Tocqueville’s piece about the social conditions of the Anglo-Americas was very interesting. I believe that Tocqueville has very good ideas about social equality and this piece helped to explain a big reason as to why America is seen as a place of equality and equal opportunity. In this excerpt Tocqueville talks about the redistribution of wealth and assets from elders to their offspring. I found this to be very interesting because Tocqueville explains how the lack of property transmission laws have helped to wean out the transfer of large amounts of wealth and assets thus forcing people to start out on relatively the same playing field. The reason why America has an equal level of equality in Tocqueville’s opinion is due to the fact that most of the land and assets of elders has been parcelled out so thin that it is not significant enough to impact the playing field in which their children are apart of. I found this piece interesting because I think that Tocqueville’s ideas on wealth transfer and its impact on equality in America are accurate but I think contemporary things have changed. In today’s society there seems to be a lot more wealth inequality which has a significant effect on the opportunities of all citizens in America. Tocquville explains how the absence of laws upon wealth transfer has lead to this point but how would Tocqueville explain the continuation of wealth in certain families and more broadly certain groups within America? How would Tocqueville explain how America has gone from a place of equal opportunity to a place where certain groups of people have had better opportunities handed to them through generation transfer of wealth?
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