Democracy in America

Tocqueville argues that Americans have an enduring love for institutions that they control and maintain, but this individualism does not translate to anarchy—instead, it provides a “surer path toward servitude” (639). Tocqueville asserts that the “instinctive penchant for political independence” in American culture is the only antidote to this tendency (640).

The potential evil of despotism has its roots in the American love of general ideas and commitment to central authority and laws that apply universally, which may transpire even if social homogeneity does not truly exist. This is seen as compatible with popular rule because “Americans believe that in each state the social power ought to emanate directly from the people; but once that power is constituted, they imagine so to speak no limits to it; they willingly recognize that it has the right to do everything” (641). Tocqueville further argues that this erodes the idea of individual rights, since “the idea of the all-powerful and so to speak unique right of society comes to fill its place” (642). Tocqueville argues that all European contemporary political debates are about which individual or central authority best wields this power, not about whether centralization should occur. The consensus on this is so strong that he considers it a “natural condition of the current state of men” (642).