Freedom and equality
While most seventeenth and eighteenth-century political philosophers saw freedom and equality as closely linked, it wasn’t until the nineteenth century when the first proto-democracies appeared that various thinkers (Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill) started to wonder whether freedom and equality were at odds with each other.
The audience of the book and the future of democracy
Tocqueville wrote “Democracy in America” for other Frenchmen with the hopes of shattering their illusion of the restoration of the monarchy. His main concern was to become acquainted with the quirks he would have to deal with as democracy spread worldwide.
“When John Locke said in his Second Treatise that in “the beginning of the world was America,” Tocqueville’s point appears to be that in the future all of the world will be America.”
Note: He did not write the book for Americans, who Tocqueville saw as having “little taste for philosophy.”
Tocqueville as an educator
“Tocqueville takes his place along with people like Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and the others as a great political educator. He was more than a mere chronicler of American manners and customers but rather was an educator of future European statesmen hoping to steer their countries between the shoals of education and reaction.”
The meaning of the book’s title
The meaning of the book Democracy in America is not to suggest that democracy can only be found in America. Instead, Tocqueville tries to point out that he only showcases the democracy he witnesses in America. For him, democracy can take many shapes and sizes and is thus not settled or fixed in any particular way. For this reason, the role of the statesmen in democracy and his education is of the utmost importance.
“Democracy is the regime that seems to be almost infinitely elastic in terms of its possibilities.”
Moreover, for Tocqueville, America is an excellent place to study democracy because he sees the country as having attained the natural limit of equality. For this reason, he deems the democracy in America as a good case study for other statesmen to closely understand and hopefully emulate.
“He seems to ask the reader, ‘Do you like what you see, what I describe? What form democracy will take elsewhere will be very much dependent upon circumstances and statesmenship. Again, his [book] is an attempt to educate statesmen about and for the future.”
Structure of the book
The book is broken down into two parts. The first focuses on the social and political institutions of the democratic society. In contrast, the second book is philosophically richer because it tries to understand how the institutions presented in the first book helped create and mold the individuals in a democracy.
Threat to human liberty
Tocqueville was one of the first to point to democracy’s ability to create forms of social power that often undermined human liberty. This power was often embodied by the new class that rose to prominence under the new regime: the bourgeoisie (the middle class).