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Democracy in America Book Notes

‘uThis book is a classic of political literature. I suspect that any American political science course taught at the university level would at least examine excerpts of this book, which aims to understand the peculiarities of democracy as a new method of governing. Tocqueville has to rationalize some of the benefits of democracy to himself, but generally he understands that it is the way of the future and superior to aristocracy in many ways. This book provides the greatest utility to the reader in its analysis of the many flaws and externalities of democracy, which lets us consider the problems of democracy seriously instead of simply taking for granted that our current political system is unquestionably the best one. 

Introduction: 

- Tocqueville foresaw the rise of the industrial aristocracy (think robber barons) - but deviates from Marxists in his conclusion that American aristocracy is the least dangerous, compared to the rest of the world, because their wealth creation doesn’t necessitate the creation of a parallel ultra-poor. 

- The middle class is a democratic byproduct and its existence defines the balance of democracy once lacking in aristocracy. 

- An especially excellent chapter is “Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare” > because less blatant inequalities. 

- Religion will become less rigid in form

- Race war is probable

- Russia vs. USA comparison

- Frightening one-ness of American thinking (and we though socialists were the most conformist in thought?)

Part I

- “Unless fortunes are territorial there is no true aristocracy” = LAND

- Why slavery made the south weaker than the north: “Slavery dishonors labor, introduces idleness into society, with that, also ignorance and pride, luxury and distress.. it benumbs the activity of man”. 

- The founders of American were consensually Puritanical, and originally religion was the only road to education and gave a rare reason for abstraction in thoughts and goals. 

- Powerful combo of the ‘ideal’ of religion + liberty, and it is odd that the materialist impulses of early settlers found no conflict with the moral goals and necessities to get into heaven. 

- The closest America came to establishing aristocracy was in the South because rich slaveowners had land but since the “cultivation of their estates” was done by slaves, “they had no tenants depending on them, and consequently no patronage”. (eventually the pseudoaristocracy came crashing down).

- on the law of inheritance: “I am surprised that scholars have not attributed to this law a greater influence on human affairs” - b/c these laws have a sure manner of operating on generations not yet born by giving people a “kind of preternatural power over the future lot of his fellow creatures”. 

if this inheritance passing on is limited - the creation of aristocracy is dealt a huge blow because it creates a rapid division and distribution of money and power (no more primogeniture, which means the divisions fail to cultivate attachment to the land since the family name and the estate are no longer interchangeable). 

An important structural change of the American Revolution was that English laws of transmission of property were abolished as to “not interrupt the free circulation of property”.. sons of landed proprietors were, within 60 years, intermingled with the general mass as merchants/lawyers/physicians. 

- Americans  don’t value pure intellectualism much because the taste for that isn’t passed down in a hereditary class and people who become rich in old age had to work too hard in younger times to study and consequently aren’t inclined to enjoy learning for its own sake. 

** Democracy “reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality in freedom”

Part II: Book 1 - Influence of Democracy upon the Intellect in the USA

- Americans view theory as useless and inconvenient veils between them and the truth

Religion is believed without discussion, and separation of church and state was enacted by the church to keep itself clean.

17. Influence of Democracy on Religion:

“Of all the kinds of dogmatic beliefs to hold, religion is the best because it’s so fundamental to where humans take their view of the world and coexistence from. Without faith, men abandon their actions to chance, get paralyzed from over-abundance of choice, and don’t have certainty behind their beliefs (dangers of ‘unbounded independence’) 

If it takes a deep contemplation to think about god and other necessary truths - only a few can reach ‘legitimate’ insights on spiritual matters and therefore religion is one of the fields in which there is the most respect for authority (compared to other fields in American life). 

- Tocqueville equates faithfulness with political freedom and notes how religion is a distinct sphere in the US that doesn’t leak into other fields as much as in Europe. 

“The chief concern of religion is to purify, regulate, and restrain the excessive and exclusive taste men feel at periods of equality but it would be an error to attempt to overcome it completely - Men cannot be cured of the love of riches; but they may be persuaded to enrich themselves by none but honest means”

25. Democratic historians are much less likely to attribute movements/events to individual decisions/actions/decrees. Democratic history sounds more deterministic. 

27. Individualism as a new concept in democracies as opposed to the old notion of selfishness. The former is a mature and calm desire to take care of one’s own business and the latter is a passionate and unwarranted love of self. 

“Men seldom think of sacrificing themselves for mankind; but they often sacrifice themselves for other men.”

32. Democracy breeds materialism as a game of oneupsmanship. Also, aristocrats find it much easier to part with their possessions since they have been taken for granted and unearned. 

34. The relationship between a manufacturer and workman is the new aristocracy because they have no loyalty to each other, one is dependent on the other for employment and protection, and manufacturer sees the workman as a replaceable cog in the machine

** USA’s manufacturing aristocracy is one of the harshest but also one of the most confined and least dangerous because its type of social contract only applies to specific industries, not society as a whole (containment), there are no definite classes in general (the rich can go broke and vice versa), the poor are dependent on the masters but not on any particular master - there are no deeper obligations so since the manufacturer uses workers but doesn’t govern them, the worker maintains enough mobility for their employer not to own them. 

Meaning - the new labor divide is harsh, but isn’t as binding as traditional aristocracy

39. On women - they are more pragmatic in democracies and get enough education to defend their own virtues and morals. However, “In America, a woman’s independence is irrecoverably lost in the bonds of matrimony” so marriage is taken more seriously than in Europe. 

**48. Why great revolutions will become more rare - (the middle class is the enemy of violent commotions because they want to protect property. 

Tocqueville thinks that if there would be a revolution in the US, it’d be a race war.

49. Why democratic nations want peace and democratic armies want war - meritocratic promotions in armies favors higher turnover and displaying valor through combat or commabd. 

Book 4: Democracies lean towards centralization of power as people/regions concede to central authority.