Like it or not, equality of conditions is destined to spread to all human civilization, with all its attending blessings and blights.
One of those blights is its threat to liberty. In contemporary times, we like to think of equality and liberty in complementary terms, but Tocqueville saw equality as a compulsion undermining liberty for reasons we will explore later. Since equality stands as a threat to liberty, people who are caught up in its rising tide—especially people in France—need to take lessons from the Americans as to how to protect liberty and guard it against the tendency of equality of conditions to direct society toward despotism.
A new science of politics is needed for a new world. John D. In this case, ideology and group identities matter relatively little, whereas the content of very particular policy proposals and sheer physical proximity provide the motivating force for action.
Such coalitions may not be very glamorous, but they can have a big impact on ameliorating quotidian injustices such as the lack of street lights, filthy vacant lots or playgrounds, or an ineffective local school principal Berry, Portney and Thomson ; Warren Judging what kind of coalition to foster depends on a mix of considerations: the issue at hand, the demographic and political context, the intensity and extensiveness of group identities, the availability of a powerful ideology or principle on which to draw, the position of political elites, the proclivities of leaders, and more.
There are no simple, clear rules -- or even complicated, clear rules. Public opinion surveys show that the elements are sometimes at hand for political mobilization, but they also show the many points of blockage. No nation or society will ever fully interrupt oppression, and justice will never be fully sustained. Nevertheless, residents of the United States believe in equality and seek it especially for members of their own group , and on occasion institutions, laws, and practices can be made to respond.
Tocqueville was not completely wrong, and that is a sufficient basis for continued efforts. Banaszak, L. Berry, J. Portney, and K. Thomson The Rebirth of Urban Democracy.
Washington D. Bureau of Justice Statistics Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Charles F. Kettering Foundation Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. April Dayton Ohio: Kettering Foundation. Gallup, CNN, U. Today Poll. April July Davis, J.
Public Perspective. Smith, and P. Marsden General Social Surveys, Cumulative Codebook. Dawson, M. Popoff Reparations: Justice and Greed in Black and White. Du Bois Review. Elam, S. Princeton NJ:. Guinier, L. Torres Hamilton, D.
Hamilton New York: Columbia University Press. Hochschild, J. What's Fair? American Beliefs about Distributive Justice. Melnick ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Herk Wertheimer ed.
Hollinger, D. How Wide the Circle of the "We"? American Historical Review. Hurwitz, J. Peffley Johnson, D. Justice or 'Just Us? Jost, J. European Journal of Social Psychology. Kahlenberg, R. The Fall and Rise of School Segregation. American Prospect , Manza, J.
Uggen Perspectives on Politics. McPherson, J. New York:. National Conference for Community and Justice Newsweek June Orfield, G. Lee Brown at King's Dream or Plessy's Nightmare? Peterson, M. Pole, J. The Pursuit of Equality in American History. Rae, D. Knowing Power. Reeher ed. Tocqueville argues that in democratic countries the love of equality is the principal passion and is felt more ardently than the love of liberty.
The more equal and alike men become, the more they are bothered by any remaining inequalities, however slight. The love of equality can be seen in the incessant desire for equality of outcome rather than simply equality of opportunity.
The progressive income tax is one example of the democratic love of equality seeking to level economic inequalities. Of course, the progressive income tax is often coupled with social programs that aim to redistribute wealth from rich to poor.
Indeed, Tocqueville himself predicts that the ardent love of equality leads, in the end, to socialism. The love of equality is so strong that men will readily sacrifice their freedom to achieve equality.
I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls … Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate.
It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves.
In his writings he explains the effects of democracy on the theoretical and practical habits of men in democratic times, focusing on the salubrious as well as the troubling.
He prescribes as much as describes, and suggests how political and intellectual greatness, subject to risks in democratic times, might nonetheless be preserved. Above all, he seeks to turn the attention of his readers to questions of intellectual and political freedom. A deputy in the July Monarchy and minister of foreign affairs in the Second Republic, Tocqueville recounted his political life and times in his autobiographical Souvenirs.
This work offers a revealing glimpse of the political activity of a thoughtful individual. It follows a nine-month trip to America that Tocqueville made with Gustave de Beaumont in and It is not a travelogue or even a comprehensive study of the political institutions of the United States.
The work contains many interesting and singular insights about America: its regime, its laws, and, above all, the habits or mores of Americans, by which Tocqueville means the full panoply of their political, intellectual, religious, and social life. Over the two volumes of the work, Tocqueville discusses America through the prism of democracy, or the equality of conditions.
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