Alexis de Tocqueville, born 200 years ago in Paris, traveled in America and wrote about the country in his famous book, Democracy in America. He is widely recognized as a most astute observer of American democracy. It is worth considering one of his points at this particular time because it seems to have been overly pessimistic. He wrote that,
… As each class gradually approaches others and mingles with them [in a free, democratic society], its members become undifferentiated and lose their class identity for each other. Aristocracy had made a chain of all the members of the community, from the peasant to the king; democracy breaks that chain and severs every link of it.
As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they are neither rich nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellows, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their hands.
Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart. (Democracy in America, vol. 2 [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945], pages 98-99.)
Was de Tocqueville right? Do citizens of a democracy—by which he meant a free society in which individualism is much prized—fail to develop public spiritedness? Do they see themselves as lacking any responsibility toward others in their community?
It seems this is not so and de Tocqueville was mistaken. His mistake can be seen in just how readily so many Americans rose to help out those who were the causalities, way on the other side of the globe, of last year’s tsunami; he is once again proven wrong by how eagerly Americans seem to wish to help those left in ruin by Katrina.
But why did de Tocqueville make his mistake?
Many like him, who came from an “aristocratic” background—actually, a background of en entrenched, not earned, aristocracy—held a pessimistic view of human nature, especially when it comes to those who aren’t members of their class. This has to do with their widely held belief that at the core human beings are sinful and anti-social, so much so that they need to be nudged along by the wellborn to cultivate any public concerns.
If one identifies “public life” with government, then, yes, many people in a free and democratic country do not show public spiritedness. But is that identification correct? Can one express one’s interest in one’s fellows in a society only via politics?
Americans have proven over and over again that they are generous, sometimes to a fault, especially in times of crises when most of those who suffer evidently do not deserve it. In the main, Americans do not take kindly to indiscriminate welfare-statism but there is evidence from way back in the country’s history that natural disasters are met with alertness and kindness, not xenophobia, as de Tocqueville had feared.
This is probably because in a largely free society it is clear to many people that whether others will be helped in their need is not something to be left to their government—whose job, after all, is “to secure our rights”—but is, instead, a task to be taken up voluntarily, of one’s own initiative.
Such “public” spiritedness is, in fact, a more hopeful approach to coping in times of crisis then is marshaling the coercive forces of the state. It comes from the widespread realization among largely self-reliant people that human beings share many risks in life and in a civilized society they must abstain from resorting to the force of law to cope with such risks. Instead, they need to lend their hand at such times, from their knowledge that that is indeed the most promising way to recover from disasters.
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“This is probably because in a largely free society it is clear to many people that whether others will be helped in their need is not something to be left to their government—whose job, after all, is “to secure our rights”—but is, instead, a task to be taken up voluntarily, of one’s own initiative.”
I’ve thought the same; it would be interesting to have a study that compares a nation’s private donations per capita, vs the amount of economic/social freedom they have.
I think it unfortunate that we will likely never know what percentage of relief effort and effectiveness arose from private efforts in the aftermath of Katrina; and it may be criminal that we will never know how little our public efforts may actually have accomplished. This would be a great subject for a student of Austrian economics.
Tocqueville’s best remark is when he said that democracy would degrade man rather than torment him.
Remember the old “Maggie and Jiggs” comic strip? Prior to WW2 our masters dressed formally, rode limos, and had live in servants. These days our masters are much smarter. They dress and act in public like we servant class does. They ride in the same cars that our pimps, dope sellers, and basketball stars do. Instead of live in servants, our masters have the people who think they are “middle class” supply housing for the new servant class.
During the Irish famine and the explosion of immigrants through Ellis Island, half the new people went “into service.” In those days, the typical “middle class” family – of which there were very few – doctors, lawyers, engineers – had live in servants. These days the servant class are the hamburger flippers, the building cleaners, and the illegals.
Note that the private relief agencies aren’t Enrons or Worldcoms (or Microsofts or Wal-Marts if you prefer). There are no stockholders, CEOs, or flamboyant gazillionare entrepenuer.
I don’t think it is so much a “third way” between socialism and capitalism that is needed or desired, only that there are different forms private agencies can take.
I often point to Linux which wasn’t created from a corporation. Some people seem to want to laud and overlook problems with Windows only because it made some billionaires, while Linux, Apache, Open Office, and hundreds of other programs quietly goes from quality plateau to quality plateau.
So while all the Anarchocapitalists look at the anarchy without capitalism in New Orleans, and say it could all be done with private agencies – maybe so, but maybe the private agency might have to look more like the Knights Templar than Wackenhut. More like the Red Cross than HealthSouth.
Could any corporation or insurance company meet the liability cost of a collapsing levee? It also almost exactly duplicates one of my public goods problem scenarios – the entire city benefits from a levee, but how do you get the beneficiaries to pay for it? No small group can afford it, and most here would scream “taxation” if there was an attempt to assess any kind of universal fee. And you can’t just flood a checkerboard of clients who didn’t pay while leaving those who did dry.
Ultimately, under the AnCap situation, there might not be a (large) city there because there would have been no levee. This is a reasonable outcome. So it is silly to discuss how a private agency would handle things better. It would have been uneconomic (sans a public work), so there would be nothing to handle except what would have been some undeveloped, flooded land.
But then if we want to privatize things, how do we “fix” all the malinvestments government has caused including all the houses (across the country now) in floodplains, and the protective devices which are heavily subsidized but not economic to maintain?
tz,
A very good point. The hard answer is that those who live in such areas have to bear the costs. If that means the malinvestments cannot be economically sustained, then, by good business practice, they must be written off. To sustain them just wastes even more resources that could have been put to better use. This is true even if you don’t privatize. The problem is that government (everyone collectively) does plan this way.
That should have read “doesn’t plan this way.”
It’s been close to 60 years since I read it–but I seem to remember the guy commenting very favorably on the propensity of the Americans he met to form associations for every kind of cooperative effort. Could he have been “of two minds” on that score?
What I always found strange about De Toquewville was that he never seems to have revisited the place that so intrigued him (and made him rich and famous).
It seems de Tocqueville did not see the emerging aristocracies that are now so obvious, aristocracies of wealth, fame, and power. Certainly the current burst of technology billionaires earned their wealth, but will their children, mere inheritors of great wealth, be any less “entrenched” or unworthy of their positions of influence? Certainly there exists in American society a spirit of noblese oblige, as witnessed to by the Gates Foundation and similar organizations. And that same spirit has pervaded the “little people”, who clearly realize how fortunate they are compared to the peasant class of ages past, and demonstrate that spirit with their incomparable generosity.
The aristocracies of fame seem harmless enough, though I am constantly mystified by that phenomenon.
The aristocracies of power (e.g., the Bush Dynasty), since it relates directly to the evil of monopolistic government, shares in that evil.
Were this a truly free society, those benefiting from inherited resources–not just out and out wealth but good health, looks, talent, etc.–would all have to face competition and couldn’t rest on their laurels.
Tibor Machan
The Founding Fathers detested democracies. They looked upon them as little more than mob rule.
No where in the US Constitution is found the word DEMOCRACY. The Constitution guarantees to the states a “Republican” form of government.
As Ben Franklin was exiting one of the Cosntitutional debates in Phildephia, he was asked,
“Mr. Franklin, what kind of government did you give us?”
Franklin answered, “A Republic. If you can keep it.”
Democracies are by construct, anti-individual property rights. By a majority vote, the neighbors can vote to swim in your swimming pool.
In a Republic, which we no longer have, you have property rights. The neighbors cannot swim in your pool without your permission.
In America, there are nolonger any property rights. One only has to one degree or another, a vested interest in property.
even when we had a “Republic” did black slaves have any property rights? indians? Once government is in the game -any government- there is no longer a guarantee for property rights.
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