De Tocqueville continues his discussion of the effects of equality. The great vice promoted by equality is individualism, the idea that one can withdraw from society and only tend to himself. Equality, when misunderstood, can make people think that they have no need of each other. De Tocqueville is offering a friendly warning so that democracy can be made to work. In this chapter, he points to an answer to the challenges posed by the doctrine of equality. It turns out that Americans have found a very American solution to a very American problem.

The danger is that individualism, the vice bred by equality, is the lifeblood of despotism. Individualism allows despotism to thrive because isolated individuals do not care what the government does as long as they can remain isolated. Despotism asks people to abstain from public life. The natural meaning of words becomes inverted in a despotism. The good citizen keeps to himself while bad citizens want to work together for the common good. De Tocqueville is not necessarily speaking of the classic despotism of a cruel tyrant, but is foreshadowing the possibility of a new, “soft” despotism that can develop in democracies. Democratic despotism is less obvious but more dangerous as all it requires is for citizens to ignore public affairs.

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