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Tocqueville on Servants, Servitude, and Impersonal Domination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2025

Dimitrios Halikias Open the ORCID record for Dimitrios Halikias [Opens in a new window]
Dimitrios Halikias*
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
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Abstract

Alexis de Tocqueville highlights a paradox at the heart of the democratic spirit. Egalitarians are allergic to markers of social hierarchy and are on the hunt to identify and abolish remnants of the old regime’s entrenchment of aristocratic rank. The resulting abolition of personal hierarchy, however, does not deliver equality and freedom. Rather it inclines democrats to accept depersonalized forms of discipline at the hands of public opinion, the tutelary state, and the market economy. Tocqueville argues that the commitment to an “imaginary equality” lies at the root of the soft despotism he finds across democratized institutions, mores, and economic relationships. He develops a distinct account of the emergence of domination under conditions of formal equality. Social dependence in liberal societies does not derive from a new class of elites or the rise of capitalist economic formations. Equality is itself connected to new, impersonal forms of servitude.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , First View , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Notre Dame

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