Democracy in America

Overview

Democracy in America is Alexis de Tocqueville's masterpiece, a two-volume work published in 1835 and 1840 that is at once a study of American society, a work of political philosophy, and a meditation on the prospects for liberty in the democratic age. The book is based on Tocqueville's nine-month journey through the United States in 1831-1832, but it is far more than a travelogue or a descriptive study. It is a comprehensive analysis of the social, political, and cultural conditions of democracy, and it remains one of the most insightful works of political philosophy ever written about America.

The first volume, published in 1835, focuses on the political institutions of American democracy: the Constitution, the federal system, the judiciary, the party system, and the town meeting. The second volume, published in 1840, is a broader analysis of the effects of democracy on intellectual life, the arts, religion, family life, and the character of the individual. Together, the two volumes constitute a comprehensive theory of democratic society and its implications for human freedom.

Author Context

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a French aristocrat, political thinker, and historian. He was born into an aristocratic family that had survived the French Revolution, and his family's experience of revolutionary violence shaped his lifelong concern with the relationship between liberty and equality. He was educated in the law, and he served as a magistrate, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and briefly as Minister of Foreign Affairs. But his greatest achievements were his books, Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution.

Tocqueville's journey to America was officially a study of the American penal system, but his real purpose was to understand the most advanced democratic society in the world and to learn what it could teach Europe about the future of democracy. He was not a democrat in the partisan sense but a liberal who sought to understand the conditions under which democracy could be reconciled with liberty. The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that Democracy in America is a work of political philosophy in the classical tradition, a work that combines empirical observation, historical analysis, and normative reflection.

Historical Background

Tocqueville wrote in the aftermath of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. France had experienced revolution, terror, dictatorship, and the restoration of the monarchy, and the question of how to reconcile democracy with liberty was the central political question of the age. The United States, by contrast, appeared to have solved this problem. The American Revolution had established a stable democratic republic, and the United States was rapidly expanding and prospering.

Tocqueville's journey to America was motivated by a conviction that democracy was the inevitable future of the modern world. The movement toward equality of conditions was, he believed, a providential fact, a universal and irreversible historical tendency. The question was not whether democracy would come but whether it would come in a form that preserved liberty or in a form that led to a new kind of despotism. America, the first society in which democracy had been established without a previous history of feudalism and aristocracy, held the key to this question.

Key Ideas

The Tyranny of the Majority

Tocqueville's most famous concept is the tyranny of the majority. In a democratic society, he argues, the majority has immense power, both political and social. The majority can make laws that oppress minorities, and it can enforce conformity of opinion and behavior through social pressure. The tyranny of the majority is not only a political tyranny but a social and psychological one, a pressure to conform that can be as oppressive as the decrees of a monarch.

Tocqueville identified several safeguards against the tyranny of the majority in America: the legal system, particularly the power of the judiciary to review the constitutionality of laws; the decentralization of power to local governments; the freedom of the press; and the existence of a vibrant civil society of associations, churches, and voluntary organizations. The most important safeguard, he argued, was the spirit of liberty that was rooted in the American tradition of local self-government and the habit of association.

Individualism

Tocqueville gave the concept of individualism a new and distinctive meaning. In aristocratic societies, he argued, individuals are bound together by a network of hierarchical relationships. In democratic societies, these hierarchical bonds are dissolved, and individuals become equal but also isolated. Individualism, in Tocqueville's sense, is not the robust self-reliance of the American frontier but a kind of social withdrawal, a tendency to retreat into private life and to lose interest in public affairs.

This individualism, Tocqueville feared, could lead to a new kind of despotism, a soft despotism in which the state takes over the functions of social life, providing for the needs of isolated individuals while depriving them of the capacity and the desire for self-government. The citizens of a democratic society, absorbed in their private pursuits, might willingly surrender their political liberty to a centralized state that promises to manage their affairs for them.

The Art of Association

Tocqueville's antidote to individualism and the soft despotism of the centralized state is the art of association. He was struck by the American tendency to form associations for every purpose: commercial, religious, charitable, literary, and political. These associations, he argued, are the schools of democracy, teaching citizens the habits of cooperation, self-government, and public spirit. They create a sphere of social activity that is independent of the state, and they provide a check on the power of the central government.

The importance of associations in Tocqueville's thought is closely connected to his analysis of civil society. A healthy democracy requires a vibrant civil society, a network of voluntary associations and local institutions that mediate between the individual and the state. Without this mediating layer, the individual is alone before the state, vulnerable to its power and dependent on its benevolence.

Equality and Liberty

The central theme of Democracy in America is the relationship between equality and liberty. Tocqueville believed that the movement toward equality was inevitable and, on balance, desirable, but he was acutely aware of the tension between equality and liberty. The love of equality, he argued, is stronger than the love of liberty in democratic societies, and the pursuit of equality can lead to the sacrifice of liberty.

The danger of democratic societies is that the desire for equality will lead to the concentration of power in the hands of the state, and that citizens will accept a benevolent despotism that provides for their material needs while depriving them of their political freedom. The task of the statesman and the citizen in a democratic age is to reconcile equality with liberty, to create institutions and habits that preserve the spirit of freedom in a society of equals.

Key Themes

Several themes run through Democracy in America. The first is the theme of equality: the movement toward equality of conditions as the fundamental fact of modern society. The second is the theme of liberty: the conditions under which liberty can be preserved in a democratic society. The third is the theme of the tyranny of the majority: the danger that the majority will use its power to oppress minorities and to suppress dissent. The fourth is the theme of individualism: the tendency of democratic individuals to withdraw into private life. The fifth is the theme of association: the importance of voluntary associations as schools of democracy and as safeguards against the power of the state.

Philosophical Meaning

Read as a work of political philosophy, Democracy in America is a profound meditation on the nature and prospects of democracy in the modern world. Tocqueville is neither a democrat nor an aristocrat in the partisan sense but a liberal who seeks to understand the conditions under which liberty can flourish in a democratic society. His analysis is informed by a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between social conditions, political institutions, and cultural values, and his work is a model of the kind of political philosophy that combines empirical observation with normative reflection.

The philosophical significance of Democracy in America lies in its recognition that the triumph of democracy is not the end of political struggle but the beginning of a new kind of struggle, the struggle to reconcile equality with liberty. The question that Tocqueville posed, whether democracy can be reconciled with liberty, is the central question of modern political philosophy, and it remains as urgent today as it was in the nineteenth century.

Influence

Democracy in America has been one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the American tradition. It is widely regarded as the most insightful analysis of American society ever written, and it has shaped the way Americans understand themselves and their political system. Tocqueville's concepts of the tyranny of the majority, individualism, and the art of association have become standard tools for analyzing American society and politics.

The influence of Democracy in America extends far beyond the United States. It has been translated into dozens of languages, and it has been read by statesmen, scholars, and citizens around the world. Tocqueville's analysis of the relationship between liberty and equality, his diagnosis of the dangers of individualism and the centralized state, and his celebration of the art of association have shaped the liberal tradition from John Stuart Mill to Isaiah Berlin and Raymond Aron. The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that Democracy in America is one of the great works of political philosophy, a book that continues to illuminate the challenges of democratic governance in the twenty-first century.

Sources

1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Alexis de Tocqueville." A comprehensive scholarly reference covering Tocqueville's life, Democracy in America, and his contributions to political philosophy.
2. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Alexis de Tocqueville." An accessible overview of Tocqueville's philosophical contributions and the significance of Democracy in America.