19th Century
Alexis de Tocqueville
1805–1859
“Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power... absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild.”
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French aristocrat, magistrate, and political writer who toured the United States in the 1830s. treats democracy as a social condition, the long leveling of ranks, as well as a form of government. He admires local associations, religion, and habits of self-rule that protect liberty under equality. He also names the dangers: soft despotism of majority opinion, withdrawal into private life, and a tutelary state that shepherds a timid people. Mill and later democratic theory still measure themselves against that diagnosis.
In the Conversation
5 of the Great Ideas
Politics
Democracy
Democracy is an irresistible social condition; its greatest danger is a soft despotism of the majority.
Citizen
Democratic citizenship is sustained not by law alone but by the habits of the heart: local participation, voluntary associations, and the cultivation of civic virtue against the pull of private comfort.
Aristocracy
Aristocracy is passing from the world; democracy's triumph is providential, but it brings losses that must be honestly reckoned.
Oligarchy
Democratic societies face a new danger: not the old oligarchy of landed wealth, but a manufacturing aristocracy that combines economic power with political indifference.