiment fifty years into it was due to the mannerisms of Americans — not the Constitution. By mannerisms he meant not just discourse but the work habits and pragmatism. He did not hold as much faith in Constitutions as France and Mexico’s were similar to the U.S. and both governments had major issues with corruption and inefficiencies.
The manners of the Americans of the United States are, then, the real cause which renders that people the only one of the American nations that is able to support a democratic government.
2. In conjunction with the first point, he was enamored of the Puritan work ethic and disappointed in the French to the north in Canada who did very little with either the land or opportunities in his opinion. He spent a hundred pages discussing the Northeast and the Puritan influence. This was quite interesting.
I have met with men in New England who were on the point of leaving a country, where they might have remained in easy circumstances, to go to seek their fortune in the wilds. Not far from that district I found a French population in Canada, which was closely crowded on a narrow territory. Nature offers the solitudes of the New World to Europeans; but they are not always acquainted with the means of turning her gifts to account. Other peoples of America have the same physical conditions of prosperity as the Anglo-Americans, but without their laws and their manners; and these peoples are wretched. The laws and manners of the Anglo-Americans are therefore that efficient cause of their greatness which is the object of my inquiry.
3. de Tocqueville disliked the populist and current president of the time Andrew Jackson calling him a man of violent temper and mediocre talents. Hmmm that sounds familiar. His cruel policy toward Native Americans and the undue accolades pertaining to the Battle of New Orleans were other points that de Tocqueville wrote about. Nevertheless he did comment that Jackson advocated a diminished role of centralized government in most areas including the role of banks. I think if de Tocqueville had understood slavery better he might have had a more enlightened view as to why Jackson so often opposed central government policies.
Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the President belongs to the party which is desirous of limiting that power to the bare and precise letter of the Constitution, and which never puts a construction upon that act favorable to the Government of the Union; far from standing forth as the champion of centralization, General Jackson is the agent of all the jealousies of the States.
4. de Tocqueville had a few, largely unremarkable, chapters on the two other peoples living in America beyond the Europeans; African-American slaves and Native Americans. His views of Native Americans were somewhat empathetic. His views on slaves were quite racist. He simply could not understand why slaves didn’t revolt at every opportunity. This racist statement of his about the plight of slaves is actually one of the milder ones he makes.
He [the slave] quietly enjoys the privileges of his debasement. If he becomes free, independence is often felt by him to be a heavier burden than slavery
5. Switching gears. de Tocqueville talked extensively about townships and local communities and how they were the bedrock of America’s success. One of the more enlightening aspects of the book. He returns to this point often.
Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty
6. de Tocqueville also points out that a geographically isolated America does not have the pressures of warring neighbors like in France. But he believes the U.S. deserves credit for maintaining peace among themselves not an easy thing to do.
The American Union has no enemies to contend with; it stands in the wilds like an island in the ocean. But the Spaniards of South America were no less isolated by nature; yet their position has not relieved them from the charge of standing armies. They make war upon each other when they have no foreign enemies to oppose; and the Anglo-American democracy is the only one to maintain peace.
7. de Tocqueville certainly had some interesting things to say about both impeachment and re-elections of presidents. He did not think a president should be eligible for re-election. Nor did he think the prosecutors in an impeachment trial should be withheld the ability to criminally prosecute the accused. Better to have a president fearful of jail — or in the case of treason the ultimate penalty. Although he did acknowledge that he doubted a real tyrant would be stopped by the threat of jail either.
By preventing political tribunals from inflicting judicial punishments the Americans seem to have eluded the worst consequences of legislative tyranny, rather than tyranny itself.
8. de Tocqueville also wrote presciently of a future Mexican-American war. It took only thirteen years for his prediction to come true. He thought nothing would slow the ambition of America’s westward expansion. How right he was.
Thus, the Spaniards and the Anglo-Americans are, properly speaking, the only two races which divide the possession of the New World. The limits of separation between them have been settled by a treaty; but although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly favorable to the Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will shortly infringe this arrangement.
9. The last takeaway is around the question of how great empires end. This is one near and dear to most of our hearts. And de Tocqueville has some important things to say here. Sadly no practical solutions. DeTocqueville could not have imagined the technological globalization we have today nor Nuclear weapons nor the Climate Crisis. So I’m not convinced that making government local will solve the big problems. But I could be wrong.
All the passions which are most fatal to republican institutions spread with an increasing territory, whilst the virtues which maintain their dignity do not augment in the same proportion. The ambition of the citizens increases with the power of the State; the strength of parties with the importance of the ends they have in view; but that devotion to the common weal which is the surest check on destructive passions is not stronger in a large than in a small republic.
4 stars. Highly readable book for being nearly two centuries old. The version I read was translated to English in the 1870’s. It is lengthy but reads quite quickly. Most every section stands on its own. I probably would have given five stars if de Tocqueville wasn’t so obtuse about slavery. Other than this blind spot his deductive reasoning is quite remarkable and pertinent to today’s political climate.
de Tocqueville, a young French diplomat, wrote this remarkable essay in two books based on his travels to the United States in the 1830s. He was a student of the consequences of the French revolution and had a very disdainful view of power for a diplomat — in particular the elite’s ability to eventually exploit the loopholes and take power back from the people. It quickly becomes obvious from this treatise that de Tocqueville had enormous admiration for America’s experiment in democracy and also her progress. He also points out sadly that some day the experiment would come to an end.
de Tocqueville came to the U.S. in part to better understand sociology and prison reform. His real aim and his lasting work, that congealed in his mind along the way, became America and her democratic system. In his analyses here he often uses England, France and the South American countries as points of comparison to counterbalance the U.S. study because these were the countries of importance that had constitutions or most resembled democracies that he was most familiar with.
Beyond a brief history lesson of very early America that is quite interesting, de Tocqueville dissects America’s local, state and federal levels of government and the different branches of the federal government. Many of his observations are still fresh and one even could say prescient given our political situation in the United States. Of course he came decades after Washington and Adams and Jefferson and does not spend much time discussing these key people but rather the systems of government. Here are some key takeaways.
1. de Tocqueville believed the biggest reason for the success of America’s democratic experiment fifty years into it was due to the mannerisms of Americans — not the Constitution. By mannerisms he meant not just discourse but the work habits and pragmatism. He did not hold as much faith in Constitutions as France and Mexico’s were similar to the U.S. and both governments had major issues with corruption and inefficiencies.
The manners of the Americans of the United States are, then, the real cause which renders that people the only one of the American nations that is able to support a democratic government.
2. In conjunction with the first point, he was enamored of the Puritan work ethic and disappointed in the French to the north in Canada who did very little with either the land or opportunities in his opinion. He spent a hundred pages discussing the Northeast and the Puritan influence. This was quite interesting.
I have met with men in New England who were on the point of leaving a country, where they might have remained in easy circumstances, to go to seek their fortune in the wilds. Not far from that district I found a French population in Canada, which was closely crowded on a narrow territory. Nature offers the solitudes of the New World to Europeans; but they are not always acquainted with the means of turning her gifts to account. Other peoples of America have the same physical conditions of prosperity as the Anglo-Americans, but without their laws and their manners; and these peoples are wretched. The laws and manners of the Anglo-Americans are therefore that efficient cause of their greatness which is the object of my inquiry.
3. de Tocqueville disliked the populist and current president of the time Andrew Jackson calling him a man of violent temper and mediocre talents. Hmmm that sounds familiar. His cruel policy toward Native Americans and the undue accolades pertaining to the Battle of New Orleans were other points that de Tocqueville wrote about. Nevertheless he did comment that Jackson advocated a diminished role of centralized government in most areas including the role of banks. I think if de Tocqueville had understood slavery better he might have had a more enlightened view as to why Jackson so often opposed central government policies.
Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the President belongs to the party which is desirous of limiting that power to the bare and precise letter of the Constitution, and which never puts a construction upon that act favorable to the Government of the Union; far from standing forth as the champion of centralization, General Jackson is the agent of all the jealousies of the States.
4. de Tocqueville had a few, largely unremarkable, chapters on the two other peoples living in America beyond the Europeans; African-American slaves and Native Americans. His views of Native Americans were somewhat empathetic. His views on slaves were quite racist. He simply could not understand why slaves didn’t revolt at every opportunity. This racist statement of his about the plight of slaves is actually one of the milder ones he makes.
He [the slave] quietly enjoys the privileges of his debasement. If he becomes free, independence is often felt by him to be a heavier burden than slavery
5. Switching gears. de Tocqueville talked extensively about townships and local communities and how they were the bedrock of America’s success. One of the more enlightening aspects of the book. He returns to this point often.
Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty
6. de Tocqueville also points out that a geographically isolated America does not have the pressures of warring neighbors like in France. But he believes the U.S. deserves credit for maintaining peace among themselves not an easy thing to do.
The American Union has no enemies to contend with; it stands in the wilds like an island in the ocean. But the Spaniards of South America were no less isolated by nature; yet their position has not relieved them from the charge of standing armies. They make war upon each other when they have no foreign enemies to oppose; and the Anglo-American democracy is the only one to maintain peace.
7. de Tocqueville certainly had some interesting things to say about both impeachment and re-elections of presidents. He did not think a president should be eligible for re-election. Nor did he think the prosecutors in an impeachment trial should be withheld the ability to criminally prosecute the accused. Better to have a president fearful of jail — or in the case of treason the ultimate penalty. Although he did acknowledge that he doubted a real tyrant would be stopped by the threat of jail either.
By preventing political tribunals from inflicting judicial punishments the Americans seem to have eluded the worst consequences of legislative tyranny, rather than tyranny itself.
8. de Tocqueville also wrote presciently of a future Mexican-American war. It took only thirteen years for his prediction to come true. He thought nothing would slow the ambition of America’s westward expansion. How right he was.
Thus, the Spaniards and the Anglo-Americans are, properly speaking, the only two races which divide the possession of the New World. The limits of separation between them have been settled by a treaty; but although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly favorable to the Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will shortly infringe this arrangement.
9. The last takeaway is around the question of how great empires end. This is one near and dear to most of our hearts. And de Tocqueville has some important things to say here. Sadly no practical solutions. DeTocqueville could not have imagined the technological globalization we have today nor Nuclear weapons nor the Climate Crisis. So I’m not convinced that making government local will solve the big problems. But I could be wrong.
All the passions which are most fatal to republican institutions spread with an increasing territory, whilst the virtues which maintain their dignity do not augment in the same proportion. The ambition of the citizens increases with the power of the State; the strength of parties with the importance of the ends they have in view; but that devotion to the common weal which is the surest check on destructive passions is not stronger in a large than in a small republic.
4 stars. Highly readable book for being nearly two centuries old. The version I read was translated to English in the 1870’s. It is lengthy but reads quite quickly. Most every section stands on its own. I probably would have given five stars if de Tocqueville wasn’t so obtuse about slavery. Other than this blind spot his deductive reasoning is quite remarkable and pertinent to today’s political climate.
June 17, 2019
It amazed me that my country, the USA, was looked on as a democracy worth emulating within its first half century of existence. Though some see Democracy in America as a recounting of travels, and others see it a deconstruction of a foreign country, I think I am with a fair number of others who consider Tocqueville as trying to find what France might adapt for its own institutions. That, of course, started with our penal system because that is what “paid the freight” for Tocqueville and his compatriot, Gustave de Beaumont to spend many months seeing much of America.
I have struggled with writing this review for months because it is so easy to drill down on any one of more than a dozen topics including: America’s Constitution; the nature of the democratic family; the Indians that Tocqueville observed; Blacks and slavery; the importance of local government; the judiciary; the tyranny of the majority; the role of political parties; the foundation of education; freedom of speech; how mores influence democracy; American culture; individualism; the desire for wealth; the strength of lawyers; and, how Christianity fits with democracy.
What permeates this two-volume work are Tocqueville’s thoughts and concerns about how democracy can and should work. For instance, Americans were not the first “individuals” but Tocqueville invented the word individualism and applied it to Americans. He believed there was a danger in this American individualism, particularly the tendency to withdraw from the public sphere. It was in private life that individuals could see themselves as unique, yet he feared that this would encourage withdrawal from the public sphere and mitigated their participation in the life of the community, thus damaging the foundation of democracy.
Tocqueville consistently holds that democracy is not just a form of government—it is a way of life. Beyond democratic institutions, he sees democratic values and attitudes and family structures and culture. Tocqueville uses the term “mores of democracy” to describe the larger idea of democratic values and habits. In addition to being essential to understanding our democracy, Tocqueville was concerned as to whether nations without a tradition of democracy could quickly create an egalitarian and free society. A concern that is just as appropriate today.
There are so many aspects of America and Americans that he found worth considering. Reading these almost 200 years since he wrote them down, it is easy to point to what may not be now relevant. But the astounding impact of this book is how much of it is enduring and how many of the questions that he raised are still relevant.
No summary of that is a substitute for your willingness to take time to immerse yourself in his experiences. I leave you with something that, I hope, will further encourage you to do so.
Key events before and during Beaumont and Tocqueville’s time in America (My thanks to one of my professors for his notes.)
1828.....Tocqueville meets Gustave de Beaumont, who will be his traveling companion in America, and Mary Motley, whom he will later marry.
1830......Tocqueville reluctantly takes an oath of loyalty to the new king following the July Revolution and is appointed a substitute judge. Beaumont and Tocqueville propose a trip to America to study the American penal system.
Jan. 1, 1831.....William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of The Liberator.
Feb. 6, 1831.....Beaumont and Tocqueville are granted an 18-month leave to study the American penal system.
Mar. 18, 1831...The Supreme Court rules on Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.
Apr. 2, 1831......They set sail for America.
May 9, 1831......Beaumont and Tocqueville arrive in Newport, Rhode Island.
May 11, 1831.....They arrive in New York City.
May 27, 1831.....They travel up the Hudson River to visit Sing Sing Penitentiary.
June 30, 1831........They leave New York City.
July 4, 1831...........They attend July 4th festivities in Albany.
July 9, 1831............They begin their visit to Auburn Penitentiary.
July 16, 1831..........They arrive in Canandaigua, New York, and stay with John C. Spencer.
July 18, 1831..........They arrive in Buffalo.
July 22, 1831..........They arrive in Detroit and depart for Saginaw.
July 26, 1831..........John C. Calhoun definitively declares himself for nullification.
Aug. 9, 1831...........Tocqueville and Beaumont arrive in Green Bay.
Aug. 18, 1831..........They visit Niagara Falls.
Aug. 22, 1831...........Nat Turner’s rebellion begins.
Aug. 23, 1831...........They arrive in Montreal.
Sept. 9, 1831.............They arrive in Boston for a stay of almost four weeks.
Sept. 28, 1831............The Anti-Masonic Convention meets.
Oct. 12, 1831..............They arrive in Philadelphia for a two-week stay, visiting Eastern State Penitentiary several times.
Oct. 28, 1831...............They travel to Baltimore, where they encounter slavery for the first time.
Nov. 12, 1831..............The first steam-powered train makes its maiden voyage.
Nov. 25, 1831..............Tocqueville and Beaumont leave Pittsburgh on an Ohio River boat for Cincinnati but hit a rock the next day.
Dec. 7, 1831..................They arrive in Nashville.
Dec. 25, 1831.................They begin their trip to New Orleans from Memphis on a steamboat. Jan. 1, 1832...............................They arrive in New Orleans.
Jan. 3, 1832.....................They begin a long voyage on land and sea through the South.
Jan. 15, 1832....................They arrive in Norfolk, Virginia.
Jan. 17, 1832....................They arrive in Washington.
Jan. 19, 1832.....................Tocqueville and Beaumont meet President Andrew Jackson.
Feb. 6, 1832.......................They arrive in New York.
Feb. 20, 1832.....................They board a ship for their return voyage to France.
I have struggled with writing this review for months because it is so easy to drill down on any one of more than a dozen topics including: America’s Constitution; the nature of the democratic family; the Indians that Tocqueville observed; Blacks and slavery; the importance of local government; the judiciary; the tyranny of the majority; the role of political parties; the foundation of education; freedom of speech; how mores influence democracy; American culture; individualism; the desire for wealth; the strength of lawyers; and, how Christianity fits with democracy.
What permeates this two-volume work are Tocqueville’s thoughts and concerns about how democracy can and should work. For instance, Americans were not the first “individuals” but Tocqueville invented the word individualism and applied it to Americans. He believed there was a danger in this American individualism, particularly the tendency to withdraw from the public sphere. It was in private life that individuals could see themselves as unique, yet he feared that this would encourage withdrawal from the public sphere and mitigated their participation in the life of the community, thus damaging the foundation of democracy.
Tocqueville consistently holds that democracy is not just a form of government—it is a way of life. Beyond democratic institutions, he sees democratic values and attitudes and family structures and culture. Tocqueville uses the term “mores of democracy” to describe the larger idea of democratic values and habits. In addition to being essential to understanding our democracy, Tocqueville was concerned as to whether nations without a tradition of democracy could quickly create an egalitarian and free society. A concern that is just as appropriate today.
There are so many aspects of America and Americans that he found worth considering. Reading these almost 200 years since he wrote them down, it is easy to point to what may not be now relevant. But the astounding impact of this book is how much of it is enduring and how many of the questions that he raised are still relevant.
No summary of that is a substitute for your willingness to take time to immerse yourself in his experiences. I leave you with something that, I hope, will further encourage you to do so.
Key events before and during Beaumont and Tocqueville’s time in America (My thanks to one of my professors for his notes.)
1828.....Tocqueville meets Gustave de Beaumont, who will be his traveling companion in America, and Mary Motley, whom he will later marry.
1830......Tocqueville reluctantly takes an oath of loyalty to the new king following the July Revolution and is appointed a substitute judge. Beaumont and Tocqueville propose a trip to America to study the American penal system.
Jan. 1, 1831.....William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of The Liberator.
Feb. 6, 1831.....Beaumont and Tocqueville are granted an 18-month leave to study the American penal system.
Mar. 18, 1831...The Supreme Court rules on Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.
Apr. 2, 1831......They set sail for America.
May 9, 1831......Beaumont and Tocqueville arrive in Newport, Rhode Island.
May 11, 1831.....They arrive in New York City.
May 27, 1831.....They travel up the Hudson River to visit Sing Sing Penitentiary.
June 30, 1831........They leave New York City.
July 4, 1831...........They attend July 4th festivities in Albany.
July 9, 1831............They begin their visit to Auburn Penitentiary.
July 16, 1831..........They arrive in Canandaigua, New York, and stay with John C. Spencer.
July 18, 1831..........They arrive in Buffalo.
July 22, 1831..........They arrive in Detroit and depart for Saginaw.
July 26, 1831..........John C. Calhoun definitively declares himself for nullification.
Aug. 9, 1831...........Tocqueville and Beaumont arrive in Green Bay.
Aug. 18, 1831..........They visit Niagara Falls.
Aug. 22, 1831...........Nat Turner’s rebellion begins.
Aug. 23, 1831...........They arrive in Montreal.
Sept. 9, 1831.............They arrive in Boston for a stay of almost four weeks.
Sept. 28, 1831............The Anti-Masonic Convention meets.
Oct. 12, 1831..............They arrive in Philadelphia for a two-week stay, visiting Eastern State Penitentiary several times.
Oct. 28, 1831...............They travel to Baltimore, where they encounter slavery for the first time.
Nov. 12, 1831..............The first steam-powered train makes its maiden voyage.
Nov. 25, 1831..............Tocqueville and Beaumont leave Pittsburgh on an Ohio River boat for Cincinnati but hit a rock the next day.
Dec. 7, 1831..................They arrive in Nashville.
Dec. 25, 1831.................They begin their trip to New Orleans from Memphis on a steamboat. Jan. 1, 1832...............................They arrive in New Orleans.
Jan. 3, 1832.....................They begin a long voyage on land and sea through the South.
Jan. 15, 1832....................They arrive in Norfolk, Virginia.
Jan. 17, 1832....................They arrive in Washington.
Jan. 19, 1832.....................Tocqueville and Beaumont meet President Andrew Jackson.
Feb. 6, 1832.......................They arrive in New York.
Feb. 20, 1832.....................They board a ship for their return voyage to France.
December 5, 2016
Democracy in the United States of America has never been an easy or a facile thing. It’s complicated – it has always been complicated – and those realities are singularly well illustrated in the best book ever written about life in the U.S.A. I refer, of course, to Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840, Democracy in America astonishes the modern reader, because de Tocqueville’s observations from almost 200 years ago apply so well to life in America today.
It may seem strange that a French aristocrat, from an old family of Norman nobility, would turn out to be such an astute student of American democracy. But then, the U.S.A. has always been a country that changes people. A printer from Philadelphia, notable for his efforts to reconcile Great Britain and her American colonies, becomes an American arch-rebel. A Virginia slaveholder becomes the author of one of the most important freedom documents in the history of the world. An orphan from the Caribbean island of Nevis reinvents, virtually single-handed, the financial system of the Western world. This country changes people; and Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of life in the United States, collected over many months of travel throughout the states and territories of the country during the 1830’s, certainly changed him.
De Tocqueville begins Democracy in America by reflecting that “Of all the novel things which attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me more forcibly than the equality of social conditions” (p. 11). He felt that aristocracy was on the decline throughout the Western world, and that democracy was on the rise – a change that he saw having many good consequences, along with some potentially troubling ones. Democracy in America was the text through which he set down and systematized his observations of life in the United States.
Among de Tocqueville’s thoughts regarding American life are these considerations of how the origins of the American colonies might have encouraged the growth of democracy:
Every new European colony contained, if not in a fully developed form, at least the seed of a fully grown democracy. There were two reasons for this: in general, it can be stated that when they left their mother country, the emigrants had no particular concept of any superiority of one over another. It is hardly the happy and the powerful who choose exile; poverty, along with wretchedness, offers the best guarantee of equal status known to man. (pp. 39-40).
With a strong focus on how the township system developed in the New England colonies, de Tocqueville suggests that the colonists’ focus on local government first, and then on colonial government after, may have done much to mold Americans’ uniquely democratic outlook: “In most European nations, the initial movements of power resided with the upper echelons of society and passed gradually, and always in a partial manner, to the other sections of society. By contrast, in America we can state that the organization of the township preceded that of the county, the county that of the state, the state that of the Union” (p. 52).
De Tocqueville is impressed with how American civilization has developed, and suggests that “This civilization is the result (and this is something we must always bear in mind) of two quite distinct ingredients which anywhere else have often ended in war but which Americans have succeeded somehow to meld together in wondrous harmony – namely, the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty” (p. 55).
No area of American life goes unexamined by de Tocqueville. Manners? Not as polished as in Europe, but avoiding the extremes of both elegance and vulgarity. Attitudes toward money and material prosperity? Acquisitive – as, in an egalitarian democracy, one of the few ways in which one can stand out from one’s neighbors is by having more money than they do. Business practices? Characterized by sharp dealing -- caveat emptor! National pride? Expressed much more loudly, and more stridently, than in Europe.
One sees how de Tocqueville’s status as an aristocrat who believes in democracy affects the way he sees American institutions. When considering, for example, the division of the U.S. Congress into a Senate and a House of Representatives, de Tocqueville makes a point of informing his French audience that “By dividing the legislature into two, Americans have, therefore, intended not to create one hereditary house and another elected; they did not mean the one to be aristocratic, the other democratic; neither did they aim to make the first an adjunct of the establishment, while leaving to the other the concerns and passions of the people” (p. 100). He knows that he needs to remind his French readers regarding the differences between the French and American systems.
While de Tocqueville praises American democracy, he does not depict American society as a perfect society. He sees democracy as a levelling tendency that can discourage individuals from seeking to stand out in areas like education or erudition: “I do not think that there is a single country in the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few ignorant and, at the same time, so few educated individuals as in America” (p. 65). Only in America, among the major industrialized nations of the world, is “overeducated” an insult. Getting an education in order to make more money – Fine, admirable. Good for you! Constantly learning more for the sake of learning itself, questioning societal norms in the process, building an outlook based on inquiry and critical thinking – what the hell is wrong with you?
De Tocqueville is particularly eloquent when warning about the potential for majoritarianism, the tyranny of the majority. When he writes that “I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America” (p. 297), I find myself thinking about the times when people have felt distinctly unsafe expressing unpopular ideas – opposing McCarthyism during the Red Scare of the 1950’s, for example.
That tendency toward majoritarianism, for de Tocqueville, has much to do with democracy itself. In an unequal society, he points out, many citizens may “take as a guide for their opinions the superior reason of one man or one class” (p. 399). Yet exactly the opposite thing tends to happen in a democracy:
When the man living in a democratic country compares himself individually with all those around him, he sees with pride that he is equal to each of them; but when he happens to contemplate the huge gathering of his fellow men, and to take place beside this great body, he is straightway overwhelmed by his own insignificance and weakness. This very equality which makes him independent of each of his fellow men delivers him alone and defenseless into the hands of the majority. (p. 501).
De Tocqueville finds that newspapers are of great importance against the vast expanses and distances of the United States, writing that a newspaper is “the only way of being able to place the same thought at the same moment into a thousand minds” (p. 600). He adds that “as men become more equal and individualism more of a menace, newspapers are more necessary. The belief that they just guarantee freedom would diminish their importance; they sustain civilization” (p. 600). At the same time, newspapers can be molders of mass opinion, not just deliverers of information. Looking at the power and influence of newspapers and other media in the United States, de Tocqueville writes that “the predisposition to believe in mass opinion increases and becomes progressively the opinion which commands the world” (p. 501).
Modern readers are likely to take particular interest in de Tocqueville’s remarks on race and slavery. He was writing, after all, at a time when slavery was entrenched in the Southern states, but was gradually being abolished across the Northern states. “Slavery,” de Tocqueville writes, “brings dishonor to work; it introduces idleness into society, together with ignorance and pride, poverty, and indulgence. It weakens the powers of the mind and dampens human effort. The influence of slavery, together with the English character, explains the customs and the social conditions of the South” (p. 41).
With his classical education, de Tocqueville is well-qualified to discuss how slavery in the United States is different from slavery in the ancient world, because American slavery is linked with race. In a famous passage, he asks readers to imagine themselves as travellers on the Ohio River between slaveholding Kentucky and free-labour Ohio: a sleepy, idle tableau of inactivity on the Kentucky side, a bustling commercial society on the Ohio side. The reason, de Tocqueville tells us, is simple: “On the left bank of the Ohio, work is connected with the idea of slavery, on the right bank with the idea of progress; on the one side, it is a source of humiliation, on the other, of honour” (p. 405).
He anticipates that American society will be combatting race prejudice long after the formal abolition of slavery, and observes that, in those Northern states where slavery has been abolished, “the legal barrier separating the two races is tending to come down but not that of custom. I see slavery in retreat, but the prejudice which arises from it has not moved at all” (p. 401). Almost 200 years after de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, and more than 150 years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States, de Tocqueville’s words regarding the lingering nature of race prejudice still apply. Heaven knows they do.
With regard to gender, de Tocqueville sees that “Americans…have allowed the social inferiority of women to remain”, but insists that “nowhere does [woman] enjoy a higher status” (p. 699) than in the United States. I can’t help wondering: how much did de Tocqueville actually consult the opinions of American women before writing these words, and how did American women of those times respond when they read what de Tocqueville had written regarding gender in American society? Still, de Tocqueville’s admiration for American women remains unmistakable: he writes that “if I am asked how we should account for the unusual prosperity and growing strength of this nation, I would reply that they must be attributed to the superiority of their women” (p. 700).
A striking chapter, near the end of Democracy in America, speculates about “What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.” De Tocqueville writes that he will worry about the future of any democracy when he sees, within that democracy, a critical mass of citizens who are “turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls” (p. 804). And what kind of despotism might be constructed atop the wreckage of American democracy?
De Tocqueville is quite specific regarding how he thinks such a despotism could take shape, saying that “it prefers its citizens to enjoy themselves, provided they have only enjoyment in mind. It works readily for their happiness, but it wishes to be the only provider and judge of it.” Over time, it “reduces daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice; it restricts the activity of free will within a narrower range, and gradually removes autonomy itself from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all this, inclining them to tolerate all these things, and often even to see them as a blessing” (p. 805)
Around the world, one can observe may examples of governments that hold power within a system of “authoritarian capitalism” or “managed democracy.” People can make money as they like – and indeed, a degree of “buy-in” from the well-to-do seems to be required for these systems to work. Everybody has the prospect of dreaming of a McMansion, with a Cadillac Escalade out front, and a wall-sized plasma-screen TV on the walls. Social media technology tracks our likes and interests, often anticipating the next thing we might want to buy or do. You can vote; you're free to vote. But one political party, one leader, is always in charge. Everyone knows what they can or cannot say regarding government policy. And in those places where populist nationalism has taken hold, there is one acceptable way of being a “true” patriotic citizen, and one religion that has an “authentic” formative role in the life of the nation, and – often – there is hostility toward members of various cultural, ideological, and/or religious minorities. Where is the United States of America on that continuum today?
This Penguin Books edition of Democracy in America also includes the essay “Two Weeks in the Wilderness” – a work that shows the sort of work that de Tocqueville did in compiling the materials for what became Democracy in America. We see how much de Tocqueville and a colleague endured whilst travelling under rough conditions from Buffalo, New York, toward Saginaw in what was then Michigan Territory. Having wanted to meet some Indigenous Americans, he finally gets to do so; and in the process, he sees how often and how outrageously Indigenous Americans are cheated in their dealings with Anglo-American pioneers and traders. To that observation, de Tocqueville adds that “Besides, it is not only Indians that the pioneers take for fools. We were daily victims ourselves of their inordinate greed for gain. It is very true that they do not steal. They have too much enlightenment to commit such an unwise act, but I have never seen a big town innkeeper overcharge with more impudence than these inhabitants of the wilderness” (p. 904).
Complete with a sometimes daunting set of footnotes doubled with appendices, Democracy in America is unrivalled in the completeness with which it sets forth the promise and the problems of American life. I will close by repeating what I said at the outset: this is the most important book ever written about life in the United States of America.
It may seem strange that a French aristocrat, from an old family of Norman nobility, would turn out to be such an astute student of American democracy. But then, the U.S.A. has always been a country that changes people. A printer from Philadelphia, notable for his efforts to reconcile Great Britain and her American colonies, becomes an American arch-rebel. A Virginia slaveholder becomes the author of one of the most important freedom documents in the history of the world. An orphan from the Caribbean island of Nevis reinvents, virtually single-handed, the financial system of the Western world. This country changes people; and Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of life in the United States, collected over many months of travel throughout the states and territories of the country during the 1830’s, certainly changed him.
De Tocqueville begins Democracy in America by reflecting that “Of all the novel things which attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me more forcibly than the equality of social conditions” (p. 11). He felt that aristocracy was on the decline throughout the Western world, and that democracy was on the rise – a change that he saw having many good consequences, along with some potentially troubling ones. Democracy in America was the text through which he set down and systematized his observations of life in the United States.
Among de Tocqueville’s thoughts regarding American life are these considerations of how the origins of the American colonies might have encouraged the growth of democracy:
Every new European colony contained, if not in a fully developed form, at least the seed of a fully grown democracy. There were two reasons for this: in general, it can be stated that when they left their mother country, the emigrants had no particular concept of any superiority of one over another. It is hardly the happy and the powerful who choose exile; poverty, along with wretchedness, offers the best guarantee of equal status known to man. (pp. 39-40).
With a strong focus on how the township system developed in the New England colonies, de Tocqueville suggests that the colonists’ focus on local government first, and then on colonial government after, may have done much to mold Americans’ uniquely democratic outlook: “In most European nations, the initial movements of power resided with the upper echelons of society and passed gradually, and always in a partial manner, to the other sections of society. By contrast, in America we can state that the organization of the township preceded that of the county, the county that of the state, the state that of the Union” (p. 52).
De Tocqueville is impressed with how American civilization has developed, and suggests that “This civilization is the result (and this is something we must always bear in mind) of two quite distinct ingredients which anywhere else have often ended in war but which Americans have succeeded somehow to meld together in wondrous harmony – namely, the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty” (p. 55).
No area of American life goes unexamined by de Tocqueville. Manners? Not as polished as in Europe, but avoiding the extremes of both elegance and vulgarity. Attitudes toward money and material prosperity? Acquisitive – as, in an egalitarian democracy, one of the few ways in which one can stand out from one’s neighbors is by having more money than they do. Business practices? Characterized by sharp dealing -- caveat emptor! National pride? Expressed much more loudly, and more stridently, than in Europe.
One sees how de Tocqueville’s status as an aristocrat who believes in democracy affects the way he sees American institutions. When considering, for example, the division of the U.S. Congress into a Senate and a House of Representatives, de Tocqueville makes a point of informing his French audience that “By dividing the legislature into two, Americans have, therefore, intended not to create one hereditary house and another elected; they did not mean the one to be aristocratic, the other democratic; neither did they aim to make the first an adjunct of the establishment, while leaving to the other the concerns and passions of the people” (p. 100). He knows that he needs to remind his French readers regarding the differences between the French and American systems.
While de Tocqueville praises American democracy, he does not depict American society as a perfect society. He sees democracy as a levelling tendency that can discourage individuals from seeking to stand out in areas like education or erudition: “I do not think that there is a single country in the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few ignorant and, at the same time, so few educated individuals as in America” (p. 65). Only in America, among the major industrialized nations of the world, is “overeducated” an insult. Getting an education in order to make more money – Fine, admirable. Good for you! Constantly learning more for the sake of learning itself, questioning societal norms in the process, building an outlook based on inquiry and critical thinking – what the hell is wrong with you?
De Tocqueville is particularly eloquent when warning about the potential for majoritarianism, the tyranny of the majority. When he writes that “I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America” (p. 297), I find myself thinking about the times when people have felt distinctly unsafe expressing unpopular ideas – opposing McCarthyism during the Red Scare of the 1950’s, for example.
That tendency toward majoritarianism, for de Tocqueville, has much to do with democracy itself. In an unequal society, he points out, many citizens may “take as a guide for their opinions the superior reason of one man or one class” (p. 399). Yet exactly the opposite thing tends to happen in a democracy:
When the man living in a democratic country compares himself individually with all those around him, he sees with pride that he is equal to each of them; but when he happens to contemplate the huge gathering of his fellow men, and to take place beside this great body, he is straightway overwhelmed by his own insignificance and weakness. This very equality which makes him independent of each of his fellow men delivers him alone and defenseless into the hands of the majority. (p. 501).
De Tocqueville finds that newspapers are of great importance against the vast expanses and distances of the United States, writing that a newspaper is “the only way of being able to place the same thought at the same moment into a thousand minds” (p. 600). He adds that “as men become more equal and individualism more of a menace, newspapers are more necessary. The belief that they just guarantee freedom would diminish their importance; they sustain civilization” (p. 600). At the same time, newspapers can be molders of mass opinion, not just deliverers of information. Looking at the power and influence of newspapers and other media in the United States, de Tocqueville writes that “the predisposition to believe in mass opinion increases and becomes progressively the opinion which commands the world” (p. 501).
Modern readers are likely to take particular interest in de Tocqueville’s remarks on race and slavery. He was writing, after all, at a time when slavery was entrenched in the Southern states, but was gradually being abolished across the Northern states. “Slavery,” de Tocqueville writes, “brings dishonor to work; it introduces idleness into society, together with ignorance and pride, poverty, and indulgence. It weakens the powers of the mind and dampens human effort. The influence of slavery, together with the English character, explains the customs and the social conditions of the South” (p. 41).
With his classical education, de Tocqueville is well-qualified to discuss how slavery in the United States is different from slavery in the ancient world, because American slavery is linked with race. In a famous passage, he asks readers to imagine themselves as travellers on the Ohio River between slaveholding Kentucky and free-labour Ohio: a sleepy, idle tableau of inactivity on the Kentucky side, a bustling commercial society on the Ohio side. The reason, de Tocqueville tells us, is simple: “On the left bank of the Ohio, work is connected with the idea of slavery, on the right bank with the idea of progress; on the one side, it is a source of humiliation, on the other, of honour” (p. 405).
He anticipates that American society will be combatting race prejudice long after the formal abolition of slavery, and observes that, in those Northern states where slavery has been abolished, “the legal barrier separating the two races is tending to come down but not that of custom. I see slavery in retreat, but the prejudice which arises from it has not moved at all” (p. 401). Almost 200 years after de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, and more than 150 years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States, de Tocqueville’s words regarding the lingering nature of race prejudice still apply. Heaven knows they do.
With regard to gender, de Tocqueville sees that “Americans…have allowed the social inferiority of women to remain”, but insists that “nowhere does [woman] enjoy a higher status” (p. 699) than in the United States. I can’t help wondering: how much did de Tocqueville actually consult the opinions of American women before writing these words, and how did American women of those times respond when they read what de Tocqueville had written regarding gender in American society? Still, de Tocqueville’s admiration for American women remains unmistakable: he writes that “if I am asked how we should account for the unusual prosperity and growing strength of this nation, I would reply that they must be attributed to the superiority of their women” (p. 700).
A striking chapter, near the end of Democracy in America, speculates about “What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.” De Tocqueville writes that he will worry about the future of any democracy when he sees, within that democracy, a critical mass of citizens who are “turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls” (p. 804). And what kind of despotism might be constructed atop the wreckage of American democracy?
De Tocqueville is quite specific regarding how he thinks such a despotism could take shape, saying that “it prefers its citizens to enjoy themselves, provided they have only enjoyment in mind. It works readily for their happiness, but it wishes to be the only provider and judge of it.” Over time, it “reduces daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice; it restricts the activity of free will within a narrower range, and gradually removes autonomy itself from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all this, inclining them to tolerate all these things, and often even to see them as a blessing” (p. 805)
Around the world, one can observe may examples of governments that hold power within a system of “authoritarian capitalism” or “managed democracy.” People can make money as they like – and indeed, a degree of “buy-in” from the well-to-do seems to be required for these systems to work. Everybody has the prospect of dreaming of a McMansion, with a Cadillac Escalade out front, and a wall-sized plasma-screen TV on the walls. Social media technology tracks our likes and interests, often anticipating the next thing we might want to buy or do. You can vote; you're free to vote. But one political party, one leader, is always in charge. Everyone knows what they can or cannot say regarding government policy. And in those places where populist nationalism has taken hold, there is one acceptable way of being a “true” patriotic citizen, and one religion that has an “authentic” formative role in the life of the nation, and – often – there is hostility toward members of various cultural, ideological, and/or religious minorities. Where is the United States of America on that continuum today?
This Penguin Books edition of Democracy in America also includes the essay “Two Weeks in the Wilderness” – a work that shows the sort of work that de Tocqueville did in compiling the materials for what became Democracy in America. We see how much de Tocqueville and a colleague endured whilst travelling under rough conditions from Buffalo, New York, toward Saginaw in what was then Michigan Territory. Having wanted to meet some Indigenous Americans, he finally gets to do so; and in the process, he sees how often and how outrageously Indigenous Americans are cheated in their dealings with Anglo-American pioneers and traders. To that observation, de Tocqueville adds that “Besides, it is not only Indians that the pioneers take for fools. We were daily victims ourselves of their inordinate greed for gain. It is very true that they do not steal. They have too much enlightenment to commit such an unwise act, but I have never seen a big town innkeeper overcharge with more impudence than these inhabitants of the wilderness” (p. 904).
Complete with a sometimes daunting set of footnotes doubled with appendices, Democracy in America is unrivalled in the completeness with which it sets forth the promise and the problems of American life. I will close by repeating what I said at the outset: this is the most important book ever written about life in the United States of America.
January 9, 2010
I'm going with 4 stars here, it isn't always the easiest book to read, but worth it. There is a lot of wisdom in this book, a lot of insight. While history hasn't borne out all his predictions, there have been enough. Sadly also, it looks as though more of the things he said may still prove to be true.
In today's atmosphere, the thoughts here compared to the reality we live in and that "may" be coming to pass....well, it's worth some thought. When America broke away from the "branch" so to speak it was a new thing in the world. No colony had ever done what was done here and it was an idealistic experiment even a dream that was watched by the world. Europe was...somewhat worried and England in particular was very unhappy about the implications. Had the War of 1812 gone differently on this side of the Atlantic we all still might be drinking tea more than coffee as it could have changed everything. But when you say "the War of 1812" in Europe their minds go to battles and events other than here in North America. They think of the Napoleonic war.
But back to the subject. The American Revolution raised questions worldwide and things began to percolate. In France things boiled over not long after they did here. It's notable that many in the academic community are far more enamored with the French Revolution than with the American. You see it was "supposed to be" a "rational Revolution" it was a Godless revolution with all the clergy and God Himself rejected by the leaders and much of the movement (the clergy was seen as close to the royals you see). Unfortunately the French Revolution spun out of control into a rein of terror and then into a military dictatorship.
In the wake of all this a young man (Alexis de Tocqueville) spent 9 months touring the "new" United States and when he returned to France he wrote this book commenting on the social and governmental "situation" and implications.
He was torn between hopeful and...well, not so hopeful.
So I recommend the book. It's interesting, thought provoking and somewhat sobering. I leave you with one quote from said book:
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Think about it.
In today's atmosphere, the thoughts here compared to the reality we live in and that "may" be coming to pass....well, it's worth some thought. When America broke away from the "branch" so to speak it was a new thing in the world. No colony had ever done what was done here and it was an idealistic experiment even a dream that was watched by the world. Europe was...somewhat worried and England in particular was very unhappy about the implications. Had the War of 1812 gone differently on this side of the Atlantic we all still might be drinking tea more than coffee as it could have changed everything. But when you say "the War of 1812" in Europe their minds go to battles and events other than here in North America. They think of the Napoleonic war.
But back to the subject. The American Revolution raised questions worldwide and things began to percolate. In France things boiled over not long after they did here. It's notable that many in the academic community are far more enamored with the French Revolution than with the American. You see it was "supposed to be" a "rational Revolution" it was a Godless revolution with all the clergy and God Himself rejected by the leaders and much of the movement (the clergy was seen as close to the royals you see). Unfortunately the French Revolution spun out of control into a rein of terror and then into a military dictatorship.
In the wake of all this a young man (Alexis de Tocqueville) spent 9 months touring the "new" United States and when he returned to France he wrote this book commenting on the social and governmental "situation" and implications.
He was torn between hopeful and...well, not so hopeful.
So I recommend the book. It's interesting, thought provoking and somewhat sobering. I leave you with one quote from said book:
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Think about it.
July 30, 2013
Chronology
Introduction & Notes
Further Reading
Translator's Note
--Democracy in America
Notes
Two Essays on America:
--Two Weeks in the Wilderness
--Excursion to Lake Oneida
Introduction & Notes
Further Reading
Translator's Note
--Democracy in America
Notes
Two Essays on America:
--Two Weeks in the Wilderness
--Excursion to Lake Oneida
October 30, 2020
de Tocqueville is one of those authors that is often quoted, sometimes excerpted, but not always read in full. It's been years since I've last read anything by him. In returning to him, I am faced with the fact that he often repeats himself, and his writing could have been greatly improved with a reliable editor.
He writes about the United States not in specific details, but in broad assertions. His opinions and observations are cited by liberals who favor his opinions on the "equality of conditions", conservatives who favor his slow-walking of reform as well as his admiration of the system as a union of states without an overweening federal government. Tocqueville could even be cited by Marxists - the growth of industrialization, for example, leads him to remark that "all the industrial crises threaten more and more to become political crises."
A good deal of his writing and predictions have the stamp of the 1830s on them. He predicts that the federal government would not become more powerful - not really. He casts aspersions on the state of American literature - give it a few more years and you have Melville, Poe, and Dickinson. He was a comte who was snakebit by the French Revolution - he reports to French readers on democracy that continues to exist without the violent convulsions of the French Revolution that tore apart his fellow aristocrats. Well, no, there was a civil war three decades later.
Even with all these caveats, there are many observations that still show de Tocqueville's perception. Take, for example, the importance of inheritance law, the importance of religious belief, his notes on the power of the judiciary, of elected representatives growing more obsessed with reelection instead of the interests of their constituents, of Americans' tendency to join groups and form "voluntary associations" -- and the terror of a "soft despotism", where the form of democracy is retained and the electorate has no power at all. Or, how the state of slavery was such de Tocqueville, a dyed-in-the-wool colonialist, saw only cruelty and waste coming out of it.
Finally, it is a reminder that for large parts of the 19th and even the 20th century, the United States was seen as a model or as an ideal for later governmental structure or policy reforms. In October 2020, this is not the case. If there is any hope for recovery, and that recovery is a long and difficult process, that might be more evident after November 3rd.
He writes about the United States not in specific details, but in broad assertions. His opinions and observations are cited by liberals who favor his opinions on the "equality of conditions", conservatives who favor his slow-walking of reform as well as his admiration of the system as a union of states without an overweening federal government. Tocqueville could even be cited by Marxists - the growth of industrialization, for example, leads him to remark that "all the industrial crises threaten more and more to become political crises."
A good deal of his writing and predictions have the stamp of the 1830s on them. He predicts that the federal government would not become more powerful - not really. He casts aspersions on the state of American literature - give it a few more years and you have Melville, Poe, and Dickinson. He was a comte who was snakebit by the French Revolution - he reports to French readers on democracy that continues to exist without the violent convulsions of the French Revolution that tore apart his fellow aristocrats. Well, no, there was a civil war three decades later.
Even with all these caveats, there are many observations that still show de Tocqueville's perception. Take, for example, the importance of inheritance law, the importance of religious belief, his notes on the power of the judiciary, of elected representatives growing more obsessed with reelection instead of the interests of their constituents, of Americans' tendency to join groups and form "voluntary associations" -- and the terror of a "soft despotism", where the form of democracy is retained and the electorate has no power at all. Or, how the state of slavery was such de Tocqueville, a dyed-in-the-wool colonialist, saw only cruelty and waste coming out of it.
Finally, it is a reminder that for large parts of the 19th and even the 20th century, the United States was seen as a model or as an ideal for later governmental structure or policy reforms. In October 2020, this is not the case. If there is any hope for recovery, and that recovery is a long and difficult process, that might be more evident after November 3rd.
July 7, 2019
How does one review a 900+ page work (4 vols) that combines observations, history & essays published between 1835 and 1838. He spent nine months in the U.S in 1831 & 1832. He wrote in paradoxes, had some incredible insights and some out and out misses about Americans, American life and what the future holds. I had to keep reminding myself of the time period, and the incredibly small slice of life he was observing in his travels, along with his own background and experience in Europe, specifically France. He was quite prescient about the only thing that would precipitate another large revolution for the U.S. would be the institution of slavery.
This was a group read, and one of the members highlighted a point that is still so relevant today. He stated that Tocqueville asserts that to preserve liberty in a democracy, 3 things were necessary:
1) Freedom of the press, 2) an electorate that does the work to stay informed, and 3) an electorate that resists apathy, and votes.
This was a group read, and one of the members highlighted a point that is still so relevant today. He stated that Tocqueville asserts that to preserve liberty in a democracy, 3 things were necessary:
1) Freedom of the press, 2) an electorate that does the work to stay informed, and 3) an electorate that resists apathy, and votes.
August 2, 2008
Update: My brother just told me that Kurt Vonnegut says that anyone who hasn't read Democracy in America is a wimp. So I guess that makes me almost not a wimp. Well!
Post from a few weeks ago: I've been wanting to read de Toqueville's, Democracy in America for some time, and I've finally bit the bullet. The translation is beautifully done. De Toqueville's sentiments are eloquent and thought provoking. Wonderful.
How's that for summer reading! Part of me wishes we still talked like pilgrims.
Post from a few weeks ago: I've been wanting to read de Toqueville's, Democracy in America for some time, and I've finally bit the bullet. The translation is beautifully done. De Toqueville's sentiments are eloquent and thought provoking. Wonderful.
How's that for summer reading! Part of me wishes we still talked like pilgrims.
February 12, 2026
A nice tome. Friendly and helpful to the USA. Written by a French aristocrat after the Revolution this resource provides many insightful suggestions to naïve Americans about the best way to start a republic.
The volumes contain a wealth of observation and critique. I like the section warning about tyranny of the majority. I also enjoyed the chapter which analyzes poetry and also makes predictions about what the future holds for poetry in the USA.
The volumes contain a wealth of observation and critique. I like the section warning about tyranny of the majority. I also enjoyed the chapter which analyzes poetry and also makes predictions about what the future holds for poetry in the USA.
July 15, 2024
My comments at this time are limited to Volume 1 of this book. (Link to my review of Volume 2) The reason for my stepped approach is to match the pace of a book group with which I participate that is discussing Volume 1 in July and Volume. 2 at our August meeting.
The two volumes of Democracy in America were published in 1835 and 1840 respectively and are based on observations and interviews collected during an 1831-32 tour of the country. This was a time before the Mexican American War and the American Civil War, and it was during the first administration of Andrew Jackson. It is my understanding that the two volumes have somewhat different focus, the first being more political in the narrow sense and the second being more social.
The book is largely a collection of generalizations and opinions of the author with occasional reference to statistics and data where available. I as a reader occasionally cringed at his sweeping generalizations, but still I value his comments as coming from a unique time in history from a thoughtful and intelligent writer who is an outsider to American politics. Since he was writing from that perspective it’s interesting to note that he was critical of slavery and Andrew Jackson.
The factual description of the mistreatment of Native Americans is damning of the credibility of promises made by the American government. The author included in his book a very sad eye witness description of the condition of a band of Choctaws who had been forcibly removed from their homeland and were in the process of crossing the Mississippi River at the time of his observation.
There’s also a long discussion of the dilemma that the South was in regarding the prospect of ending slavery. It was the author’s observation that the whites were unwilling to live with Blacks as equals, but the natural tendency for the rights within democracies to expand made it inevitable the slavery could not go on for ever. There are occasional hints around a possibility of a civil war, but no explicit prophecy.
There’s a long discussion of the range of governance from the local township to the State and Federal governments. There’s also a long discussion of the Judicial system, lawyers and trial by jury. I thought it was interesting that he said American lawyers argue based on precedence in contrast to French lawyers who argue about where the law is good or bad.
This is a big book which, depending of the prejudices of the reader, can be used to support either liberal or conservative opinions. (It’s like the Bible in that regard.) There are some statements made that subsequent history have proven to be correctly insightful (e.g. expansion of the right to vote). But there are other observations which didn’t last much longer (e.g. Americans are not advanced in the sciences and literature.) There’s also considerable discussion of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and political parties.
The author’s intended reading audience was the French in their search for a stable form of governing in their country. I suspect that the publishing and reading of the English translation exceeded that of the original French edition.
The following is a map of de Tocqueville's travels within the USA:
The two volumes of Democracy in America were published in 1835 and 1840 respectively and are based on observations and interviews collected during an 1831-32 tour of the country. This was a time before the Mexican American War and the American Civil War, and it was during the first administration of Andrew Jackson. It is my understanding that the two volumes have somewhat different focus, the first being more political in the narrow sense and the second being more social.
The book is largely a collection of generalizations and opinions of the author with occasional reference to statistics and data where available. I as a reader occasionally cringed at his sweeping generalizations, but still I value his comments as coming from a unique time in history from a thoughtful and intelligent writer who is an outsider to American politics. Since he was writing from that perspective it’s interesting to note that he was critical of slavery and Andrew Jackson.
The factual description of the mistreatment of Native Americans is damning of the credibility of promises made by the American government. The author included in his book a very sad eye witness description of the condition of a band of Choctaws who had been forcibly removed from their homeland and were in the process of crossing the Mississippi River at the time of his observation.
There’s also a long discussion of the dilemma that the South was in regarding the prospect of ending slavery. It was the author’s observation that the whites were unwilling to live with Blacks as equals, but the natural tendency for the rights within democracies to expand made it inevitable the slavery could not go on for ever. There are occasional hints around a possibility of a civil war, but no explicit prophecy.
There’s a long discussion of the range of governance from the local township to the State and Federal governments. There’s also a long discussion of the Judicial system, lawyers and trial by jury. I thought it was interesting that he said American lawyers argue based on precedence in contrast to French lawyers who argue about where the law is good or bad.
This is a big book which, depending of the prejudices of the reader, can be used to support either liberal or conservative opinions. (It’s like the Bible in that regard.) There are some statements made that subsequent history have proven to be correctly insightful (e.g. expansion of the right to vote). But there are other observations which didn’t last much longer (e.g. Americans are not advanced in the sciences and literature.) There’s also considerable discussion of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and political parties.
The author’s intended reading audience was the French in their search for a stable form of governing in their country. I suspect that the publishing and reading of the English translation exceeded that of the original French edition.
The following is a map of de Tocqueville's travels within the USA:
September 23, 2026
Some books are too expansive and knowledgeable to contain their greatness in a review.
Democracy in America is a social and political survey of America and its Americans throughout the 1840s. Much of the observations and patterns discovered are highly relevant today, while some have been flipped on their heads entirely. Americans are still motivated by the lust for property, but now religion and aristocracy have, to Tocqueville's dismay, been welded together with politics, and the president is no longer an honourable, 'uncorruptible' figure. The writing here is sharp and vivid, pinpointing great details regarding the mannerisms, institutions, and customs of Americans from their most embarrassing to their most esteemed -- at least, esteemed back then. Even if Andrew Jackson was, at the time of this writing, decimating the Choctaws for the Indian removal, Tocqueville's image of America brings about a similar picture to that of Walt Whitman's: an ideal far, far away, but charming on the paper, and informative, influential, and empowering nonetheless. These works and essays provide a picture of what America should have been: politics without bias, education with equality, revolted by ethnic discrimination. Now these customs have overgrown into tumours, to the great sadness of Tocqueville, who more or less saw this coming with a democracy.
Tocqueville highlights the dangers of democracy and proposes a grim idea: the very implementation of equality is a stepping stone to despair and corruption on any and all fronts. Democracy prepares their citizens not for the true equal treatment of humankind; instead, it produces complacent and incompetent fellows accustomed to that of mass produced equality: low in grade, low in ambition, low in creativity, low in expectations. Such a government of a democracy seeks to 'lull their citizens to sleep' rather than provide the tools for them to prosper, unless by their own inspiration, usually tainted with a malign objective for power and profit rather than general welfare.
A better review is to come in the next... years. It's just that this book is a real treasure when read slowly, digested consciously, and with a notebook. Clearly it's one of the best writings of America to come out of America (or at least 9 months in America), both in style, knowledge, and legacy.
How amazing is it how what shouldn’t have changed did, and what should have changed remained as stationary as it was almost two hundred years ago?
Democracy in America is a social and political survey of America and its Americans throughout the 1840s. Much of the observations and patterns discovered are highly relevant today, while some have been flipped on their heads entirely. Americans are still motivated by the lust for property, but now religion and aristocracy have, to Tocqueville's dismay, been welded together with politics, and the president is no longer an honourable, 'uncorruptible' figure. The writing here is sharp and vivid, pinpointing great details regarding the mannerisms, institutions, and customs of Americans from their most embarrassing to their most esteemed -- at least, esteemed back then. Even if Andrew Jackson was, at the time of this writing, decimating the Choctaws for the Indian removal, Tocqueville's image of America brings about a similar picture to that of Walt Whitman's: an ideal far, far away, but charming on the paper, and informative, influential, and empowering nonetheless. These works and essays provide a picture of what America should have been: politics without bias, education with equality, revolted by ethnic discrimination. Now these customs have overgrown into tumours, to the great sadness of Tocqueville, who more or less saw this coming with a democracy.
Tocqueville highlights the dangers of democracy and proposes a grim idea: the very implementation of equality is a stepping stone to despair and corruption on any and all fronts. Democracy prepares their citizens not for the true equal treatment of humankind; instead, it produces complacent and incompetent fellows accustomed to that of mass produced equality: low in grade, low in ambition, low in creativity, low in expectations. Such a government of a democracy seeks to 'lull their citizens to sleep' rather than provide the tools for them to prosper, unless by their own inspiration, usually tainted with a malign objective for power and profit rather than general welfare.
A better review is to come in the next... years. It's just that this book is a real treasure when read slowly, digested consciously, and with a notebook. Clearly it's one of the best writings of America to come out of America (or at least 9 months in America), both in style, knowledge, and legacy.
How amazing is it how what shouldn’t have changed did, and what should have changed remained as stationary as it was almost two hundred years ago?
August 14, 2025
For those of us in Generation-X, Alexis de Tocqueville was a popular thinker, especially in industrial music culture, but I had never read his full two-volume, 1000-page study of "Democracy in America" until now. So what can be learned from reading this massive tome today?
Well, certainly there is not enough space to discuss everything in this very ambitious text. Among many things, it does give a thorough breakdown of government structures in the United States from the municipal to the Federal, outlines the general functions entrusted to the various branches, explains why Americans went with an electoral college to elect the President as opposed to a simple majority of the populace, discusses the jurisdiction and authority of State and Federal courts, and outlines the differences between northeastern states and other parts of the country, such as townships and commonwealths vs. counties. But I would caution against using this as a sole reference for learning about American government. Some of the information here is outdated. For example, Tocqueville describes how Senators are chosen by their state legislatures instead of popular election, but this has not been the case since the 17th Amendment of 1913.
Instead, what makes this book stand out today is that it was written from the observational stance of an alien, and from this objective view, the benefits and foibles of the American system speak for themselves. To give you an idea of how Tocqueville writes, consider this paragraph:
"Someone observed to me one day in Philadelphia that almost all crimes in America are caused by the abuse of intoxicating liquors... 'How comes it,' said I, 'that you do not put a duty upon brandy?' 'Our legislators,' rejoined my informant, 'have frequently thought of this expedient; but the task is difficult: a revolt might be anticipated; and the members who should vote for such a law would be sure of losing their seats.' 'Whence I am to infer,' replied I, 'that drunkards are the majority in your country, and that temperance is unpopular.'"
Ouch!
One thing that I hadn't thought of was what governance was like in America BEFORE the formal adoption of the democratic experiment. When the English immigrants landed in the 1600s, they didn't simply adopt the laws of their mother country. In fact, they just sort of did their own thing without the awareness of the Crown in many cases. They voted on their own laws and elected their own officials. Many of their laws were straight out of the Bible. Being a Frenchman, Tocqueville can't help but leak out how he thought the original Puritan settlers must have been crazy people, focused on punitive laws against not only adultery and rape, but lying, swearing, and having long hair. But it sure puts the deeply religious and moral roots of America in perspective, even when considering what traditionally has been censored in American TV and movies, things to which other countries wouldn't bat an eye. It also shows us how America has, from the earliest beginnings, drifted to democracy. Theirs was a liberty enlightened by knowledge, but knowledge for the early settlers could only be found in religion. Thus, liberty for them was religious authority, which they believed made for the healthiest and most prosperous society.
Geez, almost everyone living in America today would have been executed or at least flogged by these rules, including our current leaders. Then again, maybe these early leaders foresaw the fentanyl epidemic, traumatized children, gang violence, and other tragedies we now face with our current lack of compass, though these are the same people who also burned women at the stake based on hearsay rather than heresy, so maybe their powers of foresight weren't all that strong. Still, Tocqueville postulates that maybe their Christian zeal allowed for democracy to flourish. In Volume Two, Part One, he notes that the Quran and the Jewish Scriptures lay down intricate and inviolable civil laws, whereas the New Testament only is concerned with general human treatment of each other as equals. And, vice versa, democracy tends to drift its adherents towards pantheism. When your core belief is in the unity of all humanity, you also tend to believe in the unity of its Creator.
In what has since been called The Tocqueville Effect, he describes one threat to democracy as being the result of the paradox that social unrest increases as social conditions improve. It would be tempting to argue that this is exactly what we are seeing in America today, as our nation's poor would not be considered poor by the standards of other countries where there are more egregious access issues to food, healthcare, and technology. Also, unlike their English ancestors, many of the richest Americans didn't come by their wealth through inheritance of feudal titles and lands. Instead, they started off poor, and built their own empire through hard work, seizing opportunities that only American offered, and a lot of good luck. So Americans have always had an addiction to material well-being. The poor have had a taste of opulence and want more, and the rich live in fear of losing their position and comforts.
However, I am not sure that it is a natural guarantee that social unrest is the result of social improvements. Many might even say our social unrest comes from what Tocqueville calls a "tyranny of the majority". This latter idea was part of what was appealing about Tocqueville in my counterculture, namely American Industrial and post-punk, which tended to attract those in society that felt different from the norms of American mores, and thus felt oppressed by and resentful of mainstream culture. But being a counterculture mostly of the white and middle class, I can't say any of us were really as oppressed as we thought. As we grew up, we began to understand this better, only to be replaced by further generations with their own growing number of subcultures with their own resentments. Tocqueville observed this resentment even back in the early 1800s--"agitated by the chance of success, they are irritated by its uncertainty; and they pass from the enthusiasm of pursuit to the exhaustion of ill success, and lastly to the acrimony of disappointment." And the more divided a country becomes, you get not so much a tyranny of the majority but a tyranny of the MINORITY.
Tocqueville wrote during a time when America still considered the will of the majority to be as inviolate as the French once considered their king. These days, the country is pretty split, and if there is a majority, it is shouted down with accusations that are designed to be irrefutable. You can't even have an opinion about something as mundane as a superhero movie without serious uproar and even harassment by a vocal minority of those who feel they have ownership of the project. I watch as my daughter struggles finding any positive friendships, because her peer group is constantly competing to be the most broken or the most victimized. Corporations, the least oppressed entities in America, pretend to be champions of the growing number of disenfranchised groups in the hopes of matching the sensibilities of their target audience, while failing to realize that it's never good enough, because society has divided into too many tribal microcosms. News networks and social media influencers do the same thing, pandering to the agendas of their perceived audience for ratings and clicks rather than delivering objective information no matter who it offends or pleases.
Tocqueville would probably argue that what I just described is actually tyranny of the MAJORITY. Even in the 1830s, he observed how people congregate into echo chambers of like-minded peers all patting each other on the back. In these groups, the predominant way of thinking IS the majority, and if anyone of this group starts to doubt the validity of the group's assertions and speaks about it, they risk not only being shunned from the group, but getting cancelled. Tocqueville doesn't actually use the term "cancelled", but he describes the process perfectly, showing that cancel culture was a thing when the United States was still young. But I could argue with Tocqueville by using a number of examples, so I will pick one. Anna Kasparian has worked for the Young Turks, a traditionally liberal-leaning agency, for 18 years, but recently agreed to be interviewed by Glen Beck, a more conservative commentator. Her willingness to share her views "with the other side" led to a very public resignation of one of her staff over her audacity to even speak to Beck. She admits that though this was just one person in her agency, it cost the company viewers who began to doubt that Kasparian was really who she presented to be even after 18 years of consistency. Her appearance on the program could have opened possibilities for Beck viewers to hear and even be swayed by her views, which would have been a win for her company and her "side". Instead, a small portion of her team opted to try to punish her. If this loss of viewership had been significant enough, it could have cost her platform of influence and even her livelihood, despite ultimately sparked by a tiny fraction of the overall U.S. population who even knows who Anna Kasparian is, and we don't have a good system of recourse in such cases. But whether you call this tyranny of the majority or the minority, Tocqueville's ultimate point remains valid. In a country that values free speech, there are far too many avenues to silence the "other". Americans on any side of an issue come to believe they have MORAL authority, and you are either for them or against them. There is no room for doubters, for unbelievers, for infidels. In a tech world where real debates and discourse are becoming rare in favor of imprudent emotional reactions to manipulated sound bytes and click bait, the value of cultural and intellectual diversity in progressing a nation is stifled so that Americans can isolate into ever increasing numbers of ever smaller silos.
Speaking of the media, I was surprised to find Tocqueville as cautious about the role of the media as we are today. At the time this book was written, newspapers were the only predominant form, and every village and hamlet had their own. The good thing about newspapers at the time was that they allowed like-minded people to find each other and thus grow their voices that would otherwise be individually drowned out by the multitudes. But the larger the publication, the more potential to influence opinion towards uniformity. I've grown used to hearing how journalism is dead, how "in the good ol' days," a free press was an essential accountability check on our leaders. Tocqueville did not have this experience with American newspapers. He found them to be incredibly biased even in the early 1800s, and believed a corporate press with interests either in parallel or against a sitting administration or candidate ran the risk of being a propaganda machine for an aristocracy that would otherwise have no ability to impact a democratic government without investing in the media as a tool of influence. Just as we see today, Tocqueville observed that the tactics of the press was to take advantage of people's tendency to believe implicitly without investigation. "When many organs of the press adopt the same line of conduct, their influence in the long run becomes irresistible, and public opinion, perpetually assailed from the same side, eventually yields to the attack. In the United States each separate journal exercises but little authority; but the power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people."
This unfortunate side effect of human psychology dilutes the health benefits of diversity. America is very focused on diversity right now, which I have already argued is necessary for healthy democracy, but fails to take into account that diversity doesn't help a country grow without some modicum of assimilation. There does have to be some coming together to share ideas, some common values upon which everyone in a country agrees, otherwise we have tribalism, where everyone is at odds with each other, competes with each other over victimhood, and clamors for influence. A free press can either help or destroy healthy diversity. Tocqueville saw the dangers inherent in the media, but at the time there was no technology to network the media with citizens across such a vast country. Therefore, he could not foresee the age of the Internet, which should in theory bring us all closer together, but which ultimately seems to have made us more isolated than ever before. But his analysis warns that a large country with a diverse population that is not integrated by shared principles risks devolving into chaos under such a democratic republic. The United States was not nearly as large in Tocqueville's time as it is now, and, though immigration was constantly diversifying the population, he was still examining a country largely of Anglo-immigrants and their descendants, so America was getting by. But he seems to flat out reject the viability of a free press under other circumstances. It is not clear to me what alternative to a free press he was advocating, but I shudder to think about what a true State media would look like.
This is one part of Tocqueville's book that resonates with those who suspect conspiracies of globalism. If powerful people ever wanted to consolidate their power across the world, you would have to collapse democratic systems by micro-dividing the populations of such countries, thus putting enough stress to collapse democracy and allow for a return of a more centralized authority.
American democracy does have measures to counteract tyranny of majority, like judicial independence, a bill of rights, and so forth, but it is vulnerable to the corrosive effect due to decentralized administration. Tocqueville rightfully points out that, in some ways, the Federal or "Union" government is more centralized than the old monarchy of France--there is one Legislature to make the law and one Supreme Court for interpretation of the law, for example--but overall, the designers of the Federal constitution were careful to separate and balance power to have as much of a representative government as possible. This has led to a complex system of decentralized administration. The central body representing the majority must entrust that their will be carried out by agents, often unelected, over whom the representative government cannot reasonably have complete control. Tocqueville does also conjecture that the United States may have been immune (at the time of his writing) to the chaos that could accompany a lack of central administration, because nowhere had he met a collective nation of people more educated and "awake to their common interests" as Americans. Wow! If he could only see us now!
I must also mention how fascinating I found Tocqueville's section on American foreign policy. I think Tocqueville would be shocked at how many foreign wars the U.S. has been involved in since he wrote this book. He applauds the policies established by Washington and Jefferson, as quoted in Washington's farewell address: "The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest." However, Tocqueville believes that democracies tend to "obey impulse rather than prudence". Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality in 1798 during conflict between England and France, but American sentiment was very strong to enter a war that did not concern them. A weaker president may have caved and declared war against England, but Washington didn't need to win any popularity contest. So perhaps Tocqueville wouldn't be so surprised to know of many overseas wars in which America has since been inserted, or how the people who represent Americans keep sending tax dollars and American lives in the name of overseas interests.
On a final note, Volume I concludes with an extremely long chapter regarding relations between the democratic Anglo-Americans, their African slaves, and the Native Americans. Here, democracy goes out the window. Tocqueville's eyewitness accounts and overall observations pack such a powerful emotional punch that it threatens to fill the reader with the worst kind of anger--impotent anger. While the rest of the book does a great job presenting a balanced view of American democracy, and ultimately concluding that this system may be the best humanity will ever get to true liberty, he purposefully inserts this somber irony of the democratic experiment.
To conclude, this is the most interesting book I've ever read on the subject of political science. I think the value of this book can be summed up in this statement: "It was remarked by a man of genius that 'ignorance lies at the two ends of knowledge.' Perhaps it would have been more correct to say that strong convictions are found only at the two ends, and that doubt lies in the middle." This book is written with this idea in mind. It can help those who feel they know nothing about American government and those who think they know everything. And if you are in the doubting middle, I still think you will find this outsider perspective enlightening, shedding much needed light on a complex system, why it is the way it is, the threats upon the viability of such a system, and the threats it itself imposes. And for those living in the United States today, I think you'll be surprised to find just how little has actually changed in 200 years. I hope that spending some time understanding American democracy is just the remedy needed to help us embrace our diversity while rediscovering our common interests rather than focusing on click bait and political platitudes that divide us.
SCORE: 5 electorates out of 5
SUGGESTED MUSICAL PAIRING: This is Fun (1984) by White Hand
Well, certainly there is not enough space to discuss everything in this very ambitious text. Among many things, it does give a thorough breakdown of government structures in the United States from the municipal to the Federal, outlines the general functions entrusted to the various branches, explains why Americans went with an electoral college to elect the President as opposed to a simple majority of the populace, discusses the jurisdiction and authority of State and Federal courts, and outlines the differences between northeastern states and other parts of the country, such as townships and commonwealths vs. counties. But I would caution against using this as a sole reference for learning about American government. Some of the information here is outdated. For example, Tocqueville describes how Senators are chosen by their state legislatures instead of popular election, but this has not been the case since the 17th Amendment of 1913.
Instead, what makes this book stand out today is that it was written from the observational stance of an alien, and from this objective view, the benefits and foibles of the American system speak for themselves. To give you an idea of how Tocqueville writes, consider this paragraph:
"Someone observed to me one day in Philadelphia that almost all crimes in America are caused by the abuse of intoxicating liquors... 'How comes it,' said I, 'that you do not put a duty upon brandy?' 'Our legislators,' rejoined my informant, 'have frequently thought of this expedient; but the task is difficult: a revolt might be anticipated; and the members who should vote for such a law would be sure of losing their seats.' 'Whence I am to infer,' replied I, 'that drunkards are the majority in your country, and that temperance is unpopular.'"
Ouch!
One thing that I hadn't thought of was what governance was like in America BEFORE the formal adoption of the democratic experiment. When the English immigrants landed in the 1600s, they didn't simply adopt the laws of their mother country. In fact, they just sort of did their own thing without the awareness of the Crown in many cases. They voted on their own laws and elected their own officials. Many of their laws were straight out of the Bible. Being a Frenchman, Tocqueville can't help but leak out how he thought the original Puritan settlers must have been crazy people, focused on punitive laws against not only adultery and rape, but lying, swearing, and having long hair. But it sure puts the deeply religious and moral roots of America in perspective, even when considering what traditionally has been censored in American TV and movies, things to which other countries wouldn't bat an eye. It also shows us how America has, from the earliest beginnings, drifted to democracy. Theirs was a liberty enlightened by knowledge, but knowledge for the early settlers could only be found in religion. Thus, liberty for them was religious authority, which they believed made for the healthiest and most prosperous society.
Geez, almost everyone living in America today would have been executed or at least flogged by these rules, including our current leaders. Then again, maybe these early leaders foresaw the fentanyl epidemic, traumatized children, gang violence, and other tragedies we now face with our current lack of compass, though these are the same people who also burned women at the stake based on hearsay rather than heresy, so maybe their powers of foresight weren't all that strong. Still, Tocqueville postulates that maybe their Christian zeal allowed for democracy to flourish. In Volume Two, Part One, he notes that the Quran and the Jewish Scriptures lay down intricate and inviolable civil laws, whereas the New Testament only is concerned with general human treatment of each other as equals. And, vice versa, democracy tends to drift its adherents towards pantheism. When your core belief is in the unity of all humanity, you also tend to believe in the unity of its Creator.
In what has since been called The Tocqueville Effect, he describes one threat to democracy as being the result of the paradox that social unrest increases as social conditions improve. It would be tempting to argue that this is exactly what we are seeing in America today, as our nation's poor would not be considered poor by the standards of other countries where there are more egregious access issues to food, healthcare, and technology. Also, unlike their English ancestors, many of the richest Americans didn't come by their wealth through inheritance of feudal titles and lands. Instead, they started off poor, and built their own empire through hard work, seizing opportunities that only American offered, and a lot of good luck. So Americans have always had an addiction to material well-being. The poor have had a taste of opulence and want more, and the rich live in fear of losing their position and comforts.
However, I am not sure that it is a natural guarantee that social unrest is the result of social improvements. Many might even say our social unrest comes from what Tocqueville calls a "tyranny of the majority". This latter idea was part of what was appealing about Tocqueville in my counterculture, namely American Industrial and post-punk, which tended to attract those in society that felt different from the norms of American mores, and thus felt oppressed by and resentful of mainstream culture. But being a counterculture mostly of the white and middle class, I can't say any of us were really as oppressed as we thought. As we grew up, we began to understand this better, only to be replaced by further generations with their own growing number of subcultures with their own resentments. Tocqueville observed this resentment even back in the early 1800s--"agitated by the chance of success, they are irritated by its uncertainty; and they pass from the enthusiasm of pursuit to the exhaustion of ill success, and lastly to the acrimony of disappointment." And the more divided a country becomes, you get not so much a tyranny of the majority but a tyranny of the MINORITY.
Tocqueville wrote during a time when America still considered the will of the majority to be as inviolate as the French once considered their king. These days, the country is pretty split, and if there is a majority, it is shouted down with accusations that are designed to be irrefutable. You can't even have an opinion about something as mundane as a superhero movie without serious uproar and even harassment by a vocal minority of those who feel they have ownership of the project. I watch as my daughter struggles finding any positive friendships, because her peer group is constantly competing to be the most broken or the most victimized. Corporations, the least oppressed entities in America, pretend to be champions of the growing number of disenfranchised groups in the hopes of matching the sensibilities of their target audience, while failing to realize that it's never good enough, because society has divided into too many tribal microcosms. News networks and social media influencers do the same thing, pandering to the agendas of their perceived audience for ratings and clicks rather than delivering objective information no matter who it offends or pleases.
Tocqueville would probably argue that what I just described is actually tyranny of the MAJORITY. Even in the 1830s, he observed how people congregate into echo chambers of like-minded peers all patting each other on the back. In these groups, the predominant way of thinking IS the majority, and if anyone of this group starts to doubt the validity of the group's assertions and speaks about it, they risk not only being shunned from the group, but getting cancelled. Tocqueville doesn't actually use the term "cancelled", but he describes the process perfectly, showing that cancel culture was a thing when the United States was still young. But I could argue with Tocqueville by using a number of examples, so I will pick one. Anna Kasparian has worked for the Young Turks, a traditionally liberal-leaning agency, for 18 years, but recently agreed to be interviewed by Glen Beck, a more conservative commentator. Her willingness to share her views "with the other side" led to a very public resignation of one of her staff over her audacity to even speak to Beck. She admits that though this was just one person in her agency, it cost the company viewers who began to doubt that Kasparian was really who she presented to be even after 18 years of consistency. Her appearance on the program could have opened possibilities for Beck viewers to hear and even be swayed by her views, which would have been a win for her company and her "side". Instead, a small portion of her team opted to try to punish her. If this loss of viewership had been significant enough, it could have cost her platform of influence and even her livelihood, despite ultimately sparked by a tiny fraction of the overall U.S. population who even knows who Anna Kasparian is, and we don't have a good system of recourse in such cases. But whether you call this tyranny of the majority or the minority, Tocqueville's ultimate point remains valid. In a country that values free speech, there are far too many avenues to silence the "other". Americans on any side of an issue come to believe they have MORAL authority, and you are either for them or against them. There is no room for doubters, for unbelievers, for infidels. In a tech world where real debates and discourse are becoming rare in favor of imprudent emotional reactions to manipulated sound bytes and click bait, the value of cultural and intellectual diversity in progressing a nation is stifled so that Americans can isolate into ever increasing numbers of ever smaller silos.
Speaking of the media, I was surprised to find Tocqueville as cautious about the role of the media as we are today. At the time this book was written, newspapers were the only predominant form, and every village and hamlet had their own. The good thing about newspapers at the time was that they allowed like-minded people to find each other and thus grow their voices that would otherwise be individually drowned out by the multitudes. But the larger the publication, the more potential to influence opinion towards uniformity. I've grown used to hearing how journalism is dead, how "in the good ol' days," a free press was an essential accountability check on our leaders. Tocqueville did not have this experience with American newspapers. He found them to be incredibly biased even in the early 1800s, and believed a corporate press with interests either in parallel or against a sitting administration or candidate ran the risk of being a propaganda machine for an aristocracy that would otherwise have no ability to impact a democratic government without investing in the media as a tool of influence. Just as we see today, Tocqueville observed that the tactics of the press was to take advantage of people's tendency to believe implicitly without investigation. "When many organs of the press adopt the same line of conduct, their influence in the long run becomes irresistible, and public opinion, perpetually assailed from the same side, eventually yields to the attack. In the United States each separate journal exercises but little authority; but the power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people."
This unfortunate side effect of human psychology dilutes the health benefits of diversity. America is very focused on diversity right now, which I have already argued is necessary for healthy democracy, but fails to take into account that diversity doesn't help a country grow without some modicum of assimilation. There does have to be some coming together to share ideas, some common values upon which everyone in a country agrees, otherwise we have tribalism, where everyone is at odds with each other, competes with each other over victimhood, and clamors for influence. A free press can either help or destroy healthy diversity. Tocqueville saw the dangers inherent in the media, but at the time there was no technology to network the media with citizens across such a vast country. Therefore, he could not foresee the age of the Internet, which should in theory bring us all closer together, but which ultimately seems to have made us more isolated than ever before. But his analysis warns that a large country with a diverse population that is not integrated by shared principles risks devolving into chaos under such a democratic republic. The United States was not nearly as large in Tocqueville's time as it is now, and, though immigration was constantly diversifying the population, he was still examining a country largely of Anglo-immigrants and their descendants, so America was getting by. But he seems to flat out reject the viability of a free press under other circumstances. It is not clear to me what alternative to a free press he was advocating, but I shudder to think about what a true State media would look like.
This is one part of Tocqueville's book that resonates with those who suspect conspiracies of globalism. If powerful people ever wanted to consolidate their power across the world, you would have to collapse democratic systems by micro-dividing the populations of such countries, thus putting enough stress to collapse democracy and allow for a return of a more centralized authority.
American democracy does have measures to counteract tyranny of majority, like judicial independence, a bill of rights, and so forth, but it is vulnerable to the corrosive effect due to decentralized administration. Tocqueville rightfully points out that, in some ways, the Federal or "Union" government is more centralized than the old monarchy of France--there is one Legislature to make the law and one Supreme Court for interpretation of the law, for example--but overall, the designers of the Federal constitution were careful to separate and balance power to have as much of a representative government as possible. This has led to a complex system of decentralized administration. The central body representing the majority must entrust that their will be carried out by agents, often unelected, over whom the representative government cannot reasonably have complete control. Tocqueville does also conjecture that the United States may have been immune (at the time of his writing) to the chaos that could accompany a lack of central administration, because nowhere had he met a collective nation of people more educated and "awake to their common interests" as Americans. Wow! If he could only see us now!
I must also mention how fascinating I found Tocqueville's section on American foreign policy. I think Tocqueville would be shocked at how many foreign wars the U.S. has been involved in since he wrote this book. He applauds the policies established by Washington and Jefferson, as quoted in Washington's farewell address: "The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest." However, Tocqueville believes that democracies tend to "obey impulse rather than prudence". Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality in 1798 during conflict between England and France, but American sentiment was very strong to enter a war that did not concern them. A weaker president may have caved and declared war against England, but Washington didn't need to win any popularity contest. So perhaps Tocqueville wouldn't be so surprised to know of many overseas wars in which America has since been inserted, or how the people who represent Americans keep sending tax dollars and American lives in the name of overseas interests.
On a final note, Volume I concludes with an extremely long chapter regarding relations between the democratic Anglo-Americans, their African slaves, and the Native Americans. Here, democracy goes out the window. Tocqueville's eyewitness accounts and overall observations pack such a powerful emotional punch that it threatens to fill the reader with the worst kind of anger--impotent anger. While the rest of the book does a great job presenting a balanced view of American democracy, and ultimately concluding that this system may be the best humanity will ever get to true liberty, he purposefully inserts this somber irony of the democratic experiment.
To conclude, this is the most interesting book I've ever read on the subject of political science. I think the value of this book can be summed up in this statement: "It was remarked by a man of genius that 'ignorance lies at the two ends of knowledge.' Perhaps it would have been more correct to say that strong convictions are found only at the two ends, and that doubt lies in the middle." This book is written with this idea in mind. It can help those who feel they know nothing about American government and those who think they know everything. And if you are in the doubting middle, I still think you will find this outsider perspective enlightening, shedding much needed light on a complex system, why it is the way it is, the threats upon the viability of such a system, and the threats it itself imposes. And for those living in the United States today, I think you'll be surprised to find just how little has actually changed in 200 years. I hope that spending some time understanding American democracy is just the remedy needed to help us embrace our diversity while rediscovering our common interests rather than focusing on click bait and political platitudes that divide us.
SCORE: 5 electorates out of 5
SUGGESTED MUSICAL PAIRING: This is Fun (1984) by White Hand
Want to Read
February 2, 2019As I posted in 2019, I studied this book for a semester-long seminar class long time ago. I liked it, but I couldn't keep carrying the big book with me after the class. I wish there had been eBooks at that time.
July 6, 2007
The evidence is mounting. I am a philistine.
April 6, 2015
Justly a classic. I learned a great deal, including about myself.
February 10, 2025
“Can it be believed that the democracy which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?” (Part 1, p. 6)
True, this book is long and necessarily outdated. It is not a travelogue, nor is it an ethnography. Rather, it’s mostly a comparative philosophical analysis of democracy and aristocracy. It does get slow when Tocqueville dives deep into townships and their political arrangements. Nevertheless, parts of it are spectacular (e.g., the Introduction to Part 1). And Tocqueville made many astute observations and great points. His central argument was that the origin of the United States shaped nearly all its later social, cultural, and political developments. He rightly predicted a gradual movement toward universal suffrage. Some of his most memorable comments were about the central role of judicial power in society—indeed, he saw the judicial class as the most powerful in the United States—and about the dangers of a tyranny of the majority under populism:
“He who punishes the criminal is therefore the real master of society.” (Part 1, p. 282)
“…it may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its ministering prophet.” (Part 2, p. 11)
Tocqueville insightfully argued that one of the main functions of religion was to encourage self-control by pushing people to focus on the future instead of on their immediate wants and temptations. He also predicted that race relations and racial inequality would both remain bad after the demise of slavery due to the persistence of three related prejudices: the bias of race, of color, and of having once been a master over another.
“There is a natural prejudice that prompts men to despise whoever has been their inferior long after he has become their equal; and the real inequality that is produced by fortune or by law is always succeeded by an imaginary inequality that is implanted in the manners of the people.” (Part 1, p. 357)
“Thus the same man who is full of humanity towards his fellow creatures when they are at the same time his equals becomes insensible to their afflictions as soon as that equality ceases.” (Part 2, p. 166)
Of course, Tocqueville was wrong a lot, too. For example, he dramatically overestimated Americans’ willingness to impeach and remove misbehaving presidents. He also wrongly predicted that religion would only survive in democratic countries if it confined itself to spiritual matters and stayed out of politics. The results of recent elections show how far off he was on that prediction. Additionally, he incorrectly predicted that the demand for real diamonds would disappear as faux ones became more available. And his views on cultural sophistication (involvement in science and writing) in the United States were either wrong when written, or became so quickly after he put them down on paper:
“It must be acknowledged that in few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States; and in few have great artists, distinguished poets, or celebrated writers been more rare.” (Part 2, p. 35)
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
“From the time when the exercise of the intellect became a source of strength and of wealth, we see that every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea became a germ of power placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the graces of the mind, the fire of imagination, depth of thought, and all the gifts which heaven scatters at a venture turned to the advantage of democracy; and even when they were in the possession of its adversaries, they still served its cause by throwing into bold relief the natural greatness of man. Its conquests spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge; and literature became an arsenal open to all, where the poor and the weak daily resorted for arms.” (Part 1, p. 5)
“The gradual development of the principle of equality is, therefore, a providential fact. It has all the chief characteristics of such a fact: it is universal, it is lasting, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.” (Part 1, p. 6)
“Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegitimate, and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.” (Part 1, p. 9)
“The colony was scarcely established when slavery was introduced; this was the capital fact which was to exercise an immense influence on the character, the laws, and the whole future of the South. Slavery … dishonors labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. The influence of slavery … explains the manners and the social condition of the Southern States.” (Part 1, p. 30)
“Now, I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world: rights must be given to every citizen, or none at all to anyone.” (Part 1, p. 53)
“Not that those nations whose social condition is democratic naturally despise liberty; on the contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But liberty is not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty and, if they miss their aim, resign themselves to tehri disappointment; but nothing can satisfy them without equality, and they would rather perish than lose it.” (Part 1, pp. 53-54)
“There is no more invariable rule in the history of society: the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength. The ambition of those who are below the appointed rate is irritated in exact proportion to the great number of those who are above it. The exception at last becomes the rule, concession follows concession, and no stop can be made short of universal suffrage” (Part 1, p. 57)
“In the Middle Ages, when it was very difficult to reach offenders, the judges inflicted frightful punishments on the few who were arrested; but this did not dimmish the number of crimes. It has since been discovered that when justice is more certain and more mild, it is more efficacious.” (Part 1, p. 104)
“In the United Stats the ablest men are rarely placed at the head of affairs … On my arrival in the United States I was surprised to find so much distinguished talent among the citizens and so little among the heads of the government.” (Part 1, p. 200)
“It is impossible, after the most strenuous exertions, to raise the intelligence of the people above a certain level. Whatever may be the facilities of acquiring information, whatever may be the profusion of easy methods and cheap science, the human mind can never be instructed and developed without devoting considerable time to these objects.” (Part 1, p. 200)
“Force is never more than a transient element of success, and after force comes the notion of right. A government able to reach its enemies only upon a field of battle would soon be destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be found in penal legislation; and if that sanction is wanting, the law will sooner or later lose its cogency.” (Part 1, p. 282)
“For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke because it is held out to me by the arms of a million men.” (Part 2, p. 12)
“As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.” (Part 2, p. 214).
True, this book is long and necessarily outdated. It is not a travelogue, nor is it an ethnography. Rather, it’s mostly a comparative philosophical analysis of democracy and aristocracy. It does get slow when Tocqueville dives deep into townships and their political arrangements. Nevertheless, parts of it are spectacular (e.g., the Introduction to Part 1). And Tocqueville made many astute observations and great points. His central argument was that the origin of the United States shaped nearly all its later social, cultural, and political developments. He rightly predicted a gradual movement toward universal suffrage. Some of his most memorable comments were about the central role of judicial power in society—indeed, he saw the judicial class as the most powerful in the United States—and about the dangers of a tyranny of the majority under populism:
“He who punishes the criminal is therefore the real master of society.” (Part 1, p. 282)
“…it may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the majority its ministering prophet.” (Part 2, p. 11)
Tocqueville insightfully argued that one of the main functions of religion was to encourage self-control by pushing people to focus on the future instead of on their immediate wants and temptations. He also predicted that race relations and racial inequality would both remain bad after the demise of slavery due to the persistence of three related prejudices: the bias of race, of color, and of having once been a master over another.
“There is a natural prejudice that prompts men to despise whoever has been their inferior long after he has become their equal; and the real inequality that is produced by fortune or by law is always succeeded by an imaginary inequality that is implanted in the manners of the people.” (Part 1, p. 357)
“Thus the same man who is full of humanity towards his fellow creatures when they are at the same time his equals becomes insensible to their afflictions as soon as that equality ceases.” (Part 2, p. 166)
Of course, Tocqueville was wrong a lot, too. For example, he dramatically overestimated Americans’ willingness to impeach and remove misbehaving presidents. He also wrongly predicted that religion would only survive in democratic countries if it confined itself to spiritual matters and stayed out of politics. The results of recent elections show how far off he was on that prediction. Additionally, he incorrectly predicted that the demand for real diamonds would disappear as faux ones became more available. And his views on cultural sophistication (involvement in science and writing) in the United States were either wrong when written, or became so quickly after he put them down on paper:
“It must be acknowledged that in few of the civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress than in the United States; and in few have great artists, distinguished poets, or celebrated writers been more rare.” (Part 2, p. 35)
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
“From the time when the exercise of the intellect became a source of strength and of wealth, we see that every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea became a germ of power placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the graces of the mind, the fire of imagination, depth of thought, and all the gifts which heaven scatters at a venture turned to the advantage of democracy; and even when they were in the possession of its adversaries, they still served its cause by throwing into bold relief the natural greatness of man. Its conquests spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge; and literature became an arsenal open to all, where the poor and the weak daily resorted for arms.” (Part 1, p. 5)
“The gradual development of the principle of equality is, therefore, a providential fact. It has all the chief characteristics of such a fact: it is universal, it is lasting, it constantly eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.” (Part 1, p. 6)
“Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegitimate, and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.” (Part 1, p. 9)
“The colony was scarcely established when slavery was introduced; this was the capital fact which was to exercise an immense influence on the character, the laws, and the whole future of the South. Slavery … dishonors labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. The influence of slavery … explains the manners and the social condition of the Southern States.” (Part 1, p. 30)
“Now, I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world: rights must be given to every citizen, or none at all to anyone.” (Part 1, p. 53)
“Not that those nations whose social condition is democratic naturally despise liberty; on the contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But liberty is not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty and, if they miss their aim, resign themselves to tehri disappointment; but nothing can satisfy them without equality, and they would rather perish than lose it.” (Part 1, pp. 53-54)
“There is no more invariable rule in the history of society: the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength. The ambition of those who are below the appointed rate is irritated in exact proportion to the great number of those who are above it. The exception at last becomes the rule, concession follows concession, and no stop can be made short of universal suffrage” (Part 1, p. 57)
“In the Middle Ages, when it was very difficult to reach offenders, the judges inflicted frightful punishments on the few who were arrested; but this did not dimmish the number of crimes. It has since been discovered that when justice is more certain and more mild, it is more efficacious.” (Part 1, p. 104)
“In the United Stats the ablest men are rarely placed at the head of affairs … On my arrival in the United States I was surprised to find so much distinguished talent among the citizens and so little among the heads of the government.” (Part 1, p. 200)
“It is impossible, after the most strenuous exertions, to raise the intelligence of the people above a certain level. Whatever may be the facilities of acquiring information, whatever may be the profusion of easy methods and cheap science, the human mind can never be instructed and developed without devoting considerable time to these objects.” (Part 1, p. 200)
“Force is never more than a transient element of success, and after force comes the notion of right. A government able to reach its enemies only upon a field of battle would soon be destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be found in penal legislation; and if that sanction is wanting, the law will sooner or later lose its cogency.” (Part 1, p. 282)
“For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke because it is held out to me by the arms of a million men.” (Part 2, p. 12)
“As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.” (Part 2, p. 214).
May 11, 2025
Tocqueville covers so much in his classic on Democracy in America that I still cannot get my head around how observant and analytical he is: just in nine months of travel in 1830s at such a young age (30s) was he able to ponder on so many issues and elaborate his insights at such length. Just reading it over 30 days felt like a chore for me :) so I cannot do justice in reviewing all that. In short, I can say he sounds very relevant today maybe with the caveat that the practice and even theory has changed on some over two centuries. He has many hasty generalizations as well as many nuanced opinions, a little too optimistic overall as time proved it, encountering "rise of individualism" and "tyranny of the majority" with "vibrant civil society" and "habits of the heart" are rare lessons we've been learning the hard way.
June 11, 2011
tourist instructs his hosts that their preferred legal mechanisms may develop into ochlocracy if they don't cool it.
February 6, 2017
One of the most pivotal books in my college education. It got me to start rethinking the concept of prisons and mass incarceration in America.
July 19, 2018
It's taken a year and a half but I have finally finished the unabridged version of Tocqueville's great classic.
Ironically there is far too much to cover to try to give an adequate review.
"In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont were sent by the French government to study the American prison system. In his later letters Tocqueville indicates that he and Beaumont used their official business as a pretext to study American society instead.[3] They arrived in New York City in May of that year and spent nine months traveling the United States, studying the prisons, and collecting information on American society, including its religious, political, and economic character. " from wikepedia
I do not remember anything about the prison system of America but there is much comparing and contrasting between the Democratic government of America and the aristocracy in Europe and especially in France. Tocqueville also compares the mentality of Americans vs. French.
He sees much to commend in American, he also believes there are advantages to living under a theocracy as well. He details each advantage and disadvantage.
And Tocqueville leaves no stone unturned. He breaks down government on a national, state, county and city level. He compares the various religions (at that time Christian denominations) and how the Church affects how people think, Protestant, such as Episcopalian and it's belief in the state church; Puritanism and it's belief in the right of individual freedom of religious practice and also the Catholic church, which is founded on a theocracy and goes hand in hand with Royalty. (Of course this is not so today, he is describing the state of contemporary France).
Other studies were on American's view of money, their right to earn and keep it and also their attitude towards the poor and helpless. Their right to own their own land, compared to a serf-like attitude that seems to still be prevalent in Europe where everyone is considered, if not servantss to a king anymore, still wards of the state, where each person must serve the state, handing over most of their earnings and possessions to the state in order to be taken care of by the state. Europeans would argue that this is for the common good of all, but they cannot show how the system is different from serving Royalty. In practice it is the same.
I found many of observances insightful, but I'm not sure how true they are. He makes a lot of unsubstantiated and sweeping generalizations by which he then forms his conclusions. I daresay much of it is true and also his conclusions, and some of his observations may have been wrong and also his conclusions (even if his observations were right).
This is a book filled with heavy thought. As I said, it took me over a year to read it. It is worth everyone's while to read it because too many Americans today are ignorant as to our history. This is an invaluable record of American life on every level as seen from an outsider's point of view.
Ironically there is far too much to cover to try to give an adequate review.
"In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont were sent by the French government to study the American prison system. In his later letters Tocqueville indicates that he and Beaumont used their official business as a pretext to study American society instead.[3] They arrived in New York City in May of that year and spent nine months traveling the United States, studying the prisons, and collecting information on American society, including its religious, political, and economic character. " from wikepedia
I do not remember anything about the prison system of America but there is much comparing and contrasting between the Democratic government of America and the aristocracy in Europe and especially in France. Tocqueville also compares the mentality of Americans vs. French.
He sees much to commend in American, he also believes there are advantages to living under a theocracy as well. He details each advantage and disadvantage.
And Tocqueville leaves no stone unturned. He breaks down government on a national, state, county and city level. He compares the various religions (at that time Christian denominations) and how the Church affects how people think, Protestant, such as Episcopalian and it's belief in the state church; Puritanism and it's belief in the right of individual freedom of religious practice and also the Catholic church, which is founded on a theocracy and goes hand in hand with Royalty. (Of course this is not so today, he is describing the state of contemporary France).
Other studies were on American's view of money, their right to earn and keep it and also their attitude towards the poor and helpless. Their right to own their own land, compared to a serf-like attitude that seems to still be prevalent in Europe where everyone is considered, if not servantss to a king anymore, still wards of the state, where each person must serve the state, handing over most of their earnings and possessions to the state in order to be taken care of by the state. Europeans would argue that this is for the common good of all, but they cannot show how the system is different from serving Royalty. In practice it is the same.
I found many of observances insightful, but I'm not sure how true they are. He makes a lot of unsubstantiated and sweeping generalizations by which he then forms his conclusions. I daresay much of it is true and also his conclusions, and some of his observations may have been wrong and also his conclusions (even if his observations were right).
This is a book filled with heavy thought. As I said, it took me over a year to read it. It is worth everyone's while to read it because too many Americans today are ignorant as to our history. This is an invaluable record of American life on every level as seen from an outsider's point of view.
June 20, 2022
In order to appreciate and to understand the uniqueness and radical nature of the American experiment in democracy and liberty - one needs a keen insight, an alternative and systematic perspective, and to live in America for some time. The aristocratic Tocqueville got all of them and even more. In the first volume, his enthusiasm for American democracy is almost limitless and his observations are extremely pertinent, fresh, and all over the place; the only objection he has against America is the “tyranny of the majority”. In the second volume, the aristocrat in him notices more and more problems with American democracy; but primarily with the tendency of equality to suppress liberty and the lack of any nobility and depth in such an equal system. He also turns more abstract and philosophic in the second volume, and some of the initial freshness is gone.
It is very interesting to notice how many of Tocqueville's predictions came to pass in America and in the rest of the world since he wrote this book. Then there are the principles of the French Revolution and Napoleonic period that he barely mentions here; however one needs to constantly keep them in mind while reading this book. It is also interesting to contrast Tocqueville with Marx in almost everything they say. As someone who immigrated as an adult from Europe to America, I find this book fascinating and extremely relevant today.
It is very interesting to notice how many of Tocqueville's predictions came to pass in America and in the rest of the world since he wrote this book. Then there are the principles of the French Revolution and Napoleonic period that he barely mentions here; however one needs to constantly keep them in mind while reading this book. It is also interesting to contrast Tocqueville with Marx in almost everything they say. As someone who immigrated as an adult from Europe to America, I find this book fascinating and extremely relevant today.
August 5, 2013
My husband and I have listened to the audio version of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America for the past few months. We have paused many times to discuss interesting passages and have thoroughly enjoyed this courteous visitor’s (de Tocqueville was French) perspective on the early years of our nation. The first Volume was written in 1835 and the second in 1840.
To fully appreciate this monumental socio-economic classic of colonial and antebellum political life, one would need to devote many hours of intensive scholarship. We choose not to allocate that much of our lives right now to this fine tour de force; as such we pressed on over many topics where we could have lingered. Often we saw—or heard—the prophet in the author’s voice, especially his predictions concerning the impending national calamity over slavery. Other times, we chuckled over his descriptions of various perceptions and misconceptions, especially in any area pertaining to royalty and aristocracy. As these are two systems, we as Americans claim to abhor, we believe we’ve ‘abolished’ these through our democracy. Officially and technically we have. What most fail to see is how we have inadvertently created pseudo-systems operating along the same lines and by the same rules, merely called by other names. Of course there is dating and irrelevancy threaded in among his other brilliant observations, but all things considered, I was amazed by how much has stood the test of time.
For all that I would have liked to have delved into Democracy more, I’m still exceedingly glad to have at least made its acquaintance. If you only have a limited amount of time or this isn’t your usual reading fare, I highly recommend the Blackstone Audiobooks production with the memorable and unmistakable voice of the British Frederick Davidson rendering a French author’s vision of democracy in 19th century America.
To fully appreciate this monumental socio-economic classic of colonial and antebellum political life, one would need to devote many hours of intensive scholarship. We choose not to allocate that much of our lives right now to this fine tour de force; as such we pressed on over many topics where we could have lingered. Often we saw—or heard—the prophet in the author’s voice, especially his predictions concerning the impending national calamity over slavery. Other times, we chuckled over his descriptions of various perceptions and misconceptions, especially in any area pertaining to royalty and aristocracy. As these are two systems, we as Americans claim to abhor, we believe we’ve ‘abolished’ these through our democracy. Officially and technically we have. What most fail to see is how we have inadvertently created pseudo-systems operating along the same lines and by the same rules, merely called by other names. Of course there is dating and irrelevancy threaded in among his other brilliant observations, but all things considered, I was amazed by how much has stood the test of time.
For all that I would have liked to have delved into Democracy more, I’m still exceedingly glad to have at least made its acquaintance. If you only have a limited amount of time or this isn’t your usual reading fare, I highly recommend the Blackstone Audiobooks production with the memorable and unmistakable voice of the British Frederick Davidson rendering a French author’s vision of democracy in 19th century America.
February 4, 2014
In the 1830s, the period during which this book was written, Europe was still straining under the social structures of The Old Regime (the Helvetian Confederation excluded) while a new democratic state had emerged, ever since its Declaration of Independence on July 4 1776, the United States of America, led by George Washington who seemed to be the modern American version of Solon or Pericles.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat and politician, fascinated by the democracy so easily established in America while his homeland still struggled to free itself from the manacles of social inequality, took advantage of a business trip to the United States with Gustave Beaumont for the purpose of studying the penitentiary system there while they truly intended to analyze the foundations of American society.
Although not a panegyric of America as it would seem, this book exposes the pros and cons of the democratic system and the threat of the tyranny of the majority and provides an exhaustive study of republicanism, federalism, governmental and administrative decentralization and presidency in the United States. It also evokes the capital and indispensable role religion plays in politics while it is separated from political power.
The importance of this oeuvre lies in its chilling prophecies. Tocqueville predicted more than a century earlier the rise of two giants on the global platform - America and Russia and thus heralded the development of the Cold War (1947-1991). He also broached the then-sensitive subject of slavery in America and alluded to the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861-1865).
Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat and politician, fascinated by the democracy so easily established in America while his homeland still struggled to free itself from the manacles of social inequality, took advantage of a business trip to the United States with Gustave Beaumont for the purpose of studying the penitentiary system there while they truly intended to analyze the foundations of American society.
Although not a panegyric of America as it would seem, this book exposes the pros and cons of the democratic system and the threat of the tyranny of the majority and provides an exhaustive study of republicanism, federalism, governmental and administrative decentralization and presidency in the United States. It also evokes the capital and indispensable role religion plays in politics while it is separated from political power.
The importance of this oeuvre lies in its chilling prophecies. Tocqueville predicted more than a century earlier the rise of two giants on the global platform - America and Russia and thus heralded the development of the Cold War (1947-1991). He also broached the then-sensitive subject of slavery in America and alluded to the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861-1865).
July 11, 2019
I'm still keeping this at 4 stars because I realize the enormity of it (especially when I consider that Tocqueville wrote this w/ a pen), but, man, am I glad to be done reading this.
REVIEW: https://www.greatbookstudy.com/2019/0...
REVIEW: https://www.greatbookstudy.com/2019/0...
August 14, 2017
I'm impressed by this book. Especially by the eloquence of the author, his visionary remarks on the dangers of equality, his brutally honest treatment of the first fully democratic country (America) and his intelligent comparison between European democracies (France and England) and the United States of America. I didn't expect Democracy in America to be this gripping; for a long time I had it on my shelves and I couldn't get myself to start reading. I'm glad I did start. This tome should be read more, especially by young people growing up, who are not used to defending their liberties.
In this book it becomes clear how our (European) democracies are the product of social revolutions and in this sense differ tremendously from the - worshipped by many - democracy of the USA. In the USA, the founding immigrants started out as equals, this is why equality of everyone forms one of the building blocks of the Constitution. In Europe, most of the democracies had to shake off aristocratic laws and customs. European democracies and the American democracies started out different. Personal liberties are protected more in the USA due to a secular state, a free press and a healthy division of legislative power between states and de federation. This explains for example why the freedom of religion (including freedom from religion!) is so problematic in Europe nowadays and seems almost no issue in the USA. Most of the European states are secular by convention, not by right.
One of the most important topics (in my opinion) is the importance of customs. Tocqueville learns us that you can have a judicial democracy and yet still lack a democratic society. He informs us of the importance of customs and conventions; without the right customs, a democracy won't stand for long. Equality and liberty are, so to speak, in the genes of the United States of America, because the immigrants all started out as equals and were free to claim land for themselves. This also partly explains the 'work hard for yourself-mentality' of Americans, especially in the North and North-west. In the southern states people could get rich by using slaves as a labour force. That's why the people in the North are more industrious (according to Tocqueville).
Another insight Tocqueville offers us modern readers, is the fact that freedom and equality aren't necessarily friends: most of the time, they are at eachothers throats. The more equal a society becomes, the more limited the individual will be in his daily life. This is all the more dangerous, when equality is coupled with a centralized government and administration. In a democracy people work hard for their (relatively) little material gains and are on their own ("individual and weak") and are therefore not really interested in important matters of state. The people will neglect threats and give the government maximum amount of room to 'play'. This can lead to despotism, where the centralized government plays the role of 'benevolent overlord' and watches over its people.
Two of the main remedies for this path to despotism are (1) a free press, which can warn the people of dangers and stir their passions and (2) the freedom to form associations. Only associations can rise above the level of the weak individual and form a counter movement against a usurping government.
I can't really stress enough how important the messages of this book are in our modern times. Almost all of the western democracies are shrouded with a thick fog of political correctness (Tocqueville's "tiranny of the majority") which hinders us in defending the freedom of the individual and battling anti-democratic forces (especially religious ones).
In this book it becomes clear how our (European) democracies are the product of social revolutions and in this sense differ tremendously from the - worshipped by many - democracy of the USA. In the USA, the founding immigrants started out as equals, this is why equality of everyone forms one of the building blocks of the Constitution. In Europe, most of the democracies had to shake off aristocratic laws and customs. European democracies and the American democracies started out different. Personal liberties are protected more in the USA due to a secular state, a free press and a healthy division of legislative power between states and de federation. This explains for example why the freedom of religion (including freedom from religion!) is so problematic in Europe nowadays and seems almost no issue in the USA. Most of the European states are secular by convention, not by right.
One of the most important topics (in my opinion) is the importance of customs. Tocqueville learns us that you can have a judicial democracy and yet still lack a democratic society. He informs us of the importance of customs and conventions; without the right customs, a democracy won't stand for long. Equality and liberty are, so to speak, in the genes of the United States of America, because the immigrants all started out as equals and were free to claim land for themselves. This also partly explains the 'work hard for yourself-mentality' of Americans, especially in the North and North-west. In the southern states people could get rich by using slaves as a labour force. That's why the people in the North are more industrious (according to Tocqueville).
Another insight Tocqueville offers us modern readers, is the fact that freedom and equality aren't necessarily friends: most of the time, they are at eachothers throats. The more equal a society becomes, the more limited the individual will be in his daily life. This is all the more dangerous, when equality is coupled with a centralized government and administration. In a democracy people work hard for their (relatively) little material gains and are on their own ("individual and weak") and are therefore not really interested in important matters of state. The people will neglect threats and give the government maximum amount of room to 'play'. This can lead to despotism, where the centralized government plays the role of 'benevolent overlord' and watches over its people.
Two of the main remedies for this path to despotism are (1) a free press, which can warn the people of dangers and stir their passions and (2) the freedom to form associations. Only associations can rise above the level of the weak individual and form a counter movement against a usurping government.
I can't really stress enough how important the messages of this book are in our modern times. Almost all of the western democracies are shrouded with a thick fog of political correctness (Tocqueville's "tiranny of the majority") which hinders us in defending the freedom of the individual and battling anti-democratic forces (especially religious ones).
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