Tyranny in 'Democracy in America'
An Exploration of Alexis de Tocqueville's infamous work 'Democracy in America"
The following is an exploration of Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” written for a class on Political Theory I took at Duke University in 2020.
Tyranny in Democracy in America
“The People reign over the American political world as does God over the universe.” (Tocqueville 55)
As the above quote demonstrates, Alexis de Tocqueville’s admiration for the American system is unmatched; this admiration stems in large part from his impression of the great amount of equality that he believed exists within America: “Among the new objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck my eye more vividly than the equality of conditions” (Tocqueville 3). He believed that the similarity of religion and morals, equality of intelligence, and equality of economic condition specifically infused American democracy with a historic level of overall equality. This equality distinctly separated them from the aristocracies and monarchies of the past and present but did not fully protect America from descending into tyranny. In fact, Tocqueville believed that this social order so closely embraced by Americans held the key to their undoing: “a democratic social state like that of the Americans could singularly facilitate the establishment of despotism” (Tocqueville 661). Tocqueville argues that the potential for tyranny was a direct product of America’s high level of equality. To explore this concept, I will first explore what Tocqueville considers equality and tyranny in the United States to be and then demonstrate how this equality could lead to the type of tyranny he fears.
Part of the reason Tocqueville speaks so highly of the equality within America is because of the nature of its inception and evolution; rather than suffer through different forms of government with differing levels of equality, America had more or less started with a high level of equality and only grown it from there. There are several factors that lead to this final equality that Tocqueville describes, all of which are necessary to form a more full understanding of what Tocqueville believes equality in America to be. I will examine these three factors as a means of explaining Tocqueville’s understanding of the then-current level of equality, so that its potential evolution into tyranny can be better understood.
The first of these factors is the similarity in religious ideals shared by all recent emigrants to America up to the point Tocqueville is writing; these shared ideals lent themselves to a shared set of religious and moral beliefs that almost everyone in America ascribed to. Tocqueville claims that “If it were possible for us to go back to the elements of societies and to examine the first monuments of their history, I do not doubt that we could discover in them the first cause of prejudices, habits, dominant passions, of all that finally composes national character” (Tocqueville 28). The first moments of the United States came in the emigration of the Puritans, who all came from the same societal class, spoke the same language, and shared the same religion (Tocqueville 27-30). This trend of similarity (particularly of religion) continued as America became more and more populated: “The greatest part of English America has been peopled by men who...brought to the New World...Christianity” (Tocqueville 275). While there was some diversity in belief, “all sects preach[ed] the same morality in the name of God” (Tocqueville 278). The preponderance of Christian sects and the common moral values they espoused continued to propagate such that they became enmeshed within the social fabric of America. This occurred to such a degree that Tocqueville considered America to be “the place in the world where the Christian religion has most preserved genuine powers over souls” (Tocqueville 278). Thus the first tenet of equality in America is established; equality in religious and moral beliefs.
The second factor that Tocqueville identifies as key to the development of equality is the lack of educational desire and resources. Tocqueville states that “Primary instruction...is within reach of each; higher instruction is within reach of almost no one”; primary instruction was only tolerated up until the point that Americans could enter the workforce (Tocqueville says this occurred at age 15), and so “Americans…[could] only give the first years of life to the general cultivation of intelligence” (Tocqueville 51). As they progressed through the workforce, he says they pursued one of two higher educational paths: they either pursue higher education in a specific field that will help them advance their particular interests, or they choose not to engage with it at all because they are financially and socially comfortable and thus see no need for it (Tocqueville 51). Tocqueville characterizes the American populace as viewing education in a clear-cut utilitarian fashion that had left them largely equal in intelligence: “In America a certain common level in human knowledge has been established...One therefore encounters an immense multitude of individuals who have nearly the same number of notions in matters of religion, of history, of science, of political economy, of legislation, of government” (Tocqueville 51). Thus the second tenet of American equality is established; Americans essentially share the same level of intelligence.
The final factor that contributed to the development of equality in America was the estate tax; Tocqueville emphasizes how critical this was to the furtherance of equality by stating “it was estate law that made equality take its last step” (Tocqueville 47). By Tocqueville’s recounting, American estate law “establishe[d] equal partition”, which “destroyed the intimate connection that exists between the spirit of the family and preservation of the land” (Tocqueville 48). This translated into an understanding among property owners and their progeny that they would not be able to retain their property among generations, which meant that they lost “the desire to make the attempt [to preserve their domains]] and it [brought] them in a way to cooperate with it in their own ruin” (Tocqueville 49). The results of this were obvious to Tocqueville: “The least trace of ranks and hereditary distinctions [was] destroyed; estate law has done its leveling everywhere” (Tocqueville 50). Thus, Americans were more or less economically equal; the third major piece of the equality Tocqueville describes.
Despite possessing an equality of religious and moral ideals, intelligence, and economic situation, Tocqueville thought America still held a dangerous potential to slide into tyranny; in fact, it was not despite these factors but because of this equality that Tocqueville believes this. Having described the nature of the equality Tocqueville identified in America, it is now pertinent to examine the nature of the tyranny Tocqueville fears may arise in such an equal society. Tocqueville goes to lengths to distinguish how tyranny in America would be different from the historical, monarchical and aristocratic tyranny enjoyed by states such as his in this time. Rather than take the form of an emperor’s “immense power without counterweight…the kind of oppression with which democratic peoples are threatened will resemble nothing that has preceded it in the world” (Tocqueville 662). Because of the vast equality that existed in a democratic country like America, a new form of tyranny would have to take form: “if despotism came to be established in the democratic nations of our day, it would have other characteristics: it would be more extensive and milder, and it would degrade men without tormenting them” (Tocqueville 662). Tocqueville imagines this new tyranny to be an extensive central authority with power over the individual facets of every man’s life. It would “[extend] its arms over society as a whole; it [would cover] its surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules...it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd” (Tocqueville 663). This government, in the form of “an immense tutelary power”, would be “absolute, detailed, regularly, far-seeing, and mild”; it would provide for their security, foresee and secure their needs, facilitate their pleasures, conduct their principal affairs, direct their industry, regulate their estates, and divide their inheritances; in essence, it would control their lives (Tocqueville 663). Such an extensive and intrusive government would result in the degradation of the citizens themselves: “[they will lose] little by little the faculty of thinking, feeling, and acting by themselves, and thus...graduall[y] [fall] below the level of humanity” (Tocqueville 665). In summary, Tocqueville believes that democracy lends itself to a historically distinct type of tyranny in the form of a sprawling central government that he describes as “administrative despotism” that intrudes on its citizens' lives to an extreme extent (Tocqueville 664).
So how might the great equality in condition lend itself to the tyranny of an expansive central government? The answer for Tocqueville is obvious: isolation. He states “equality, which introduces great goods into the world, nevertheless suggests to men very dangerous instincts...it tends to isolate them from one another and to bring each of them to be occupied with himself alone” (Tocqueville 419). This isolation occurs because:
As conditions are equalized in a people, individuals appear smaller and...each citizen, having become like all the others, is lost in the crowd...Men who inhabit democratic countries, having neither superiors nor inferiors nor habitual and necessary associates, willingly fall back on themselves and consider themselves in isolation. (Tocqueville 641, 643)
In essence, when everyone is similar in nature and power, there are no features by which a person may distinguish him or herself. A lack of differentiation, a general pervasiveness of equality of status, and a feeling of individual isolation means that the people will look to some other power that can unite and guide them. Tocqueville remarks that the people are “incessantly racked by two inimical passions: they feel the need to be led and the wish to remain free. Not being able to destroy either of these contrary instincts, they strive to satisfy both at the same time” (Tocqueville). If these feelings cannot be sufficiently met through religion, intellectual rigor, the economy, or other means such as associations, then Tocqueville believes the populace will trend towards the type of tyranny described above.