Alexis de Tocqueville- Democracy in America
In the late 1700's and early 1800's the world seemed to undergo a democratic revolution. In North America, the United States was founded as a nation based on equality and suffrage. In South America most of the Spanish colonies fought for independence and freedom under the leadership of Simon de Bolivar . In Europe the French Revolution shook the globe with its cries for "liberty, equality and fraternity". Even England saw some movements towards a freer state, as exemplified in the Reform Act of 1832. One also cannot forget about the Haitian Revolution that brought an end to slavery in St Dominique. One man who set himself the task of analyzing democracy was the frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville.
Born in 1805 to an aristocratic family, Tocqueville became active in French politics during the July Monarchy (under King Louis Philippe I) and later during the Second Republic (under Napoleon III). It was during the July Monarchy that Tocqueville and his life-long friend, Gustave de Beaumont, travelled to the US to study the prison systems. In later years Tocqueville wrote that both friends used their official business trip as a pretext to study American society. In the may of 1831, they arrived in New York City and travelled the US for nine months. After returning to France he wrote and published his most famed book: Democracy in America.
He begins the book with a description of how and why the world is becoming more democratic. He believed that this change was due to improved economic conditions for the masses, the abolition of primogeniture (the male heir adapting the family estate as apposed to a daughter), and the granting of all men to enter the clergy.
He then describes the Puritan founding of the US democratic state of equality and explains that though the constitution plays a very important part in the protection of freedom, the more important factor is the "habits of mind" (mores) of the American people. Here he talks about fear of the tyranny of the majority, individualism, family, self-interest and materialism. He also writes about the separation of Church and State, believing this to be the weakness of the French Revolution.
In his book he also examines an effect now called the Tocqueville effect; he essentially argues that social frustration grows as social conditions grow. In other words "the appetite grows by what it feeds on". Furthermore, he was one of the first social critics to focus in-depth on women in the US. Because of his being one of the first to perform an extensive study of society, his book is on the syllabus of many political science courses all over the world. He is also often praised for having predicted a civil war over slavery and of a superpower rivalry (as demonstrated in the Cold War) between the US and another nation.
It is very interesting that he accredits America's success with democracy not with the constitution but in fact with the fears of people who fear that a tyranny could take place again. It is also cool that he was able to study American society so thoroughly, and that he was perhaps able to predict some keys wars in America's future.
ReplyDeleteI think that Alexis de Tocqueville makes an good point about how our fear of tyranny helped democracy grow in America. Before and after the Revolution we hated the monarchy, proven by the fact that the Declaration of Independence was largely a rant towards the King. We believed that he and the English government had oppressed us so in response we took steps to prevent that from happening such as the Articles of Confederation which gave very little power to the central government. The AoC also did not have anything on the creation of an executive branch like the presidency, only when the AoC was replaced by the Constitution did we include an executive branch. While the AoC was largely a failure, it demonstrated the American mindset at the time towards a strong centralized government and a single leader.
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