Western Political Thought - A Paper on Tocqueville's Democracy in America

Americans think of themselves as the freest people on Earth.  After all, they say, they have rule by majority, equality amongst themselves, freedom to do whatever they want, and most importantly, freedom to think whatever they want.  The First Amendment to their United States Constitution proclaims the government may not infringe upon freedom of speech.  Americans can generally say whatever they want without fear of legal sanction or physical violence.

Yet in his seminal work Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville says, “I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America.” [1]

How could this be the case, in light of the factors that Americans think make them free?  The answer, according to Tocqueville, is that the very rule by the majority which Americans believe aids their liberty, instead subjects it to dire peril.

In the United States, nothing exists outside the majority to curtail its influence, says Tocqueville.  The majority possesses command of everything.  American society holds the needs and wants of the many above the few or the one.  This stems from the American belief that the most wisdom lies with the greatest number of people; after all, if everyone has equal intellectual capacity, then whatever the most people think must be correct.  For the Americans of Tocqueville’s depiction, the majority simply cannot fail.

Even those Americans who fall outside the majority fall to its will without much difficulty because Americans are equal to each other, without class distinctions.  What the majority wants, most minorities can therefore swallow.  Besides which, many Americans outside the majority hope someday their group will become the majority, so they recognize the majority’s right to rule as it would.

By Tocqueville’s reckoning, this makes the American majority, in a word, omnipotent.  No force can halt or even delay its advance.  As a consequence, the majority has no time or even inclination to consider the thoughts and ideas it squashes underfoot. [2]

Boosting the majority’s power is the structure of the legislatures.  Each year, elections for the legislatures take place, often sending new representatives with new ideas to the federal capital and the various state capitals.  And the legislatures have a lot of power to do what they want.  The speed with which the majority selects representatives, and the power those representatives have, gives the majority the ability to enact its every whim on America’s polity. [3]

Tocqueville questions how a system in which the majority rules thusly can be free from despotism.  If one man can abuse power, why can a majority not do the same?  The character of men, says Tocqueville, does not change just because they are in a group.  If a group—the American majority—has power without barriers, power without “time to moderate itself,” then liberty is at substantial risk.  No guarantee exists against tyranny.  If individuals or minorities suffer oppression, to whom can they appeal?  No one, pronounces Tocqueville, for the legislature, the executive, the military, the jury, and sometimes the judiciary are under the dominion of the majority. [4]

The “tyranny of the majority” could surpass that of the absolutist.  The absolutist cannot stop thoughts contrary to his own from percolating.  His power lies only on the temporal plane; he has no control over mental worlds.  When the majority has resolved something, though, discussion of the issue stops, and everyone goes along with the majority’s flow.  The majority’s will strikes at the hearts and minds of people, stopping them from contradicting the majority, as well as crushing “the desire to do it.” [5]

Within the American majority, Tocqueville grants that one is free.  But outside the majority, one finds unhappiness.  A political career is impossible, for one cannot please the “single element of force and success” (i.e. the majority).  And when one speaks his mind, against what the majority believes, people abandon him, and he becomes a virtual social leper.  His opponents in the majority will not recognize him, nor will those Americans who think as he does, for they lack courage and do not want society to shun them, too.  Consequently, one likely will surrender to the majority, and one will shut his mouth as if he is sorry he ever opened it.

This estrangement the majority bestows upon its foes assaults their very souls.  This is how the majority’s tyranny can outclass that of the absolutist, whose weapons harm only the body while leaving the spirit intact. [6]

Unlike some of the aristocracies of Europe, the American majority will not allow observers to make the slightest fun of it.  Writers must extol the virtues of the majority, and they can never criticize it.

“The majority, therefore,” says Tocqueville, “lives in perpetual adoration of itself.”

Tocqueville concludes, “There is no freedom of mind in America.”  Whereas the Spanish Inquisition could not stop the circulation of books of which the monarchy disapproved, the American majority has no need even to try such a thing, for the very thought of publishing books contrary to the majority never occurs.  Whoever is outside the American mainstream can find no device with which to spread his views and opinions. [7]

Another reason why Americans have no freedom of mind is their tendency, more than others, to accept dogma.  Tocqueville concedes that everyone on the planet believes a fair share of dogma, which is evil because it makes one an intellectual slave, but necessary because otherwise one could not consider anything closely, as he would be too busy trying to prove everything.  Americans enslave themselves to dogma to a frightening extent, however, according to Tocqueville.

This spawns from the American assumption everyone has more or less equal knowledge.  With this notion in mind, an individual feels weak in comparison to a multitude of people; each of them is intellectually equal to him, so the combined wisdom of the mass must dwarf his own.  This permits the mass—the American majority—to force its beliefs into his mind and the mind of everyone else.

The majority in this way does not persuade anyone of anything. It merely force-feeds people ready-made opinions, relieving them of the burden of constructing their own beliefs.  This seriously compromises any chance of intellectual liberty or independent thought, says Tocqueville. [8]

The American majority’s control over the United States leads American historians to emphasize general causes of events.  Individuals do not receive much attention.  As a result, many folks start to think individual action is not voluntary.  Instead, they think large forces that affect millions of people control their destinies.  Scholars focus on how events came to be, and they do not think of how things could have gone otherwise.  Essentially, free will itself comes into doubt. [9]

Despite all of the reasons Tocqueville cited for the rule of the majority constituting a tyranny, freedom still exists somewhat in the United States because it lacks administrative centralization.  The majority can command all it wants, but to carry out its commands, the majority must use executors “who often do not depend on it, and whom it cannot direct at each instant.”  Federalism, then, saves the Americans from descending into majoritarian dictatorship.  It can “delay or divide” the will of the majority, sapping it of its full strength. [10]