De Tocqueville, or the democratic paradox
2005 is the bicentenary of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), a prophetic analyst of democracy and mentor for an anxious liberalism in the face of its possible evolution into a new despotism.
De Tocqueville was only twenty-six when he set sail for the United States on 2 April 1831. There he drew the inspiration for his masterpiece, De la démocratie en Amérique [Democracy in America] (1835-1840), today a genuine classic of world political literature. The originality of his thinking was twofold: he defined democracy not as a form of government but as the equalisation of social status; he saw in it the source of a possible oppression, against which he put forward a vigilant liberalism.
While de Tocqueville was indeed one of the most eminent thinkers on democracy, he was far from being an unquestioning evangelist for it. Quite the contrary, he feared its coming, which was seen as inevitable. While intellectually he supported the principle of governments elected by the people as well as the idea of equality, he confessed himself "an aristocratic by instinct"; he "fears and scorns the mob," and had "a passion for freedom not democracy".
He left for the United States because democracy had been established there without degenerating into a regime of terror or into civil war. He wanted to understand how it could be controlled, how liberty might hold back the pernicious effects of equality.
Why this "terror" in the face of equality of social status? Why see a future despotism in it? Because, de Tocqueville observed, democratic peoples "want equality in freedom, and if they cannot have that, they still want equality in slavery. They will put up with poverty, servitude and barbarism, but they will not endure aristocracy." In his view, the danger is great when the passion for equality is such that it makes the inevitable social differences that result from a customary freedom unbearable. The recognition of talent and merit, although essential for the functioning of democracy, might prove difficult.
It is here that we find de Tocqueville’s great originality: perceiving the risk of a new, democratic despotism; which is an extraordinary reversal of perspective with democracy seen as a vector, no longer of emancipation, but of the subjugation of peoples; equality seen as producing a levelling of ambitions, passions and pleasures, and as leaving society defenceless against a new form of power. Individuals, in pursuit of a second-rate happiness, might withdraw into their private sphere, abandoning the exercise of political will, even expecting every possible service from it, a kind of permanent protection. In some famous pages, de Tocqueville anticipates "an innumerable crowd of similar and equal men who compete amongst themselves to procure small and vulgar pleasures, with which they fill their souls".
Equality, because it makes people envious and makes superior qualities suspect, undermines the foundations of the recognition of and aspiration to true greatness. At the same time, it contains a risk of weakening the social bond: the individual, released from traditional communities, exists "only in himself and for himself alone". Democracy severs him from his ancestors and separates him from his contemporaries. Today, these concerns are echoed in the questioning of the possibility, particularly in the fields of education and culture, of maintaining a sense of superior values in a society steeped in the assertion that everyone is the equal of everyone else.
Democratic despotism has a more directly political outcome: in such a system, above the individual "stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate". A paternalistic state emerges, seeking to "keep men in perpetual childhood", facilitating their pleasures with the temptation to "spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living". The democratic state, because individuals, turned in on themselves, no longer have any taste for freedom and civil life, would tend to a mildly oppressive centralisation. This is the other paradox put forward by de Tocqueville in L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution [The Old Regime and the Revolution]: democracy reinforces a phenomenon already at work under a monarchy: the absorption of the whole of political life by the state. Happy to have chosen their "guardians", the citizens would accept the progressive erosion of their freedom. Liberals see de Tocqueville as a prophet of criticism of the welfare state, without always being aware that his pessimism in the face of blossoming individualism, is in itself far from liberal. How can this new despotism be prevented? Mainly by forcing citizens to look outside themselves, not only by supporting intermediary organisations, local freedoms and associations but by religious sentiment too. It is essential to establish a social fabric sufficiently strong to give all citizens a sense of and taste for political freedom. Decentralisation and local democracy, which have had the wind in their sails in recent years, especially in France, can be supported by the analyses of de Tocqueville.
If this man, both a historian and a politician, is so interesting to us, it is because he accepts modernity whilst facing its problems. To socialists, he demonstrates the dangers of state intervention; to liberals, he points out the difficulties of an individualistic society. He enables us to explore the notion of democracy more deeply, keeping well away from reactionary or naively progressive temptations.
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