The backbone to the American way of life that numerous generations have come to grow and love is based upon the principle that no matter your stature, no matter your beliefs, no matter your positioning, everyone is equal and posses the same abilities and rights of that of their neighbor. No man is far superior to the next and each has the freedom to aspire to their own goals and their own plans. Many, like myself, believe and support that equality as well as liberty are vital features to a sustainable democracy. But how strong the two features are together is where the doubt lies. Alexis de Tocqueville was convinced that liberty and equality would always cause tension between the two never letting each reach its full abilities. This was Tocqueville’s main reason behind his problems with democracy, and which through his book I can agree with his concerns of the two in tension. With the development of this country, equality and liberty will never stand together in cohesion. However, with inequality while striving for justice with liberty a more successful democracy stands in the United States, if we could even refer to it as a democracy anymore.
When many of us think of equality, we tend to describe it as in terms of wealth and finance. This would be labeled as socioeconomic equality where each citizen has equal income and can use that income to how they please. When we look at equality in this perspective, we see it as a communist society like that of Russia, which is the underlying example to as how equality and liberty cannot exist together. Their society, in terms of socioeconomic standards, is as equal as it can get, however the citizens are stripped of all liberty in this system and the government reigns supreme consisting...
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...iety, like ours, and this liberty entitles people to be unequal.
The government that we adhere to, which once in the days Tocqueville had studied was in fact a democracy, has now worked its way into a representative republic, venturing onto the scales of an Oligopoly. Our government gives us every opportunity to be equal, under the law. It provides educational systems, benefactor systems, poverty systems all striving to make us somewhat equal to our neighbor. Yet the nature of man and the society that has developed here will never allow for all people to be equal. Justice, not equality is what should hold our country together, not to be equal in wealth or classes, but to have the moral ethics and reasoning that justice supplies.
Works Cited
• Tocqueville, Alexis De. Democracy in America. Trans. George Lawrence. New York: Harper and Row. 2006. Print.
Alexis de Tocqueville's visit to the United States in the early part of the nineteenth century prompted his work Democracy in America, in which he expressed the ability to make democracy work. Throughout his travels Tocqueville noted that private interest and personal gain motivated the actions of most Americans, which in turn cultivated a strong sense of individualism. Tocqueville believed that this individualism would soon "sap the virtue of public life" (395) and create a despotism of selfishness. This growth of despotism would be created by citizens becoming too individualistic, and therefore not bothering to fulfill their civic duties or exercise their freedom. Tocqueville feared that the political order of America would soon become aimed at the satisfaction of individual needs, rather than the greater good of society. Alexis de Tocqueville viewed participation in public affairs, the growth of associations and newspapers, the principle of self-interest properly understood, and religion as the only means by which American democracy could combat the effects of individualism.
Schiller, W. J., Geer, J. G., & Segal, J. A. (2013). Gateways to democracy: introduction to American government, the essentials. (2nd ed.). Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth ;.
Tocqueville, a foreigner, came to the United States to study American prison reform, but was so disgusted with the way our society was and how our government functioned under Jackson that he changed the focus of his study to an analysis of democracy. He saw democracy by our example as “far from accomplishing all it projects with skill” and that “Democracy does not give people the most skillful government.” Jackson’s example of democracy was horrible.
Democracy in America has been a guiding principle since the foundation of the country. Many over the years have commented on the structure and formation of democracy but more importantly the implementation and daily function within the democratic parameters that have been set. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian born July 29, 1805. He is most famously known for his work Democracy in America. Democracy in America has been an evolving social and economic reform, and has continually changed since it’s founding.
For both Tocqueville in his “Democracy in America” and Locke in his “Second Treatise of Civil Government”, liberty holds a place of paramount importance in the pantheon of political values, specifically those in relation to democratic and republican systems (though Locke does not explicitly demand a republic as Tocqueville does) . From Tocqueville’s belief in the supremacy of liberty over equality , to Locke’s inclusion and conflation of liberty with property and life itself in his natural rights , liberty plays the crucial role of linchpin in both author’s political philosophy. Though this belief in the centrality of liberty is found in both Tocqueville and Locke, they each derivate liberty from fundamentally disparate sources, and thus hold
1. Janda, Kenneth. The Challenge of Democracy. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA. 1999. (Chapter 3 & 4).
Janda, Kenneth. Berry, Jeffrey. Goldman, Jerry (2008). The Challenge of Democracy (9th ed.). Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
In this excerpt from Democracy in America Alexis Tocqueville expresses his sentiments about the United States democratic government. Tocqueville believes the government's nature exists in the absolute supremacy of the majority, meaning that those citizens of the United States who are of legal age control legislation passed by the government. However, the power of the majority can exceed its limits. Tocqueville believed that the United States was a land of equality, liberty, and political wisdom. He considered it be a land where the government only served as the voice of the its citizens. He compares the government of the US to that of European systems. To him, European governments were still constricted by aristocratic privilege, the people had no hand in the formation of their government, let alone, there every day lives. He held up the American system as a successful model of what aristocratic European systems would inevitably become, systems of democracy and social equality. Although he held the American democratic system in high regards, he did have his concerns about the systems shortcomings. Tocqueville feared that the virtues he honored, such as creativity, freedom, civic participation, and taste, would be endangered by "the tyranny of the majority." In the United States the majority rules, but whose their to rule the majority. Tocqueville believed that the majority, with its unlimited power, would unavoidably turn into a tyranny. He felt that the moral beliefs of the majority would interfere with the quality of the elected legislators. The idea was that in a great number of men there was more intelligence, than in one individual, thus lacking quality in legislation. Another disadvantage of the majority was that the interests of the majority always were preferred to that of the minority. Therefore, giving the minority no chance to voice concerns.
Hudson, William E. American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America's Future. Washington, DC: CQ, 2010. Print.
Tocqueville’s analysis for the potential of an industrial aristocracy to grow in a democracy is useful in analyzing America prior to and during the Gilded Age. This time period in American history exhibits the growth of an industrial aristocracy that Tocqueville prophetically warned readers possibly happening in democracies. To fully understand how the growth of such an elite can develop, it’s necessary to first look at Tocqueville’s arguments on how the opportunity of political freedom can give a democracy two tendencies: that of the despot or the sovereign. Also, the Tocquevillian perspective of the economic animal in a democracy helps reinforce the inevitable notion of American’s transition from an agrarian society to an industrial empire. However, what came with the preference for the efficiency of industry over the equality of republican values was a select few reaping the benefits of the rest. The aristocratic class that grew in America during Gilded Age occurred for many reasons. The American-will, coupled with technological advancement and a large European immigrant labor supply, had changed the structure of labor. This division of labor made
Dye, T. R., Zeigler, H., & Schubert, L. (2012). The Irony of Democracy (15th ed.).
(Veugelers) Tocqueville was not a supporter of equality but he valued liberty, what he meant by liberty was freedom from a tyrannical government, one which arbitrary seizes property. De Tocqueville wondered how liberty could have been preserved as society became increasingly equal. When it comes to equality, De Tocqueville is neither left or right. Karl Marx, on the other hand, had a different view on equality. He believed that families were organizations of inequality.
Hudson, William E. American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America’s Future – Fourth Edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004.
Rousseau’s political theory revolves around a central idea that in order to deal with moral or political inequality (“social” inequality), man must move out of the state of nature and establish a social contract, “a form of association which defends and protects… the person and goods of each associate, and by the means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before” (Rousseau 432). Although Rousseau’s plan pledges to protect individual liberty, the plan rests on the legislation of the “general will” and the successful unity of a “body politic,” both of which are vaguely defined and become too concerned with state interest.
Landy, Marc and Sidney M. Milkis. American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004.