Alexis deToqueville on America

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses Alexis de Tocqueville's prediction that, in viewing equality as the ultimate imperative, Americans would forego their freedom. The paper explains Tocqueville's ideas on taxing the rich and poor and his belief that the American federal government would moderate and regulate aspects of the lives of the people it was put in place to serve. The paper then relates that Tocqueville did not realize the strength that America would eventually exhibit, that it would become the most powerful empire in the world and a moderator for world activities.

From the Paper:

""Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom," Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, after visiting the country in 1831 to document the prison and political systems. Though at the time Americans were not communists or true socialists, it turns out that, particularly in the modern United States, he was on the right track. His best prediction was the one that allowed that Americans will give their liberty away for anything. But to credit him in his prediction, it is necessary not to include the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as much of what was going on was racially charged, and the actions of many did not have equality as a main goal. Slavery, the reconstruction period, and the Civil Rights Era were filled with discriminatory policies and segregation, but what Tocqueville was describing was America's attempt to epitomize the true democracy, where people are not necessarily free, but they are at least somewhat equal. This ideal he found in America was for everyone to have some protection by the federal government, as everyone donates to it by participating in society."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Alexis de Tocqueville on democracy, revolution, and society: selected writings; edited and with an introd. by John Stone and Stephen Mennell. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.
• Allen, Barbara. "Alexis de Tocqueville and the Universal "Democratic Revolution": Liberty, Equality - and Empire?" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 31, 2006
• Clark, General Wesley K. (Ret.) Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire. New York: Public Affairs, 2003.
• Drescher, Seymour. Dilemmas of democracy; Tocqueville and modernization. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P 1968.
• de Tocqueville, Alexis. 2000. Democracy in America.. Harvey C. Mansfield and Debra Winthrop, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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