Foundations of Modern Social and Political Thought

1. Foundations of Modern Social and Political Thought Lecture 3: Liberty and Democracy: Alexis de Tocqueville

2. The Attractions of Tocqueville • Normative Theory: A Liberal Democrat • Explanatory Theory: Democracy Exposed • Explanatory Theory: Society, Institutions and Culture

3. Democracy and Liberty Opposed • ‘Positive’ and ‘Negative’ Liberty • Faction and Intolerance • Property and the Majority • Culture, Mediocrity and the Mind • The Tendencies of the Democratic Order

4. Democracy, Equality and Liberty ‘I think that the democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom; left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and view any privation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, invincible; they call for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism, but they will not endure aristocracy.’ DiA II, 97

5. The Dangers of Equality Explained ‘As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellows, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always standing alone; and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands.’ DiA II, 99.

6. From Individualism to Despotism ‘As in periods of equality, no man is compelled to lend his assistance to his fellow men, and none has the right to expect much support from them, everyone is at once independent and powerless … In this predicament he naturally turns his eyes to that imposing power which alone rises above the level of universal depression. Of that power his wants and especially his desires continually remind him, until he ultimately views it as the sole and necessary support for his own weakness … the very men who are so impatient of superiors patiently submit to a master, exhibiting at once their pride and their servility.’ DiA II,295.

7. The Absence of Despotism ‘No sooner do you set foot upon American ground that you are stunned by a kind of tumult … Everything is in motion around you; here the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a church: there the election of a representative is going on; a little farther, the delegates of a district are hastening to town …; in another place, the laborers of a village quit their plows to deliberate upon a project of a road or a public school.’ DiA, 249.

8. Explaining Civic Life: Self-Interest ‘It is difficult to draw a man out of his own circle to interest him in the destiny of the state, because he does not clearly understand what influence the destiny of the state can have upon his own lot. But if it is proposed to make a road cross the end of his estate, he will see at a glance that there is a connection between this small public affair and his greatest private affairs; and he will discover, without its being shown to him, the close ties that unites private to general interest.’ DiA II, 104.

9. From Self-Interest to Civic Spirit ‘Men attend to the interests of the public, first by necessity, afterwards by choice; what was intentional becomes an instinct, and by dint of working for the good of one’s fellow citizens, the habit and taste for serving them at length are acquired.’ DiA II, 105.

10. Normative Lessons: Dispersing Power ‘Governments … should not be the only active powers; associations ought, in democratic nations, to stand in lieu of those powerful private individuals whom the equality of conditions has swept away.’ DiA II, 109.

11. Normative Lessons: The Spirit of Liberty ‘Democracy does not give people the most skillful government, but it produces what the ablest governments are frequently unable to create: namely, an all pervailing and restless activity, a superabundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it and which may, however unfavorable the circumstances may be, produce wonders. These are the true advantages of democracy.’ DiA, 252.

12. Explanations: Institutions ‘The Americans have combated by free institutions the tendency of equality to keep men asunder, and they have subdued it. The legislators of America did not suppose that a general representative of the whole nation would suffice to ward off a disorder at once so natural and so fatal; they also thought that it would be well to infuse political life into each part of the territory in order to multiply to an infinite extent opportunities of acting in concert for all the members of the community and to make them constantly feel their mutual dependence. The plan was a wise one.’ DiA II, 103.

13. Explanations: History ‘Democracy leads men not to draw near to their fellow creatures; but democratic revolutions lead them to shun each other and perpetuate in a state of equality the animosities that the state of inequality created. The great advantage of the Americans is that they have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution, and that they are born equal instead of becoming so.’ DiA II, 101.

14. Explanations: Culture ‘The English who emigrated three hundred years ago to found a democratic commonwealth on the shores of the New World had all learned to take part in public affairs in their mother country; they were conversant with trial by jury; they were accustomed to liberty of speech and of the press, to personal freedom, to the notion of rights and the practice of asserting them. They carried with them to America these free institutions and manly customs.’ DiA II, 298.

15. Concluding Questions • What is liberty? • In what circumstances can it flourish? • How can those circumstances be obtained?

16. A Closing Word ‘It cannot be absolutely or generally affirmed that the greatest danger of the present age is license or tyranny, anarchy or despotism. Both are equally to be feared; and the one may proceed as easily as the other from one and the same cause: namely, that general apathy which is the consequence of individualism … The proper object, therefore, of our most strenuous resistance is far less either anarchy or despotism than that apathy which may almost indifferently beget either the one or the other.’ DiA II, 371