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On Tocqueville's Notion of the Irresistibility of Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Michael Burrage
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European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , May 1972 , pp. 151 - 175
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Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1972

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References

* de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America (New York, Vintage, 1945), 2 volsGoogle Scholar; The Old Regime and the French Revolution, transl. Gilbert, Stuart (Garden City, Doubleday, 1955)Google Scholar.

Mill, John Stuart, de Tocqueville, M. on Democracy in America, Edinburgh Review, LXXII (1840), xlii–xlviiGoogle Scholar; Laski, Harold, Alexis de Tocqueville and Democracy, in Hearnshaw, F. J. C. (ed.), The Social and Political Ideas of some Representative Thinkers of the Victorian Age (London, Harrap, 1935)Google Scholar; Pierson, George, Tocqueville and Beaumont in America (New York, Oxford University Press, 1938)Google Scholar; Angel, R. E., Tocqueville's Sociological Theory, Sociology and Social Research, XLII (1941), 323–333Google Scholar; Lively, Jack, The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville (New York, Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Drescher, Seymour, Tocqueville and England (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Id., Dilemmas of Democracy: Tocqueville and Modernisation (Pittsburg, University of Pittsburgh, 1968); Aron, Raymond, Main Currents in Sociological Thought (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965)Google Scholar; Lerner, Max, Tocqueville and American Civilisation (New York, Harper, 1966)Google Scholar; Richter, Melvin, Tocqueville Contributions to the Theory of Revolution, Nomos VIII, in Friedrich, C. J. (ed.), Revolution (New York, Atherton, 1967)Google Scholar.

(1) For example Pierson, op. cit.; Drescher, , Dilemmas of Democracy, op. cit. pp. 252–279Google Scholar.

(2) For example, Lerner, op. cit.; Laski, op. cit.

(3) Pierson, , op. cit. p. 157Google Scholar; Drescher, , Dilemmas of Democracy, op. cit. pp. 99–103Google Scholar.

(4) He later referred to democracy as “intimately bound to the idea of political liberty” but this is not the way it is used in his major works. See comments in Aron, , op. cit. p. 186Google Scholar.

(5) Democracy, I, pp. 99–100.

(6) There are some phrases to contradict this interpretation, for instance in the preface of Democracy in America (I, p. 15) he says that democracy is “on the eve of its accomplishment”. But the distinction between the ideal and the real is found throughout the essay. See Aron, , op. cit. p. 219Google Scholar, and Lively, Jack, op. cit. p. 24Google Scholar.

(7) Democracy, op. cit. II, p. 206.

(8) For example, Democracy, II, pp. 207–211, 222–225, etc.

(9) Ibid. p. 178.

(10) Ibid. pp. 187–9. And, pp. 216, 43, 227, 239: “Among aristocratic nations birth and fortune frequently make two such different beings of man and woman that they can never be united to each other”.

(11) Ibid. II, p. 190–1, 258, and Ibid. I, p. 216, pp. 190, 251, 281. See the comparison of the ascriptive and achieved roles of Governors and Intendants in pre-revolutionary France, in The Old Regime, op. cit. pp. 35, 81–85.

(12) Democracy, II, p. 196.

(13) Ibid. p. 204.

(14) Ibid. p. 295 and pp. 172–173. Diffuse inequalities had already been destroyed in pre-revolutionary France since the bourgeois rivalled the nobility in wealth and the Intendants had greater power. See L'Ancien Régime, op. cit. pp. 26–30, 32–69, 80, 127. In this respect, France was quite different from England and the German states where diffuse inequalities prevailed (ibid. pp. 22, 27, 29, 81, 91).

(15) Democracy, II, pp. 196, 204.

(16) Ibid. p. 191. In his discussion of the relationship between men and women in democracy Tocqueville is at some pains to point out that they will be equal but not alike, i.e. the differences between them will be based solely on differences ‘in their physical and moral constitution’. Ibid. p. 222.

(17) Ibid. pp. 165, 177, 266. “Democracy does not prevent the existence of these two classes (masters and servants), but it changes their dispositions and modifies their mutual relations” (ibid. p. 187). “There will be landowners and tenants, but the connection existing between them will be of a different kind” (ibid. p. 196). See also Vol. I, p. 221, on the classes found in all societies including democratic ones.

(18) Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Loses, Book VIII, Chap. xi.

(19) Democracy, III, p. 243 and pp. 253, 172–173.

(20) Ibid. pp. 254–255. “The general necessities of mankind, revealed by conscience to every man, would become the common standard. The simple and general notions of right and wrong only would then be recognized in the world, to which, by a natural and necessary tie, the idea of censure or approbation would be attached”.

(21) Ibid. pp. 251, and pp. 98, 175–176, 306–307. With respect to sexual behaviour, Tocqueville observes that in Europe there are different rules for men and women while in America the same rule applies to both, “the seducer is as much dishonoured as his victim” (Ibid. pp. 224–225). On the universalist aspirations of the French Revolution, The Old Regime, pp. 10–13; “the Revolution always harked back to universal, not particular, values” (Ibid. p. 12).

(22) Democracy, II, p. 50.

(23) Ibid. p. 104.

(24) Ibid. p. 105. See also pp. 104–105, 119, 202–208, 218; vol. I, p. 340; and The Old Regime, op. cit. p. 8.

(25) Democracy, II, p. 51. The kings of France had been the unwitting agents of democracy by destroying the ancient collectivities of France (The Old Regime, pp. 51, 64, 96, 181). The revolutionaries merely continued this process (Ibid. p. 193).

(26) Democracy, p. 218. Similarly the democratic philosopher thinks it right “to seek the reason of things for oneself, and in oneself alone” (Ibid. pp. 3, 43); on the individualism of authors, ibid., pp. 60–63; and servants, ibid. p. 188.

(27) Hoselitz, Bert, Sociological Aspects of Economic Growth (Glencoe, Free Press, 1960)Google Scholar. The same variables have been used for cross-cultural comparisons in Lipset, Seymour Martin, The First New Nation (London, Heinemann, 1963)Google Scholar. This work might in fact be considered an application of Tocqueville's ideal types —though Lipset does not himself present them as such.

(28) The disagreement is perhaps a little more complicated than the preceding remarks suggest. Tocqueville recognised that industrialization could be an agent of democracy, even though it also had adverse effects on democracy.

(29) Democracy, II, p. 137.

(30) Ibid. p. 146, and pp. 159, 260.

(31) Ibid. p. 295.

(32) Ibid. pp. 196, 130: Landlord and tenant “meet for a moment to settle the conditions of the agreement and then lose sight of each other; they are two strangers brought together by a common interest”. In aristocratic society the two conditions “are always distinct and always in propinquity; the tie that connects them is as lasting as they are themselves”.

(33) Ibid. I, p. 17.

(34) The Old Regime, p. xii.

(35) Democracy, I, p. 6 and “The French nation, who are blindly driven onwards, by a daily and irresistible impulse, towards a state of things which may prove either despotic or republican but which will assuredly be democratic”, Democracy, op. cit. I, p. 206. “They are all advancing every day towards a goal with which they are unacquainted” (ibid. p. 182). And perhaps ‘my method has been that of the anatomist who dissects each defunct organ with a view to eliciting the laws of life’, The Old Regime, op. cit. p. xii.

(36) Pierson, , op. cit. p. 761Google Scholar, also pp. 165–166, 746.

(37) Zetterbaum, , op. cit. pp. 7–21Google Scholar.

(38) Nisbet, Robert, Social Change and History (New York, Oxford, 1969), pp. 167, 169, 172, 181–182, 187Google Scholar.

(39) Democracy, I, pp. 343–397.

(40) Ibid. II, p. v.

(41) Ibid. II, pp. 352–393.

(42) op. cit. p. 170.

(43) Democracy, op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 27–60.

(44) Drescher, Tocqueville and England, op. cit.

(45) See especially The Old Regime, pp. 203–208.

(46) Democracy, II, p. 352.

(47) Democracy, I, p. 334.

(48) Ibid, II, p. 202. Also pp. 51, 191, 223–224.

(49) Ibid. p. 173.

(50) Ibid., II, pp. 161, 164 and 250. See also, with respect to religion, I, pp. 315–316, and the relationship between masters and servants, II, pp. 187–195. Tocqueville thought norms would prevent the integration of black and white in America, even if the laws allowed it (pp. 373–379). The entire chapter on honor in the United States is particularly important in this context (II, pp. 242–255), as is the “secret opposition” of wealthy Americans to the democratic society around them (I, pp. 186–187).

(51) Ibid. I, pp. 97; for a similar argument: pp. 144–145. Even slavery depended on a notion of right, and “when it is reduced to a mere palpable abuse of force” it is already doomed (ibid. I, p. 387).

(52) Cited by Richter, , op. cit. p. 94Google Scholar.

(53) Ibid. II, p. 9. Tocqueville compares both whole societies and groups within those societies by reference to norms. “I am no longer comparing the Anglo-Americans with foreign nations. I am contrasting them with each other and endeavouring to discover why they are so unlike” (ibid. I, p. 376). This point must be emphasized because the conventional distinctions between consensus and conflict theories often leads, rather oddly, to the idea that if one identifies the norms that the members of a society have in common one has thereby denied that there might be any normative conflict within the same society. Tocqueville, plainly, studied both consensus and conflict.

(54) Ibid. II, p. 333. One might therefore present the ideal type of democracy as five commandments. It is this moral component that makes the argument that these are merely the consequences of industrialisation prima facie implausible.

(55) Ibid. II, p. 205.

(56) Ibid. pp. 372 and pp. 438–439, 245; I, p. 247.

(57) Ibid. II, pp. 99–103. Pre and postrevolutionary French thought was, Tocqueville thought, indifferent to liberty and in this respect was quite different from the heyday of the Revolution “when the love of equality and the urge to freedom went hand in hand”. The Old Regime, pp. x, 157–169, 208–210. Tocqueville can think of no reason why men should love liberty, it cannot be, he argues, for any practical or material consideration and concludes that it is “something one must feel, logic has no part in it […] to meaner souls untouched by the sacred flame it may well be incomprehensible” (ibid. p. 169).

(58) Ibid. II, p. 101.

(59) Ibid. I, pp. 8–17.

(60) Democracy, II, pp. 24–29; I, pp. 314–325. The Old Regime, pp. 5–9, 148–157. Tocqueville considers religion to be a most important source of norms in every society, “There is hardly any human action, however particular it may be, that does not originate in some very general idea men have conceived of the Deity, of his relation to mankind, of the nature of their own souls and of their duties to their fellow creatures” (Democracy, II).

(61) Ibid. II, p. 38.

(62) See his comments: Ibid. I, p. 438.

(63) Ibid. II, p. 169.

(64) Ibid. II, p. 169. It must be noted that in other respects industrial capitalism was, in Tocqueville's view, wholly congruent with democratic norms. The taste for material well-being is “the prominent and indelible feature of democratic times” to the degreee that capitalism satisfies material wants of a majority it also satisfies democratic aspirations. Moreover capitalism provides an arena for the restless ambition and competitiveness of democratic man. It accepts and even prefers a pecuniary motivation to work and requires only a temporary commitment to any particular calling. In short, “all the tastes and habits that the equality of conditions produces lead men to commercial and indus trial occupations”. Capitalist enterprises therefore have significant, democratic sources of legitimacy (ibid. I, pp. 439–447; II, pp. 27, 50–55, 163–167).

(65) Ibid. II, pp. 170–171.

(66) Ibid. II, pp. 111–112.

(67) At least, not a purely providential fact. Significantly, Tocqueville does not attempt to explain either the origins or the purposes of democracy. These questions are beyond human understanding. They are purely providential.

(68) There is one quotation that might be held to contradict this proposition. It is found in an appendix of The Old Regime where he comments: “As all European monarchies became absolute about the same time […] the natural supposition is that the general change was the fruit of a general cause operating on every country at the same moment. That general cause was the transition from one social state to another, from feudal inequality to democratic equality (p. 224). It might be possible to extract a few general propositions about social change from Tocqueville's work —fragments of a theory of social change they might be called. These refer to the breakdown of normative systems — for that, in Tocqueville's view, is what social change is. The body of Tocqueville's work, however, leads unmistakably to the conclusion that he considered the study of social change a wholly historical enterprise, i.e. not something that one might ascribe to some general cause or deduce from a theory.

(69) To show that Tocqueville believed in evolutionary necessity, NISBET quotes the remark, that “chance played no part whatever in the outbreak of the Revolution; though it took the world by surprise, it was the inevitable outcome of a long period of gestation, etc.” (op. cit. pp. 181–182). This is surely unjust. Tocqueville used the phrase because he thought that he has identified the causes of this unique historical event, not because he thought he had discovered the inherent logic of all democratic societies, or all revolutions (The Old Regime, pp. 203–205).

(70) Tocqueville, , Democracy, I, pp. 58–59Google Scholar. Lest there be any doubt that Tocqueville is here referring to democracy's moral irresistibility it may be noted that he appends a list of current voting restrictions in each state (ibid. pp. 370–371).

(71) Ibid. I, p. 265.

(72) Ibid. I, pp. 264–280. “Public opinion grows to be more and more the first and most irresistible of existing powers, the religious principle has no external support strong enough to enable it long to resist its attacks” (ibid. II, p. 28).

(73) Ibid. I, p. 428.

(74) Ibid. I, p. 256.

(75) For example, Drescher, , Dilemmas of Democracy, op. cit. pp. 71–87, 251–279Google Scholar; Angell, , op. cit. p. 330Google Scholar.

(76) Drescher, for instance, believes that the ‘functional’ inequalities of contemporary society refute Tocqueville's argument (ibid. pp. 257, 277). But what is Tocqueville's analysis of the relationship between master and servant in democratic society if not an instance of such ‘functional’ inequality?

(77) Tocqueville, , Democracy II, p. 147Google Scholar. This observation is, of course, of crucial importance in Tocqueville's explanation of the Revolution (The Old Regime, pp. 176–177).

(78) Sixth Report from the Estimates Committee 1964–65. Recruitment to the Civil Service (London, HMSO, 1965), pp. vi, vii, 27Google Scholar. The proportion of entrants from higher socio-economic backgrounds had also increased. A similar instance of increasing inequality among British grammar school entrants is described in Floud, Jean, Halsey, A. H. and Martin, F. M., Social Class and Educational Opportunity (London, Heineman, 1956)Google Scholar. The inclusion of this case would not lead one to alter the argument in any respect.

(79) Sixth Report, op. cit. p. 85.

(80) See the explanations given by the first Civil Service Commissioner (ibid. p. 62). The committee did not think it was due to bias in the selection procedures (ibid. p. vi). It is arguable that subsequent appointment of the Fulton commission to examine in Civil Service organisation was a sanction against civil service inadequacies in this and other respects.

(81) It is even difficult to discover arguments in favour of increasing inequalities, Significantly, arguments in defense of existing inequalities are conducted largely in ‘code’ as, for instance, ‘independent’ or ‘community’ schools, ‘separate but equal’ and even ‘apartheid’. Such code words suggest that those who wish to maintain permanent inequalities or to preserve institutions that are known to promote such in equalities cannot do so openly. They have to obscure this goal (or consequence) by appealing to some other value, liberty, religion, etc. Those cited are from the right but the left uses similar codes. For example in the distinction that is often made between ‘real’ and ‘created’ wants. Real wants invariably refer to minority wants and created wants to majority ones, which suggests that it is only by referring to them in this manner, that it is possible to argue that minority wants are right and majority wants wrong.

(82) Bennis, Warren G. and Slater, Philip E., The Temporary Society (New York, Harper, 1968)Google Scholar; White, R. K. and Lippitt, R., Autocracy and Democracy (New York, Harper, 1960)Google Scholar.

(83) Ellul, J. in de Jouvenel, B., Futuribles: Studies in Conjecture (Geneva, Droz, 1963), p. 52Google Scholar.

(84) The United States is distinctive among Western societies in that it has controlled capitalist enterprises almost wholly by legal regulation. It has not, by any means, left capitalism unregulated.

(85) Bendix, Reinhard, Work and Author ity in Industry (New York, Harper, 1956)Google Scholar; Barber, Bernard, Is American Business Becoming Professionalized? Analysis of a social ideology, in Tiryakian, Edward A. ed.), Sociological Theory, Values and Socio-Cultural Change (Glencoe, Free Press, 1963) pp. 121–145Google Scholar.

(86) Tocqueville, , Democracy, II, p. 164Google Scholar. Weber, of course, thought that it would not require such supports after it had been firmly established while Schumpeter believed it would never be legitimized on its own account: Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London, Unwin, 1965), pp. 134 et sqqGoogle Scholar.

(87) For a summary of relevant evidence with regard to industrial organizations see Blumberg, Paul, Industrial Democracy: the sociology of participation (London, Constable, 1968), pp. 70–138Google Scholar.

(88) Report of the Committee on Broadcasting 1960 (London, HMSO, 1962)Google Scholar.

(89) Thus, a majority of listeners approve of BBC radio, a majority of witnesses condemn ITV, the duties of the broadcasters are approved by general opinion etc. etc.

(90) Ibid. pp. 54–65.

(91) The committee, for reasons that are obvious from what follows, do not document this with any precision. They refer to it casually. Ibid. p. 68.

(92) Ibid. pp. 16–20.

(93) Ibid. pp. 170–174, 225–227, 236–247, 256–271. The government did not accept the committee's argument and left commercial television much as it was.

(94) Ibid. pp. 27–31, 54–60.

(95) Ibid. pp. 87–92.

(96) This phenomena was of course familiar to Tocqueville. He referred to those who, “if they have not the greater number of voters on their side, assert that the true majority abstained from voting”. “The demagogues of Europe have made strange discoveries. According to them, a republic is not the rule of the majority, as has hitherto been thought, but the rule of those who are the strenuous partisans of the majority” (Democracy, I, pp. 257, 434).

(97) Buber, Martin, Paths in Utopia, trans. Hull, R.F.C. (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), p. 8Google Scholar.

(98) For one attempt to characterize the basic constituents of modern Utopias see Kateb, George, Utopia and its Enemies (Glencoe, Free Press, 1963), pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

(99) An impression based on inadequate evidence.