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?
Tag: Alexis De Tocqueville
Tocqueville starts by vividly describing the landscape of the Americas. He uses metaphorical and descriptive language to paint a picture of the landscape that is contained within the two continents. Tocquville characterizes each portion of America based on its physical appearance and aspects of its environment. The northern half of America he describes as gloomy and quite different from the flowery colourful scenery, one will experience in the southern parts of America. As he continues to describe portions of the continent he starts to become focused on the Mississippi river and talk on how it appears that life spreads out from the consistent flow of water that runs through this river. Tocqueville even makes an insightful judgement when he describes how the future of America appears to be moving westward toward the less abrasive land.
After describing the landscape which Tocqueville considers created perfectly fit for man he goes on to talk about the indigenous peoples of North America. Tocqueville describes them as unique and like no one has witnessed before. He continues to point out aspects of their lives which he believes have a relation to the environment in which they inhabit. When speaking about the Indigenus people he says “They have multiplied freely in the midsts of their deserts…”. I believe that Tocqueville connects the freedom that the American landscape provides to how he believes the Indigenous people act. He continues to say that the Indigenous people are not aware of the modern “civilized” aspects of society and that they were not truly possessing the American land. Tocqueville ends his piece by saying that the Indigenous people were not truly owners of the land they lived on and instead were simply holding the place until people who would properly make use of the land came along. Was Tocqueville justifying the extraction of Indigenous American groups from the land they were inhabiting? Did Tocqueville simply believe that the Indigenous people did not grasp the opportunities available to them? And how do Tocqueville’s ideas on the Indigenus people of North America represent the treatment that they experienced during the country’s founding?
I found this piece by Alexis de Tocqueville very intriguing in that he makes an argument about human perfection and its attainability that is clear and even exemplified in the closing sentences of the excerpt. I believe that Tocqueville was arguing that the notion of human perfection is never attainable but constantly strived for. Tocqueville distinguishes humans from “brutes” by explaining how humans can evolve and change for the better. He ties this argument into politics by saying that when people are classed and given a specific path the idea of perfection is less present and influential. However, in societies in which there is more individual freedom and the removal of castes there is consistent change that the members of the society witness. This leads to more ambition towards the goal of human perfection. The witnessing of others rising and falling in social class must then influence the way in which people strive for human perfection. When there is a lack of restriction on the acts of people in a society progress is stimulated due to the natural human desire to become better and advance. I believe that Tocqueville’s argument on human perfection is accurate in that competition breeds progression but I also believe that sometimes the appearance of an equal playing field still provides that stimulus for progression without ever rewarding those who are placed unequally. When people think they are on an equal playing field failure may impact them in a stronger way. If people don’t see the disadvantaged situation they are in they will place all of the blame on themselves for failing. This may cause them to not continue to strive for human perfection because of lack of confidence and create a sense of limitation within them. Making society more equal and placing all people in the same social level will thus stimulate progression and push societies to the highest level of advancement they can obtain.
Upon receiving the syllabus for this class, I was very excited to learn that we would be reading selections from Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. I have been reading this book on and off since January of 2019 and I am about 300 pages in. So far it is one of the greatest books I have ever read. The first selection we were assigned is a good example of the task that Tocqueville completes thousands of times over. I am certain that any page of his book could be the topic of a lecture or class discussion because of the richness of the content he provides.
The assigned selection exemplifies how Tocqueville formulates his position on a subject regarding society that is congruent across all levels. What I mean by that is he starts at the most foundational level of human existence, then builds his way up to how a society organizes its government. At every level, he presents alternatives and analyzes their ramifications.
Tocqueville begins by analyzing the human condition, demonstrating a profound and accurate understanding of how man thinks, what distinguishes man from beasts, and the motivating forces behind the human spirit. Analysis of this foundational idea is coupled with an attempt to understand another foundational human idea: perfection. Societies, religions, and philosophical schools of thought have been analyzing perfection: its possibility, its actualization in the real world, its origins, and so on for all of human history, and Tocqueville flawlessly takes a position and smoothly incorporates the idea into his argument.
Keep in mind, the passage concludes by comparing the ramifications of both a democratic government and an aristocratic government for the people living within the society. Each new idea or example or piece of evidence the author presents builds on an understanding of the ‘first principles’ articulated at the start. In my opinion, this is the genius of Tocqueville. As a Political Science major and as someone who is interested in studying government, society and the human condition, almost everything I have read from him so far has blown my mind. In my own studies, I have ran across academics and pundits who can make an argument that is cohesive from the bottom to the top; they go from a description of reality to a public policy prescription. I personally strive to be able to do this successfully too. But few thinkers I have come across have even come close to Alexis De Tocqueville. The fact that we are still studying his work 180+ years later is completely justified.