Long considered a masterpiece account of early American history and one of the founding works of comparative politics, Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville is one of those few books that truly lives up to it’s hype. Divided into two parts, de Tocqueville uses his experiences travelling and speaking to numerous persons of high and low standing across the newly born United States to investigate the soil in which the North American soul grows.
After providing some geological, political and geopolitical commentary in the beginning of the work – the reader immediately begins on a panoramic journey across the regions of New England. The focus is primarily on political institutions, their procedures, areas of authority, electoral norms and the various players within government be they parties or individuals seeking to ensure their interests are brought to bear. In his frequently comparisons of these aspects of political life to their French counterparts – America reliably is described as the preferable system.
In his descriptions of the American system of northeastern townships, the powers granted to local governments, the general ideas concerning administration and the salutary social and economic benefits of decentralization – de Tocqueville gives an paean to American political innovation with only occasional interspersions of criticism. The New World’s lack of an historical, hereditary Aristocracy provided space for meritocracy to grow. The best representatives of this class? Hard-working Protestant settlers willing to brave the frontiers to establish plantations and the merchants who’d live exceptionally frugally just so that they’d be able to undercut the British by a mere 1% on costs. While not blind to the reality or roles of blacks and indigenous peoples in this new world, he sees little room for their inclusion into the body politic. The latter group defies any attempt at being included within the body politic – understandably so considering the patter of dispossession and war. The former lacks the educational capactities to meaningfully participate. This is not to say that he’s an uncritical supporter of settler colonialism. He states that whites must one day drastically adjust the way they treat slaves, something which will be hard to do as the influence of slavery has penetrated into “the master’s soul and gave a particular turn to his ideas and tastes” (184). And yet he also recognizes that the literacy of Anglo-Saxon culture, along with it’s technological development and drive towards progress as a foundational societal goal are the traits of successful, long-lasting civilizations – meaning that these groups must catch up, not the other way around.
de Tocqueville’s conception of Government is aligned with Aristotlean concepts. The composition of interests by those in it’s institutions are always changing due to external events and this leads Democracies to change into oligarchy, aristocracy, tyranny and extreme democracy – or mob rule. While nationalist figures may want to make the founding covenant of Government sacred, in other words, there are always conflicts which lead to it’s descralization via various forms of corruption.
de Tocqueville frequently invokes the difference between Liberty and Democracy – associated with the new United States – with Absolute Monarchy or Despotism, or pre-Revolutionary France. His thoughts on these matter may lack some of the academic rigor that historians or sociologists of the present would require, there is a dearth of anything approaching something that could be called quantitative analysis – however they are nevertheless insightful as, intuitively, one can see their honesty. Take this, for example:
“Despotism brings men to ruin more by preventing them from producing than by taking away the fruits of their labors, it dries up the fount of wealth while often respecting acquired riches. By liberty engenders a thousandfold more goods than it destroy, and in nations where it is understood, the people’s resources always increase faster than the taxes.” (107).
This tension between liberty understood as Rights to be exercised and tyrrany understood as non-elective obligations to Power pervades de Tocqueiville’s work and is likely what has made him so enjoyed by Americanists.
Elective associations – be it political, economic or religious – that are entered into freely are considered the basis of identity and the means of self-reproduction.
Using taxes as a form of gratifying private needs – such as in the modern context, Medicare for All – is a form of graft that depletes the Virtues required for a democratic system. Democracy requires literacy, education and most of all virtue – for it is by presuming that the people don’t have the capacity to properly manifest their own interests that tyranny by a calculating political class comes to be.
What de Tocqueville means here is the different between equality in opportunity versus equality of outcome.
When resentment is mass-mobilized against prosperity, political stability is lost as the public order turns to an amoral model. If I had more inclination I’d give a number of modern examples as I think his insights into self-interest, virtue and democracy are quite compelling. But instead I’ll say that the active qualities of an individual are lionized as without them they become unable to see how the achieve the welath, power, renown and other rewards of work that they crave.
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Here is a guide for those that wish to read along with the insights of experts.