Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

The essays in our study reference the following edition of Democracy In America: University of Chicago Press – 1st edition translated by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Today’s essay references pages 661 (start at chapter 6 heading) -665 of this edition of Democracy in America.

Alexis de Tocqueville is known as the most perceptive observer of the United States in the 19th Century, but at the end of volume two of Democracy in America, he demonstrates another, and perhaps even more remarkable, gift—foresight.

Specifically, while in the United States, De Tocqueville observed some tendencies that he thought could lead to a form of government that then seemed confined only to the past, despotism. Despotism is a loaded term. It refers to a government system where a single person or group exercises all power but usually indicates an arbitrary and oppressive system characterized by violence and repression.

De Tocqueville’s unique insight was that a form of despotism was possible even in democratic societies where people choose their own leaders.

In fact, ancient despotisms, like the Roman Empire, had natural limits on their power. Though a Caesar could exercise arbitrary power, the actual scope of the ruler’s power would be limited by differences in the groups of people he ruled and the wide scope of the territories they administered. They could make life miserable for some people or groups but others could exist without much direct interaction with the ruler.

By contrast, the despotism that arose in democratic nations “would be more extensive and milder and it would degrade men without tormenting them.” More people would be impacted by centralized authority but those who exercised that authority would usually not do so in the violent and extreme ways that we would usually associate with despotic government like Hitler’s Germany.

Democratic nations could “penetrate the sphere of private interests more habitually and more deeply” than ancient tyrants could. In other words, the variety of different institutions that provide identity and purpose to individuals—like family, community, and religion—would become less important as people become more alike. This would allow government more direct access to its citizens, but it also meant governments would shy away from extreme forms of repression, at least most of the time.

Citizens of democracies, De Tocqueville believed, would themselves become less likely to have extreme aspirations and habits. Thus, the new centralization of power they experienced would be unlike any that had existed before. What would it look like? 

In the then-future democratic society, people would be interested largely in pursuing their own self-interest. Though they live around many others, they would largely be isolated, except perhaps for immediate family and a few close friends.

Above these citizens, however, would be an “immense tutelary power” or as we might say a “nanny state.” The government would promise to ensure citizens could enjoy what they wanted and would look after them. To do so, its power would be highly centralized: “absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing.” Unlike a parent preparing children to become adults, “it seems only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood; it likes citizens to enjoy themselves provided that they think only of enjoying themselves.”

In exchange for securing the happiness and security of citizens and providing for their needs, it would exercise complete authority over everything they did. Thus, individual choice would be more constrained and less relevant because government would regulate all of society “with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform roles.”

This allows government to shape citizens without force, but it also means people will have less significant responsibilities for themselves so that they all become “nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.” 

This does not require doing away with elections of the forms of self-government. In fact, it will be more effective if people believe they are choosing their own “schoolmasters” and thus absolute, centralized power is really a manifestation of their choice.

This is still, however, a despotism because the way absolute power is exercised, De Tocqueville argues, is not as important as the fact that government demands total obedience. It is still better than a crude dictatorship, of course, but those who are subject to a mild despotism are still servants to a centralized state. 

As an aside, De Tocqueville explains that the consequence of relinquishing big choices is that citizens lose their capacity to wisely exercise choices about whom will govern.

It has now been almost two hundred years since De Tocqueville shared his prediction. How has it held up?

Some aspects of his analysis seem remarkably prescient: many people feel more isolated, traditional supports like family and community are weaker, and centralized government affects our lives far more than it did in his time. 

So, are we less free? Is our government a soft despotism?

These are important questions. If the answer is yes, we face a stark choice. De Tocqueville framed it at the end of the chapter—we can “create freer institutions” or “return to lying at the feet of a single master.” 

Mr. Duncan has worked as an adjunct professor teaching family law and has published dozens of articles in legal journals. He has filed briefs in constitutional cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, most of the U.S. Courts of Appeal, and state appellate courts. He is a graduate of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University.

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