by Andrew Lynn
Democracy in America is, viewed from one perspective, a historical and sociological account of the United States as a nation of a unique people evolving together in a unique way. Tocqueville credited the Anglo-Americans, especially those of the New England states, as the primary force driving this evolution. In particular, he recognized the unique context from which those founding peoples came: England, wracked as it had been by centuries of struggle between different religious factions, had learned about freedom the hard way, and its sons and daughters brought to America a political culture that had already incorporated the concept of government by common consent. What makes Tocqueville’s account especially valuable, however, is the way in which high-level generalization is informed by deep insight into America’s past as lived experience. In ‘Two Weeks in the Wilderness’, for example, he describes the struggles of the pioneer to clear a ground in the wilderness and begin planting his modest first acre with maize and potatoes, accompanied by his wife who, having exchanged the attractions of society and pleasures of her own house for the isolation of the forests, carries her profound sadness with courage and dignity, while remaining at all times vulnerable to the forest fever that can strike down whole families at time, sixty miles from the nearest doctor, leaving them to ‘do as the Indians do’—die or get better. Democracy in America is less immediately concerned with the settlers’ day-to-day struggles for existence, but it is deeply informed by them nonetheless.
Democracy in America is in many ways prescient: it connects America’s foundational past with Toqueville’s lived present and the future that he anticipated for the federation as a whole. In the language of his day, Toqueville referred to what he called the ‘three races’ of America: the incoming European whites, the Native Americans, and the African Americans. The relentless advance of the former is his main focus of attention because it was their democracy that appeared to him to constitute the future—not only for America but also for Europe and beyond. Toqueville’s account of the troubled situation of the Native Americans, encircled and retreating ever further to the West, although couched in language that we would find unfamiliar, is sympathetic and poignant: their collective ownership of land, suggested Toqueville, meant that no particular areas would be defended by a single powerful interest; the wild animals on which they depended were being driven ever further back by the advance of industrialization; and while their needs were being increased by the arrival of Europeans, their resources were being thrown into decline. It was slavery, though, that called down Tocqueville’s most unforgiving contempt. ‘I reserve my execration,’ he said, ‘for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought back slavery into the world once more.’ But slavery in America was crueller than it had ever been, because at least slaves in the ancient world, who had often been captured in war, could be educated and might be freed, whereas it had been forbidden in America to teach slaves to read or write—they were intended to be slaves indefinitely, as were their offspring. Cruel as it was to the slave, Tocqueville added that it was also fatal for the master, for slavery robbed free labour of its dignity and value, and it diminished the character of the slaveholder.
Illuminating as it is as the record of a particular society at a particular time, the principal interest of Democracy in America is not so much what it says about the United States specifically, as what it says about democracy as a political and social phenomenon. Tocqueville approaches this from two main angles: he combines broad observations about the effect of democracy and equality upon society and personality with a detailed consideration of the particular risks to freedom and well-being that are likely to arise in democratic societies.
Individualism is at the heart of the democratic society. Tocqueville is careful to spell out what he means by this: individualism is not ‘egoism’, nor is it excessive self-love, but refers instead to the calm and considered feeling that persuades each man to cut himself off from his fellows and withdraw into his own circle of family and friends. Individualism comes to predominate through the growth of social equality, as people acquire enough material resources to satisfy their own needs without having to depend upon others, and begin to imagine that their destinies are entirely in their own hands, forgetting their fellow men, as well as their own ancestors—and even their own descendants. Tocqueville is too sophisticated, however, to think that the individual thereby obtains autonomy and self-mastery: for while each man looks upon each of his fellows with a feeling of pride and superiority, he is at the same time overwhelmed by a powerful awareness of his own insignificance and weakness in the face of the great body of men as a whole. As a result, mass opinion comes to constitute an immense pressure that takes hold of men’s souls and inserts into them a multitude of ‘ready-made opinions’, relieving them (or seeming to relieve them) from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.
In democracies, we are, as Tocqueville says, ‘restless in prosperity’. Men pursue prosperity with feverish enthusiasm and are ever brooding over the advantages that they do not possess; they are haunted by a vague dread that constantly torments them lest they should not have chosen the shortest path to success. Life becomes at once ‘agitated but monotonous’. It is agitated because the passion for wealth is strong—not because men’s souls are smaller or more covetous, but because in times of equality men’s cooperation can only be secured by money, which multiplies its value. It is monotonous because precisely in order to obtain such wealth men adopt habits that are orderly and regular, because the general pursuit of money gives all men’s passions a ‘family resemblance’, and because men increasingly discard the opinions and feelings of class, profession, and family to converge upon the essence of man, which is everywhere the same.
Equality leads to a society of many ambitious men with very few lofty ambitions. The tragic paradox, explains Tocqueville, is that while equality opens up a whole new range of possibilities, at the same time it removes the means by which any of them are likely to be realized, for if opportunities are open to all, then every path is one into which many others are also crowding. In order to preserve the principle of equality, all contenders must be subjected to a range of petty preliminary exercises and tests in the process of which ‘their youth is wasted and imagination quenched’, so that by the time they are in a position to achieve something extraordinary they are likely to have already lost the taste for it. Equality, therefore, presents a boundless field in which are encountered a mass of ‘intermediate obstacles’; the permanent struggle between the instinct to progress and the inadequate means to do so wearies the soul.
As to the political trajectory of, and risks associated with, democratic societies, Tocqueville’s whole approach is determined by one crucial insight: that while democracy may, at best, give full reign to the forces of both freedom and equality, these by no means necessarily walk hand-in-hand, and in any contest between the two the push for equality will tend to prevail over the preservation of freedom. In eras of equality, explains Tocqueville, each man is relatively insignificant, and since there are few (if any) ‘secondary powers’ of the type to be found under other systems of government such as aristocracy, we tend to think in terms of a ‘sole central power’ entitled to interfere in all aspects of our lives. Equality also tends to increase uniformity, and the more uniformity we encounter among men the more obvious—and insupportable—become the small differences between them. Although one of the tendencies begotten by equality is towards political freedoms and independence, then, there is another that conducts ‘by a longer, more secret, but more certain road’, says Tocqueville, to servitude.
The result is ‘soft despotism’: the equalist state degrades men, without necessarily causing them tangible harm, through continual interference in all aspects of social and private life. This reduces us to a state of perpetual childhood; it ‘robs man of all the uses of himself’. Petty rules compress and enervate us, our spirit is broken by subjection in minor affairs, and we are stripped, tells Tocqueville, of our highest qual
ities—those selfsame qualities that, ultimately, make us truly human, and make being human truly worthwhile.
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Volume II, Book IV: Influence Of Democratic Opinions On Political Society
Chapter I
That Equality Naturally Gives Men A Taste For Free Institutions
I should imperfectly fulfil the purpose of this book if, after having shown what opinions and sentiments are suggested by the principle of equality, I did not point out, ere I conclude, the general influence which these same opinions and sentiments may exercise upon the government of human societies. To succeed in this object I shall frequently have to retrace my steps; but I trust the reader will not refuse to follow me through paths already known to him, which may lead to some new truth.
The principle of equality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following, in their private actions, no other guide but their own will. This complete independence, which they constantly enjoy towards their equals and in the intercourse of private life, tends to make them look upon all authority with a jealous eye, and speedily suggests to them the notion and the love of political freedom. Men living at such times have a natural bias to free institutions. Take any one of them at a venture, and search if you can his most deep-seated instincts; you will find that of all governments he will soonest conceive and most highly value that government whose head he has himself elected, and whose administration he may control. Of all the political effects produced by the equality of conditions, this love of independence is the first to strike the observing, and to alarm the timid; nor can it be said that their alarm is wholly misplaced, for anarchy has a more formidable aspect in democratic countries than elsewhere. As the citizens have no direct influence on each other, as soon as the supreme power of the nation fails, which kept them all in their several stations, it would seem that disorder must instantly reach its utmost pitch, and that, every man drawing aside in a different direction, the fabric of society must at once crumble away.
I am, however, persuaded that anarchy is not the principal evil which democratic ages have to fear, but the least. For the principle of equality begets two tendencies; the one leads men straight to independence, and may suddenly drive them into anarchy; the other conducts them by a longer, more secret, but more certain road, to servitude. Nations readily discern the former tendency, and are prepared to resist it; they are led away by the latter, without perceiving its drift; hence it is peculiarly important to point it out. For myself, I am so far from urging as a reproach to the principle of equality that it renders men untractable, that this very circumstance principally calls forth my approbation. I admire to see how it deposits in the mind and heart of man the dim conception and instinctive love of political independence, thus preparing the remedy for the evil which it engenders; it is on this very account that I am attached to it.
Chapter II
That The Notions Of Democratic Nations On Government Are Naturally Favorable To The Concentration Of Power
The notion of secondary powers, placed between the sovereign and his subjects, occurred naturally to the imagination of aristocratic nations, because those communities contained individuals or families raised above the common level, and apparently destined to command by their birth, their education, and their wealth. This same notion is naturally wanting in the minds of men in democratic ages, for converse reasons: it can only be introduced artificially, it can only be kept there with difficulty; whereas they conceive, as it were, without thinking upon the subject, the notion of a sole and central power which governs the whole community by its direct influence. Moreover in politics, as well as in philosophy and in religion, the intellect of democratic nations is peculiarly open to simple and general notions. Complicated systems are repugnant to it, and its favourite conception is that of a great nation composed of citizens all resembling the same pattern, and all governed by a single power.
The very next notion to that of a sole and central power, which presents itself to the minds of men in the ages of equality, is the notion of uniformity of legislation. As every man sees that he differs but little from those about him, he cannot understand why a rule which is applicable to one man should not be equally applicable to all others. Hence the slightest privileges are repugnant to his reason; the faintest dissimilarities in the political institutions of the same people offend him, and uniformity of legislation appears to him to be the first condition of good government. I find, on the contrary, that this same notion of a uniform rule, equally binding on all the members of the community, was almost unknown to the human mind in aristocratic ages; it was either never entertained, or it was rejected. These contrary tendencies of opinion ultimately turn on either side to such blind instincts and such ungovernable habits that they still direct the actions of men, in spite of particular exceptions. Notwithstanding the immense variety of conditions in the Middle Ages, a certain number of persons existed at that period in precisely similar circumstances; but this did not prevent the laws then in force from assigning to each of them distinct duties and different rights. On the contrary, at the present time all the powers of government are exerted to impose the same customs and the same laws on populations which have as yet but few points of resemblance. As the conditions of men become equal amongst a people, individuals seem of less importance, and society of greater dimensions; or rather, every citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost in the crowd, and nothing stands conspicuous but the great and imposing image of the people at large. This naturally gives the men of democratic periods a lofty opinion of the privileges of society, and a very humble notion of the rights of individuals; they are ready to admit that the interests of the former are everything, and those of the latter nothing. They are willing to acknowledge that the power which represents the community has far more information and wisdom than any of the members of that community; and that it is the duty, as well as the right, of that power to guide as well as govern each private citizen.
If we closely scrutinize our contemporaries, and penetrate to the root of their political opinions, we shall detect some of the notions which I have just pointed out, and we shall perhaps be surprised to find so much accordance between men who are so often at variance. The Americans hold that in every state the supreme power ought to emanate from the people; but when once that power is constituted, they can conceive, as it were, no limits to it, and they are ready to admit that it has the right to do whatever it pleases. They have not the slightest notion of peculiar privileges granted to cities, families, or persons: their minds appear never to have foreseen that it might be possible not to apply with strict uniformity the same laws to every part, and to all the inhabitants. These same opinions are more and more diffused in Europe; they even insinuate themselves amongst those nations which most vehemently reject the principle of the sovereignty of the people. Such nations assign a different origin to the supreme power, but they ascribe to that power the same characteristics. Amongst them all, the idea of intermediate powers is weakened and obliterated: the idea of rights inherent in certain individuals is rapidly disappearing from the minds of men; the idea of the omnipotence and sole authority of society at large rises to fill its place. These ideas take root and spread in proportion as social conditions become more equal, and men more alike; they are engendered by equality, and in turn they hasten the progress of equality.
In France, where the revolution of which I am speaking has gone further than in any other European country, these opinions have got complete hold of the public mind. If we listen attentively to the language of the various parties in France, we shall find that there is not one which has not adopted them. Most of these parties censure the conduct of the government, but they all hold that the government ought perpetually to act and interfere in everything that is done. Even those which are most at variance are nevertheless agreed upon this head. The unity, the ubiquity, the omnipotence of the supreme power, and the uniformity of its rules, constitute the principal char
acteristics of all the political systems which have been put forward in our age. They recur even in the wildest visions of political regeneration: the human mind pursues them in its dreams. If these notions spontaneously arise in the minds of private individuals, they suggest themselves still more forcibly to the minds of princes. Whilst the ancient fabric of European society is altered and dissolved, sovereigns acquire new conceptions of their opportunities and their duties; they learn for the first time that the central power which they represent may and ought to administer by its own agency, and on a uniform plan, all the concerns of the whole community. This opinion, which, I will venture to say, was never conceived before our time by the monarchs of Europe, now sinks deeply into the minds of kings, and abides there amidst all the agitation of more unsettled thoughts.
