“Let us endeavor to make the best of that which is allotted to us and, by finding out both its good and its evil tendencies, be able to foster the former and repress the latter to the utmost.”[1] This was Alexis de Tocqueville’s endeavor in his famed, Democracy in America. He had surmised a providential fact, the movement of mankind towards equality of conditions—and so democracy—and it was this “allotment” that he sought to measure and examine. And measure it he did, in line with the judgment, “a sip of democracy is a dangerous thing, but a deeper drink sobers rather than intoxicates.”[2] Although—like his contemporaries—he saw much to fear in democracy, he also saw—unlike most of them—American democracy maintain itself. Grounding in his observations, his analysis recasts conventional definitions democracy and associations and uses them to demonstrate how liberty can be sustained, and despotism avoided. Democracies’ better angels would shout down its demons.

As its cures sprung from itself, Tocqueville’s democracy, first, requires examination. His vocabulary in this area has been criticized. As Jack Lively concluded, “It has been pointed out many times how confused he was in the use of his basic concepts, democracy and equality.”[3] This confusion, though, can be both rationalized in a historical context and reconciled within the text itself. In Tocqueville’s time, according to Welch, democracy was seen primarily in the political sense—a form of government, a location of sovereignty, or the prioritization of the middle class. Tocqueville’s immediate forbearers—namely Guizot—saw democracy along this vein, but in a negative sense: as a corrupting and chaotic political system. Thus, Tocqueville’s intellectual background would have bent accordingly, but his prose refute this interpretation: “The more I advanced the study of American society, the more I perceived that this equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.” As such, we cannot exorcise democracy from its social or civil implications—or even equality at all—as Tocqueville perceived them as fundamentally linked. This corresponds with Tocqueville’s own historical views of the drive towards equality, which has birthed a new form of democracy.[4] Thus, we can accept Welch’s reconciliation of the term confusion:

“…he often uses equality of condition as a virtual synonym for democracy. More typically, however, his usage is a slightly broader one that includes in the term ‘democracy’ both equality of social condition… and the psychological tendencies that such equality naturally encourages… This broadened use—equality of condition plus the egalitarian passions and tastes for freedom to which it gives rise—is perhaps Tocqueville’s most characteristic meaning for the term ‘democracy.’”[5]

Welch’s juxtaposition of the “egalitarian passions” and the “tastes for freedom” frames the next relevant issue—that is, contrast between the drive toward equality and the appetite for liberty. The affection of equality is greater in democratic limes, as Tocqueville laments:

“I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom; left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and view and privation of it with regret. But for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible; they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism, but they will not endure aristocracy.”[6]

His lamentation, coupled with his frequent concerns of despotism, solidifies his intellectual identity: he is a liberal. His particular conception of liberty is crucial to understanding his belief in the corrective affects of associations, as we will see.

“Freedom is, in truth, a sacred thing,” affirmed Tocqueville. This seems to contradict his seemingly deterministic view of view—the inevitable drive towards equality. Yet, he vigorously defended the role of human choice in shaping that march. To keep men from the captivity of despotism, he would argue, a choice was necessary, the choice between educating democracy and succumbing to it. He concludes, “…it depends on [the nation’s of our time] whether the principle of equality is to lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge of barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness.”[7] In that, we see the crux of Tocqueville’s view of the relationship between history and liberty. If equality was the engine of history, then man would still meet juncture, demanding choices, and these choices would lead to either more liberty or less. In that, we can see the duality of his views of liberty: it is not simply about having a choice, but also choosing to have more choices. As a liberal, then, Tocqueville would seek to guard not only against the encroachment on liberty, but also the abdication of it.

Still, though, the foundations of Tocqueville’s liberalism require contextualization: why advocate freedom of choice altogether? He offers one explanation in a letter to Beaumont, “I have never been more profoundly convinced that [liberty] alone can give to human societies in general, and to the individuals who compose them in particular, all the prosperity and greatness which our species is capable.”[8] These observations match—or may even reflect—John Stuart Mill’s defense of liberty as a catalyst for human progress: as Lively explains, without freedom of thought and expression, without a wide area of free actions, there could be neither the development of individuality, the flowering of each individual’s unique personality, nor the intellectual progress that sprang from a diversity of values and class of opinions within a community.”[9] These arguments, though, fail to fully capture Tocqueville’s views. Furthermore, in Volume II, Tocqueville rails against unchecked individuality, as an atomizing and corrosive symptom of democracy, and this worry betrays his broader conception of liberty (and even his debt to Guizot). Consider again, the statement quoted in part earlier, “Freedom is a sacred thing. There is one thing else that better deserves the name: that is virtue. But then what is virtue if not the free choice of what is good.”[10] Liberty, thus, allows for individual virtue; it is not simply beneficial to society or civilization, but also to man—it constitutes moral terrain. When government forces action, even if moral, it appropriates that ground, dissolving virtue and, in effect, upending man’s morality. The same happen when man relinquishes his liberty; he has no footing to grasp virtue.

Tocqueville’s conception can then be seen as a virtuous liberty, and as either the ability or the desire to take moral actions waned, so did virtue. Thus, man must both will and have freedom; only then would he escape the slide toward despotism.

This tendency towards despotism thus constitutes the paramount evil of democracy—in both the social and political forms.

With equality of conditions, each man is free and able to get and do what he would like, free of classist restrictions. In that, Tocqueville argues, equality unleashes a dangerous passion: a passion for well-being, aroused to a more animated and acceptable position. Now that men can have anything, they become equal not only in their status but their desires: men do want everything. Complete satisfaction is unrealistic; thus a constant restlessness afflicts democratic society. This thirst for material prosperity turns man towards commerce and industry and, more importantly, onto his own affairs, his own interests, himself. Economic concerns, according to Tocqueville, then drown out political ones. Simply put, the opportunity cost of political participation would be too high.[11] The more subtle and more worrisome effect of materialism is the considered retreat from the political activity altogether—more worrisome as it not only rationalization political inaction but also political apathy. This is Tocqueville’s individualism, the slower but similarly corrosive cousin of egoism:

“Individualism is a novel expressions, to which a novel idea has given birth… Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows and to draw apart with his family and friends, so that after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly a leaves society at large to itself.”

Individuals equally form society, so as they withdraw into isolation, not only is society torn asunder, but also a vacuum emerges. This precipitates further alienation and atomization, and the latter invites government to fill the void, which—as we’ll see—it is happy to.

The political nature of democracy play into this story as well, further sapping man of his capacity for independent action. The American system enshrined the majority as the source of legitimate governmental action. This preference, though, seeps throughout society, encouraged by equality of conditions. Whereas a few had power in an aristocracy, all do in a democracy. Each man then has power, but as such, none does. The independence of democratic men leaves them thinking they must know what’s best, but in the law, only the majority does. Thus, vocalizing dissent demonstrates a failure to appreciate or respect the majority’s authority, legal and moral. Thus, men succumb to conformity: if the majority is always rights, then I am always with the majority. They see now need to add their opinion; they merely follow the currents of the many. Thus a “courtier spirit”[12] inhabits the democracy, and in turn, the majority plays the part of the despot. Here again, the individual willingly gives up his ability to make one’s own choices, costing him the opportunity for moral action and meaningful freedom.

Materialism, individualism, and the majoritarian impulse leave democracies atomized and rife for despotism. The majority is eager to play the role of tyrant, but there remains one other force willing and able to ease man of his capacity for independent action: a centralizing government administration—that is, according to Welch, “the unnecessary expansion of political power into the regulation of ordinary affairs and the details of daily life.”[13] Tocqueville contends that there is a natural disposition in democracy towards strong central power, as the economic man wants stability and the independent man feels powerless.  The abdication to central administrative power seems like a good bargain: trade an increasingly burdensome liberty for peace of mind at no loss to equality.  Thus, the government, erected for he general welfare, effectually undermines the people’s ability to provide their own welfare, thus, as above, cutting in their capacity to take moral actions, to govern themselves.

Thus the arc from liberty to the complete loss of it comes complete: Equality of conditions bring men onto the same plane; materialism turns them into their own homes; individualism erects fences; the majority keeps each inside; and the state keeps them all comfortable. Men, no longer bothered by liberty, become equal slaves.

This nightmare is avoidable, argued Tocqueville. The engine of equality could run towards despotism, but it could also turn away. Democracy could maintain itself. His claims here was primarily built on observation—he saw it work—but also on analysis. In fact, the very same forces that led to an atomized, tyrannized society could lead to an interdependent, self-regulating one. The “taste for freedom” and the “egalitarian” passions encourage associational life, and through associations, citizens both use and defend their liberty.

This process, too, was the product of democracy itself, and Tocqueville’s logic is discernable. Equality of conditions leaves all men equal in their capacity, but in a sense completely powerless. This offends their somewhat independent spirit also precipitated by equality of conditions. Man, then, must find a mechanism to have power, to make influence—really, to indulge in his constructive liberty—or else he will recoil into this private life. Enter democratic associations. Ranging from small interest groups, to political parties, and even townships, associations carry the democratic concept to the grassroots.

Each type of association, though, has a particular way to neutralize the evils of democracy in different ways.

Free provincial institutions come first, accordingly, as they are, according to Tocqueville the natural product of equality—an immediate result of their perceived independence. He conjectures that with equality of conditions, there is a “natural bias towards free institutions.”[14] His reasons are fairly intuitive and two-fold: first, arrogantly, man, Tocqueville explains, “will contest conceive and most highly value that government whose head he has himself elected and whose administration he may control;”[15] second, self-interested, men’s’ “…chief business is to secure for themselves a government which will allow them to acquire the things they covet and which will not debar them from the peaceful enjoyment of those possessions which they have already acquired.”[16] In addition, necessity of collective action—say to build a road—would require entry into public affairs. Thus, man will attend to the free institutions, as they are now his and his interests are at stake.

These forces might seem to merely enhance individualism and materialism, but the nature of American free institutions serves to combat not only those vices, but also administrative centralization.

These institutions were numerous and local, so in attending to them, men had to come together. In this way, Dana Villa rightly argues that they are a kind of association in Tocqueville’s work, and their nature as fixed and standing earns them the title: permanent associations.[17] The same powerless of the individual is felt but then reconciles once he discovers that “he is not so independent of his fellow men as he had at first imagined, and that in order to obtain their support he must often lend them his co-operation.”[18] Pretty pride disintegrates, arrogance recedes, and intrapersonal connections emerge. Self-interest even spurs compromise and compassions, as a resourceful democrat will aim to win favor. Tocqueville adds to these somewhat intuitive claims, that public affairs are to an extent contagious, that in time man will attend to them not by necessity but by choice, and that the self-interested compromise will become habitual altruism and service.

On one hand, then, permanent associations combat the atomization and individualism. As a nexus of liberty—where people have choice they want to make—these associations safeguard against the ills of social democracy. They also are a more immediate front against despotism, as decentralizing forces.

The rationale here is largely obvious: provincial administrations assumed the duties commonly assigned to centralized national administrations. In that, there is simply less need for centralization, and an eager central administration would have to confront the collective pride of towns accustomed to and energized by self-rule. Just as importantly, the decentralization create natural barriers to the tyranny of the majority as it’s faced with numerous, disparate groups to infiltrate, win, and effectively lull.[19] As such, Tocqueville holds them in high esteem, considering them the second greatest legal cause for the maintenance of the American democratic republic, “which limit the despotism of the majority and at the same time impart to the people a taste for freedom and the art of being free.”[20]

Permanent institutions, as they were, constituted politically democratic institutions, where the individuals could exert their independence and develop a sense of interdependence safe from the perils of anarchy thanks to limited power. Thus, they were hotbed of the beneficial democratic mores, by providing a taste of freedom and introducing men to the art of associations.

Advanced training came from political and civil associations.

As Tocqueville explains, political associations—political parties, for example—are “large free schools where all members of the community go to learn the general theory of association.”[21] Civil associations—for example, professional associations—are similarly instructive, but often require risks and thus are not “free.”

Civil and Political associations, though, are closely related, as Tocqueville explains. They are similar in that men come together to achieve a goal, both tethering the individual to the collective. The phenomenon, much like the initial attendance to public affairs, was an outgrowth of self-interest. As men were individually powerless, they came together by necessity—as a form of even shallow self-interest—and soon, he wrote, it became instinct: “As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States has taken up a opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote in the world, they look out for mutual assistance, and as soon as they have found one another out, they combine.”[22] Thus, the independence of equality of conditions also fosters interdependence: “From that moment, they are no longer isolated men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve for an example and whose language is listened to.”[23] In this, they overcome their individual enfeeblement and gain a sense of associational power.

Civil associations, in addition, constituted the antithesis of administrative centralization. Not only were they loci of liberty, but they were decentralized administrations as well. Tocqueville ironically remarked that what was commonly performed by an aristocracy’s central administration was attended to by an American association. They were, in a sense, democratic foot soldiers—with newspapers as air support.  Newspapers give civil—and even political—associations greater reach, unifying disparate groups and, if necessary, raising them against an oppressive force—be it the tyrannical majority or an imposing bureaucracy.

The forms of associations—permanent, political, and civil—have different corrective effects but share a corrective mechanism. For Tocqueville, democracy—broadly understood—gave rise to both egalitarian passions and “tastes of freedom.” Together, they instilled both restlessness and independence, but only the art of association would seem to satisfy those passions—which, though, it couldn’t. Instead it tempered them and combined them into self-interest rightly understood—that is, self-interest that is aligned with the communities interest. It is the habit generated by associational life that forces man both above himself and into public affairs.

Self-interest right understood can be seen as a kind of civic virtue, but in this context, it’s more appropriately seen as a democratic virtue, as it would pervade a healthy democracy. This seems to explain Tocqueville’s bold assertion that, “the principle of self-interest rightly understood appears to me the best suited of all philosophical theories to the wants of the men of our time…[and] their chief remaining security against themselves.”[24]

This boldness hints at a more axiomatic reason underpinning Tocqueville’s belief in the corrective power of associations. The greatest evil of democracy was tyranny, in which there would be no liberty, no free choice of moral action, and no chance of virtue—a bleak but probable outcome considering the “insatiable” passion for equality and the subtle abdication of liberty to it. Thus, political liberty must be made more attractive and its exercise more common. Associations multiply the loci of liberty throughout society, and, by injecting enlightened self-interest into democracy, they redirect the very forces once opposing liberty to motivate its expression. Associational life thus sustains liberty and even instill a kind of virtue that, however lowly, still triumphs above the “barbarism” and “wretchedness” of despotism. [25]