Lecture 8: Tocqueville (cont) Theoretical Tensions & Lecture 9: Marx---Biography and Disgnosis

9. This refusal to give due weight to the trends that endanger his own political dreams is also evident in his reaction to the 1848 revolution, the emergence of working class politics and a socialist movement. At this time, Tocqueville was both a prominent political actor and a member of the committee charged with drawing up the new republican constitution. In the period after 1830 the bourgeoisie had emerged as the dominant economic class but, to Tocqueville’s mind, had yet to reveal the capacity to be the leading political class. It was too interested in prosecuting its own class interest to develop the disinterested perspective of political leadership. The revolution was at least in part a reaction to bourgeois interest politics of the Louis Phillip and an attempt to further extend political rights with a new republican Constitution. In France, workers had neither political rights nor the opportunities to acquire property that were available to their counterparts in America. In 1848 they seized their opportunity to extend their political rights, to struggle to extend the boundaries of the political and to address their social disadvantage. For the workers, the “social question” was the question of structural disadvantage and poverty and the designation “social” connoted the project of dealing with this question collectively. Tocqueville refuses to concede this collective action the status of political action in the truest sense. The revolutionaries are not heroic actors attempting to contest and reshape the limits of the political but indistinguishable, anonymous agents of a formless mass. He sees behind the worker’s demand for equality of political rights, the mass passion of an amorphous social force those demands are without limit. He fails to offer a theory of justice and hides behind the conventionalities of bourgeois political economy rather than really attempting to answer the question of whether the bourgeois economy is to be subject to considerations of justice. He displays an instinctive fear of the masses and abhors collective action because he believes inflamed passions and lack of political experience make the masses prone to violence. He invokes the distinction between the political and the social where the latter is encumbered by connotations of material interest, private property, class distinctions, while the former stands for the ideal, legal, civic spirited and all that it encourages. In this respect, he remains completely dismissive of the role that interests might legitimately play in politics. But in reacting in this way, he also overlooks the political possibilities of social conflict and the changing nature of the political that follows in the wake of the French Revolution. The politics of the future will be less a politics of individuals and their actions and more one of masses, classes and large social and economic interests and forces. In doing so, he narrows the meaning of political participation and the circle of its participants. Paradoxically, his ideal of participatory politics dims just at the moment when comparable developments emerge in this new working class form and acquire a crucial importance in contemporary France.

10. Nevertheless, of all the great 19th century diagnosticians, Tocqueville might still seem the least dogmatic and strangely the most prescient. His image of egalitarian society, for all its idealisation and symptomatic lacunae, most closely approximates the social condition of the majority in the developed West. For example, take this quote from a article in the Herald by John McDonald: Spectrum April 6/7/02 pp4/5 Quoting from Democracy in America:

‘ “There is little energy of character but laws are more humane. Life is not adorned with brilliant trophies, but it is easy and tranquil. Genius becomes more rare, information more diffused. There is less perfection, but more abundance, in all the productions of the arts”
Tocqueville’s diagnosis could serve as an accurate summary of Western democracy at the dawn of the 21st century. Despite our ongoing problems, for the great majority life is much easier in these societies than it is for those living under more repressive regimes. The price, perhaps, is solipsism and complacency—A sense that the rest of the world doesn’t impinge on one’s consciousness for longer than the duration of the evening’s news. This kind of complacency had drawn some of the blame for the events of Sept 11. The subsequent hysteria is a measure of how deeply we were immersed in this more comfortable and stable view of the world. Tocqueville’s point about democracy leading to 'little energy of character' is borne out by the political and cultural landscape of Australia, which may claim to be the world’s most agreeable and stable society. Regardless of whether our leaders demonstrate little energy, their characters seem to have undergone a form of moral atrophy. The treatment of asylum seekers, the shameless political exploitation of public xenophobia, the Governor General’s reluctance to take the tap for his own moral cowardice—these are all signs of a society that has lost touch with civilised, humane qualities. “Character”, per se has been replaced by a set of expedient norms: admit nothing, mouth empty slogan, be dispassionate.’

11. After an initial period in the first part of the 20th century when his worst fears regarding the future were vastly surpassed and his own ideas subsequently went into relative neglect, it seems like we might have entered a time when just these fears appear to have some basis. Yet, while Tocqueville often speaks with a prophetic tone, he never claimed to provide a philosophy of history. As we have seen, he is generally suspicious of grand intellectual constructions being imposed on socio-political life and hopes rational political action can avoid dangers and build on strengths. Nevertheless, because he studied modernity from the standpoint of difference and of loss, he was supremely sensitive to the inhospitable aspects of the modern world and able to see further into it than most.

12. To the extent Tocqueville got it wrong, his image of modernity is too backward looking and rests on too narrow a foundation. In his account of both democracy and equality: there is no poverty and little inequality. As we have seen, he ignores the “social question”. Because his political vision of the future has stark poles--independent individuals and dependent masses, he found it difficult to integrate the working class, Tocqueville abstracted democracy out of modernity and constituted it as the historical process. In this respect, he is like Marx who will make a similar move with capitalism. By contrast, for Tocqueville, the bourgeois revolution is a political revolution. Politics always takes priority over economics. This lack of attention to the other forces of dynamism levels out his understanding of bourgeois social life in terms of uniformity and accentuates his fears of social ossification.

13. Yet, despite these failings, today Tocqueville is even more contemporary than ever. After the Cold War, liberal democracy appears as the last remaining viable socio-political model in the West. Here Tocqueville is our master: he offers us a glimpse of a post-political democratic world. A culture of political participation is replaced by one of privatism, isolation and consumerism. Without an engaged citizenry and disinterested politics, democracy can become all-purpose and infinitely plastic, a new form of despotism where the leading question is: Who controls the meaning of democracy and thereby its fate? Increasingly as the economic discourse of neo-liberalism gains ground, where the consumer is “sovereign” and we “vote” through our consumption choices, there is a commensurate translation of the political into economic terms. The concept of popular sovereignty easily collapses into theories of “rational choice”, “voter preference” and “consumer opportunity”. The question that seems to be emerging today is whether the political moment in democracy can be preserved or whether democracy will gradually shed its civic potentialities to be transformed into a cultural ideology and myth that serves merely as an instrument in the functional reproduction of modern power. Tocqueville provides us with a provocative and troubling hypothesis and an investigatory template. He placed the careful analysis the liberal democratic social condition at the top of our critical agenda and this remains, even for us, a burning issue.

Lecture: Marx (1818-1882)

 

1. Marx rejects Hegel’s view of modernity as the realisation of reason and freedom or Tocqueville’s equation of it with the institutions of bourgeois republicanism. Contemporary society is not the “end of history” but the arena of a monumental social conflict that will decide the fate of the present: eliminate class oppression and usher in the realm of freedom. Nor is theory either a contemplative expression of its age in thought or the neutral instrument of the art of politics. Marx is a revolutionary. His theory is not philosophical reflection but the enlightened self-consciousness of historical actors: the proletariat.

2. Marx’s biography. Born in Trier to an assimilated Jewish family, university educated, Young Hegelian, journalism, political exile, marriage, Paris where he meets Frederick Engels and the proletariat for the first time, Brussels, revolutionary activity in Brussels, Cologne and Paris until 1849. Further exile to London where he lived for the rest of his life engaged in theoretical work towards hi major work the unfinished Kapital (1867). For the early years in London he lived in poverty and relied on Engels for financial support. He was also the major theoretical force behind the International Working Men’s Association (1864-1872).

3. To understand Marx, we must begin with his critique of Hegel. Hegel equates existing institutions with rationality. But these institutions are irrational. Thus Hegel is 1/ ideological 2/ impotent. Criticism must become a material force, seize the masses. Hegel critiques Kant, Feuerbach Hegel, Marx Feuerbach, each successively charged his predecessor with philosophical abstraction. The only really concrete historical actors are the social classes of capitalist society. But Marx only finds the proletariat in 1844. Already he had defined the task of his own critical theory. Reason exists in the world and the task of philosophy is to clarify for the social actors this rational meaning and its immanent direction. Marx then only had to align this immanent rationality with an existing social force. Aligned to the proletariat his theory becomes the enlightened expression of the consciousness of the working class.

4.The fundamental contradiction of modernity is the struggle between capital and labour. This is an exploitative relation of mutual need and antagonism. These classes have opposed interests. But the working class is growing in functional importance and in numbers. This situation of structural disadvantage but growing power provides both the motive and the capacity to radically challenge this order. In their struggles, the workers gain in solidarity and self-consciousness. This would lead to trade unionism and then on finally to abolish class society.

5. This account is striking in its sociological radicalism. The dynamic of modernity quickly refines bourgeois society into only two classes. Of course, other classes continue to exist and can even play a decisive role in deciding the political outcome of historical struggles. However, these classes are anchored in the social relations of the past and can offer no fully coherent perspective for the comprehending the contemporary dynamics of bourgeois society. Membership of these bourgeois classes is determined not by birth but by function. This means that their significance is not obscured by tradition and religious interpretation. It therefore becomes possible to perceive their social foundations and contemplate the possibility of their social reconstruction. Of course, the very radicalism of Marx’s sociological reconstruction of capitalist society soon generated criticism that it might be too simplified. Probably the most significant critique came from Eduard Bernstein in the 1890’s who used contemporary sociological observations to suggest that Marx’s projected class polarisation of bourgeois society has not occurred and, in fact, contemporary societies were beginning to evidence a growing middle class.

6. While underlining its antagonistic character, Marx acknowledges the historically progressive character of Capitalism. This society is insatiable and future-orientated; it has destroyed tradition but is inherently dynamic creating both new productive forces and values; (Quote p476 Marx/Engels Reader). Bourgeois society tolerates no limitation either externally or internally. The world market is formed and individual need structures expanded and characteristics transformed. Human richness and freedom are Marx’s highest values. Like Tocqueville, he accepts European imperialism on this basis while remaining completely skeptical as to its claims to a higher civilisatory mission. For all its brutality and hypocrisy, the destruction of parochial worlds engenders gains in universality and freedom. It is common misinterpretation to think of Marx as a champion of equality alone. In fact, he rejected contemporary versions of Socialism that maintained substantive equality as its overriding goal was ascetic and backward looking. He endorses modern individualism insofar as it is an expression of freedom and human many-sidedness. However, he rejects its bourgeois form that requires exclusively one-sided development and the dehumanisation of the great majority.

Lecture 6 conclued & Lecture 7: Tocqueville on Voluntary Association, Colonies and Slavery

12. It is at this point that Tocqueville claims that modern democracy is beset by paradox. There exists a permanent tension between its two basic principles: majority rule and the individual as sole lawful judge of its own interests. This latter idea which is the basis of popular sovereignty is an essentially anti-corporatist individualism that erodes the solidarity that is supposed to issue from political participation. Not only are the community and the individual in constant tension. Tocqueville further suggests that the greater the degree of individualism, the more will this lead to social homogeneity and loneliness of the individual. While individualism appears to favour individual differences and a cult of variety, it is actually a social creation, the product of a difference denying culture of equality. The success of individualism as an ideology consists in the fact that the modern individual believes and acts as though wholly self-orientating yet is, at the same time, a fervent conformist, rarely acting beyond statistical norms and emphatically pursuing fashions and collectivities. This means that modern democratic culture is a bewildering combination of opposing tendencies that isolate individuals from one another while, at the same time, binding them together as a conforming mass.

 

 

Lecture 7: Tocqueville on Voluntary Association, Colonies and Slavery

1.    In Tocqueville’s initial assessment the forces of atomisation, bourgeois privatism and egalitarian homogenisation, are held at bay by strong countervailing factors in American historical and institutional life. These including:

a) Historical good fortune. A new society created from scratch that was rich, no enemies and no historical baggage of deep social and political hierarchies. (Again here Tocqueville focuses on New England and the mid-west and brackets both the Afro-American and Ameridian issues)
b) Compensatory legislative and judicial breaks on democratic power like bicameral parliaments, independent judiciary.
c) Free press.
d) Voluntary associations.
d) Maintenance of religion and patriotism.

Of course some of these factors are more or less familiar features of contemporary liberal democratic constitutional arrangements and cultures. However, as Tocqueville was the first to really emphasis the importance of voluntary associations to a vibrant democratic culture some more elaboration is required. For Tocqueville, one of the most striking features of the contemporary democratic society was the vitality of its civil life. Individuals of all ages, stations and dispositions tend to form associations of various types from the political to the recreational. He explained this by the fact that in a society without social hierarchical social structure, characterised by equality and independence citizens were incapable of public action unless they associated. Voluntary association was the antidote to potential helplessness. These associations not only allow individuals to act in concert but they also renewed community feelings and ideas, enlarge the heart and understanding by the reciprocal interaction of citizens on each other. Action in concert overcomes isolation and translates into power. Tocqueville argues that newspapers have a decisive role in galvanised this sort of concerted collective power. They are crucial in developing the public sphere as a domain through which the opinion and power of citizens can be articulated and galvanised. He also sees a clear link between the equality of political rights and the vitality of this associational life. Political rights and political participation allows citizens to combine for great ends. This is a valuable practical lesson in the value of helping one another that citizens are able to translate into lesser affairs. In this respect, political association and civic association do not detract but only enhance each other. Tocqueville views this associational life as a great school in the use of collective power and in carrying out all sorts of undertakings in common. Individuals thereby gain competence in, and taste for, associational activity and become more productive and confident. Tocqueville is keen to allay any fears that political association is a dangerous force for instability. In fact, he reads voluntary association in entirely opposite terms. In his view, the American commitment to civic projects cannot tolerate political instability. Associational life transforms individuals into externally directed citizens with commitment to common projects and counteracts the forces of bourgeois competition and atomisation. However, if the private association has a limitation from the political standpoint, it is that such groupings were often predisposed to agreement. Unlike political association where members learn to deliberate their differences in order to develop co-operative action, the membership of private associations is regularly organised around sameness and hence exposed to sectional interests and a narrow political education.

2. As mentioned earlier, in Vol 1 Tocqueville’s analysis accentuates the positive potential of the American experience as a model that reconciles democracy with stability, where the immanent potential of democracy towards tyranny was balanced by modifications that preserved a balance between freedom and equality. However, in the later Vol 2 he explores the condition where democracy has become the dominant cultural force. In this context, the positive potentials are very much under threat from the rising tide of centralised power, atomised and competitive individualism and social uniformity. The aspiration to equality and the universalisation of economic calculation imposes a dull sameness of motives, tastes, and perspectives. The great vice of democratic culture is envy. In a society where the principle aim is living well in a materialistic sense and individuals live in close proximity, competitive comparison becomes a preoccupation. In such a social condition it is harder for the modern individual to aspire to greatness: they know their fellows intimately and see them up close. At the same time, rules and regulations eliminate the social spaces of eccentricity and variety. This adds to a growing convergence of condition. Whereas Hegel stresses the unruly character of modern bourgeois civil society, Tocqueville views the all-powerful, centralised and rational modern state as a real danger. (D in A 336). In Tocqueville’s scenario the unruly character of Hegel’s view of bourgeois social relations is displaced by the threat of a paternalistic state despotism that stems from the desire for equality. For Tocqueville, the uniformist state connives with the egalitarian passions of its constituency. However, from a contemporary perspective the danger seems to lie elsewhere. The danger seems to be less that individual liberty becomes endangered by a centralised state expressing the demands of an egalitarian minded majority, than that individuals loss all taste for politics as they subside into a privatised, consumption focused liberty.

3. Having presented the main lines of Tocqueville’s view of democracy, we need to briefly mention his attitude to the race question in America. We have seen that in order to describe democracy as a way of life his main focus is on white civilisation and especially the New England towns. However, in a single chapter towards the end of Vol 1 he maintains that the race issue is vital to the future of America. This chapter begins with a consideration of the Amerindians who he considers to be doomed. They are trapped between their dependence on novel goods of civilisation and their inability to abandon the freedom of their hunting mode of life. They soon became dependent on European merchandise yet could exchange nothing for them other than furs. They soon exhausted these resources and the animals of the hunt were further disturbed by the onrush of European civilisation. Without game and reluctant to farm, most Indian tribes were faced with the stark alternatives of famine or resettlement further West. Tribal existence becomes fragmented and finally destroyed by the need to survive in new lands already inhabited by their own indigenous populations. Tocqueville sees no end to the misery of the Amerindians short of their complete destruction. This is a human tragedy but an almost evitable consequence of the clash of two different levels of civilisation in a single space and time.

4. In Tocqueville’s view, the case of black slavery was more complicated. The fundamental problem was that the institution of slavery had bound together the fate of two peoples that would never mingle. The great evil of slavery was that it had linked inferiority to race. Tocqueville views racial inequality essentially as a cultural not a biological issue. Cultural characteristics lie deep in the mores of a people’s way of life and cannot change overnight. While the law might change, the ignominy of subordination as an inequality rooted in nature persisted in the mores of American culture. This meant that white pride and ambition would not allow it to mingle with the blacks. Tocqueville saw evidence for this proposition in the intensity with which colour prejudice persisted in the North where slavery had been abolished. There black political and civil rights existed but could not be exercised owing to the strength of public animosity. The persistence of this prejudice came to a head with the issue of abolition. For Tocqueville, the persistence of this institution was no longer based on economic grounds. Observers had long agreed that slavery with its repugnance for the value of work was an inhibition on prosperity. Certainly the Southern economy was more dependent on slavery and would not find it easy to adjust to its abolition. However, the main issue was the existence of a very large minority population that once liberated would be rebellious element no longer tolerating its dehumanisation. Tocqueville contemplates a number of scenarios. His basic proposition is that the strength of race prejudice was such that the two populations were unlikely to mingle. In the South the whites possessed all the land and resources. A free Negro population would not accept this dispensation forever. Immigration schemes to return blacks to Africa were already in existence but these could never even meet the rate of natural increase of the black population in the South. He also believed that abolition would increase repugnance of the black population amongst the Southern whites. Contemplating the future he views race conflict as very likely. Either the whites in North and South would stand in unity to defeat the Negro rebellion or the whites might even be defeated in the South. In any case, he believed that great misfortune could not be avoided. Either masters or slaves would finally abolish slavery but not without great ensuing misery. In this respect it is interesting to note that the impetus for emancipation to the extent realised today comes from the quarter least expected in Tocqueville’s general diagnosis of democracy. In his general analysis, the local is the bastion of freedom against the homogenising demands of the centralised state. However, in the dynamics of the American civil war, the demands for civil freedom finally gravitated to the central government whereas the southern states came to the defence of slavery and inequality.

5. The foregoing analysis of the race question in early 19th century America anticipates Tocqueville’s views on European colonialism. As mentioned, he became the Foreign minister for a short time after the 1848 revolution. However, even before this time he wrote articles on the question of slavery and French colonial policy. His views on this question, like his views on slavery and the indigenous peoples in America, was conditioned by a theory of historical progress that hierarchised civilisations on the basis of societal achievements. When discussing the rational of contemporary slavery he makes it clear that while this inhuman institution is doomed, the great nations of Europe are now engaged in a struggle on the world stage. Any country that aspires to greatest and desires to play a role in the great theatre of human affairs must be prepared to support colonies even if this sometimes requires policies that temporarily compromise indigenous rights. Interestingly, in a further justification of a colonial policy, he argues that the growing importance of the working class in the European nations means that industrial crisis can quickly escalate to political crisis. With this in mind, European nations do well to protect the stability of the external markets by trading with colonies with which commercial relations are less likely to be subject to sudden variations. Clearly behind these political considerations both internal and international is the affirmation of the ethnocentrism of the West and its unquestioned cultural superiority. This was associated with Christianity and its concern for liberty, individual worth and individual conscience. While it is already clear that Tocqueville did not seek a biological foundation for this cultural superiority, he nonetheless thought its legitimated a version of the “white man’s burden” in bringing these cultural goods to other parts of the world and a sense of inevitability about European colonialism. While aware of the greed and hypocrisy that was always associated with these ventures and counseling fair and humane concern for native populations, Tocqueville never doubted the cultural superiority that justified the colonial enterprise as a whole.

6. Let’s now return to Tocqueville’s general analysis of democracy with a more critical eye. I earlier mentioned positively the vagueness of his definition of democracy. Conceived as a way of life it becomes possible to understand democracy in a more comprehensive way as multi-dimensional social condition with a vast array of social and political potentials. However, the deficiency in this reading is that it does not discriminate between separable components and their logics. It treats bourgeois capitalism and democracy as a totality without attempting to distinguish these aspects of modernity and align them with the excesses indicated in his general diagnosis of democracy. Why did Tocqueville fashion his image of modernity under the signature of democracy alone? The answer is buried in the historical context. His early thought is pre-occupied with pre-industrial model of society. America was in the main a rural, dynamic but stable middle class society. This was especially relevant in the French context where an independent peasantry had been greatly augmented by the ex-appropriations of the revolution. This had created a vast class of independent, small holding property owners. This was a non-revolutionary estate whose economic ethos was quite compatible with the 19th century bourgeois. On this basis Tocqueville initially envisaged the possibility of a great historical convergence of democracy and capitalism. Yet this model was both backward looking and overly optimistic. It presupposed an exclusively middle class, mainly agrarian, society where the main great historical causes of inequality and poverty were no longer evident. However, the sources of inequality have not disappeared from the modern world. In fact, we live amidst increasingly complex social world where general formal political and legal equality co-exists with steep hierarchies of privilege and power.

7. In general, Tocqueville’s ideas on economics are wholly conventional. He is more interested in economic psychology: hedonism. His account of economic evolution is betrayed by his aristocratic bias: he stresses increased physical gratification and the creation of new needs, not technology or the organisation of new production. On this basis, he suggests that economic crisis is not accidental to democracy but the product of an inflamed thirst for well-being. The universalisation of this hedonist man portends a flat monotony of everything being subordinated to the quest for individual accumulation and well-being. Tocqueville misses the role of productivity and innovation as decisive social mechanisms and goals and therefore misses the supra-individual logic of capitalism and industrialisation. His initial hope for an unproblematic convergence between democracy and capitalism was based on the minimisation of those aspects of the former that threatened his vision of a moderate, stable egalitarian democracy.

8. Late in Vol 2 he notices some of the emerging tensions. Visiting industrial cities he noted the new grinding extreme, division of labour, industrial fortunes, increasing role of government. On a trip to England in the 1830’s he visited Manchester and writes in his notebook:

“ From the foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilise the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish; here civilisation works its miracles and civilised man is turned back into a savage” (Journeys to England and Ireland Ed J P Mayer, pp107-108)

This polarisation of wealth and poverty with all its dehumanisation contradicts his equality thesis. Industrialisation also facilitates centralisation of power and increasing dependency on the state. But he views the industrial city as an exception and does not completely comprehend the coming real impact of the urban industrial economy.

Lecture 6: Tocqueville (cont) The French Revolution, the Aristocratic Concept of Freedom and the Tensions Witthin Democracy

--> 4. We must now see how he comes to this view by examining his account of the historical transition to modernity. Contemporary society sees a struggle between two ideals (aristocracy/democracy) and two political tendencies (centralisation/ revolution). The feudal world collapses under the impact centralisation and social revolution. Since the revolution, France has been unable to choose effectively between the democracy (the destined future) and aristocracy (the irretrievable past).

5. The French Revolution is the product of a long process of the decay of the nobility. They were the bulwark of a decentred, regional and heterogeneous regime. But the nobility had gradually forfeited its political functionality and power. The monarch divided in order to rule and created a growing state bureaucracy to displace the nobility and centralise power. This was accompanied be economic changes that undermined the strategic economic resources of the nobility. This economic/politico dynamism along with the accompanying questioning of tradition undermines the old order. Tocqueville views this transfomation as an expression of a deep-seated human aspiration to freedom and equality. He accepts the political economist’s view of history as evolutionary progress but rejects historical necessity and the idea of unilinear progress without losses. This is all part of his resistance to modern attempts to subordinate politics to science. The political domain is interminably ambiguous and weighted down by historical and cultural burdens. It cannot be liberated from this past and made transparent. This is a domain not for science but for prudent action and Tocqueville views his task as to revive the modern taste for the political. Yet, unlike Marx who will directly attach his theory to the proletariat and its interest, he is not aligned with the demos, nor does he view it as his task to educate the people. He sees his own virtue as one of non-alignment and neutrality in the struggle between democracy and aristocracy. This independence allows him to offer a discourse on cultural beliefs and values that may convince the old elites of the necessities of the modern age while restraining the people and the potential excesses of democracy.

6. Tocqueville admires important aspects of the aristocratic world built on privilege and inequality. This is a world of quality ultimately founded in birth. The populace is of no account and the masses are simply sacrificed to the individual. This is a society of social hierarchy where castes live in different worlds. These reflect collective identities and a society of decentralised intermediate power. This power is based not on economic but political control; the whole social structure is unified by traditional reciprocal duties and bonds. This interwoven but diffuse power sustains local freedom, identity and distinctiveness.

7. This aristocratic personality is independent, ambitious and aloof. Identity is secure and detached from materialism and concerned for continuity, for the past and future. These aristocratic qualities colour Tocqueville’s concept of freedom. While a liberal and strong advocate of private property as the basis for individual independence, he has nothing but contempt for the modern bourgeois notion of freedom reduced to acquisition of wealth and free trade. Public life shrinks before selfishness and preoccupation with private life. The result is atomisation and not being able to count on others. Tocqueville links freedom with virtue and choosing the common good. Aristocratic freedom signifies a sense of moral mastery: controlling the self and the estate, and participating in a way of life. This provides purpose and a sense of membership in a community. Such patrician participation promotes self-confidence, a sense of self-reliance and community responsibility. This is the legacy that the aristocracy passed on to the modern world. In Tocqueville’s idealised analysis, the concept of aristocracy is still ambiguous, serving multiple functions. Firstly, this is a fallen class that was politically deficient and now as a social force effectively obsolete. However, it is also an evaluative category that serves as a reference point conveying the awesome dynamism of the modern world. It reminds us of the price paid for modern revolution and provides a measure of the excesses that need to be combated. The aristocrat may be politically dead but it is hermeneutically alive as an ideal of noble character and public virtue.

8. Tocqueville’s concept of democracy is not clearly fixed as it would if it were primarily bound to specific constitutional forms. This is a multivalent concept and he wants to exploit the ambiguity in its meaning. This is necessary because the French audience he is most interested in reaching brings a whole range of prejudices and prejudgements to the issue of democracy. In Tocqueville’s writings democracy can connote: political equality, majority rule, no fixed estates, social homogenisation, uniformity of life experience and motivations, predominance of economic motives and materialism, oppressive public opinion, stability and even ossification. Each has its own value accent and this leads to ambiguities. Democracy is a living well--defined primarily in egalitarian and materialistic terms. But the key meaning is the equalisation of condition. This refers to an expectation that in the future I may be as rich as you. In the increasingly commercial world prosperity is contingent and the individual’s fate is mobile. Equality is the guiding social ideal of democracy and this equality induces the desire for more equality and dissatisfactions with the slightest differences. But this is also a metaphor for a new kind of power; that of the quantitative and the mass who will no longer tolerate exclusion. The explosive force of the slogan of equality is that nobody should be excluded and even further that the political should provide the means of redressing the inequalities and evils that were previously viewed as natural and irredeemable. Democracy eliminates privileges and immunities. This is a society of equal membership, where neither status nor tradition counts. The justification for the system is the will of the people defined as the majority. To express the needs of this majority, which is always fluctuating, politics must also be dynamic and mobile, reacting to, and expressing the needs of the people. Obviously this also entails discontinuity in policy. The public not only cannot be safely neglected but they are also fickle and therefore must be feted, flattered and manipulated. This leads to favours, mediocrity and corruption in the competition for office and the rejection of those with uncompromising leadership qualities. This power of the people can also lead, as already anticipated to the “tyranny of the majority”. The quantitative mass of shared beliefs, opinions and values constitutes a social, moral or political pressure that can weigh down on individuals and minorities leaving them with little or no relief or protection. For Tocqueville, the most benign dimension of the desire for equality is in the domain of the economic but it endangers liberty when it plays too large a role in the domain of the political and the cultural. With his emphasis on the oppressive and conformist potential of cultural equality Tocqueville anticipates some of the key ideas of the Frankfurt School and their concept of the culture industry.

9. Coupled to this idea of majority pressure is the associated key idea: centralisation. Equality means the elimination of all intermediate power. The collective power of the equally atomised individuals is channelled into the central and potentially absolute power of the state. With the demise of aristocracy, government assumes its former tasks but this involves an increasing volume and spectrum of administrative business. With this idea of the creeping encroachment of the state and its increased concern with citizen’s material welfare, Tocqueville anticipates Weber. The increased administrative load requires more bureaucracy. However, this increasing bureaucratic power can neither be arbitrary or traditional but must be based on equality of access. This means that the new ubiquitous and centralised will be fully regulated, rational and impersonal. Against such a centralised and all-powerful state without mediating intermediate powers, the individual is atomised and impotent, dwarfed and increasingly administered more as a client rather than as an active citizen.

10. Democracy also engenders a new form of individuality. Loss of caste and tradition leads to the breakdown of community. This compounds bourgeois individualism and self-interest. The bourgeois individual as an economic actor thinks neither of ancestors or distant successors. This lost sense of temporal continuity is also augmented by the social dimension of a loss of community as they live as strangers to their contemporaries. Without intermediate powers, tradition and the religious community, without the previous strong social bands, the individual is formed by deeply ambiguous tendencies. On the one hand, they gain an unprecedented importance: they are the only solid point in an increasingly dynamic universe. This requires resilience, resourcefulness and independence. On the other, the concrete outcome is very often an increasing atomisation and powerlessness of the individual. The weight of the mass increases government power while the individual becomes insignificant. The dangers are diminished community and social solidarity, increasing importance of bourgeois competition and focus on private interest. Traditional ties directed the individual outwards. Their breakdown leads to privatisation. This tendency is intensified by the erosion of religious community, which we have seen, Tocqueville views as a social cement and moral insurance directing the individual towards community and the future.

PHIL 2033 Essay Questions

Word Limit: Chose one question (2,000) words

DUE DATE: Mon 16th May
 Late essays will be accepted up to 30^th May without excuse, but marks will be deducted. Essays will only be accepted after 30^th May if a satisfactory excuse is submitted. The only satisfactory excuses are illness or misadventure. Pressure of other work, or computer equipment failure, does not normally count as misadventure: For further information contact course giver by email (John.Grumley@sydney.edu.au) All essays must be submitted through the Turnitin system.

NOTE: Secondary reading is not intended to be comprehensive list nor is it a substitute for primary reading but to orientate your reading of the primary texts. Students should focus on these texts. However, remember all sources must be correctly footnoted and included in bibliographies.

Questions

1. Hegel views a modern society as too “unruly” for direct democracy while Tocqueville fears its looming “homogeneity”? Account for these different views. Which view best explains the features of contemporary modernity and why?

 
Reading
Tocqueville, A de. Democracy in America Vol1&2, Vintage, New York, 1946
Hegel, G F W. 'Civil Society' and 'State' from Elements of the Philosophy of Right Cambridge University Press 1991, pp220-358
Hegel, G F W. 'Absolute Freedom and Terror' Phenomenology of Spirit (trans A V Miller), Oxford Uni Press, 1977, pp355-364

Hardimon, M O. Hegel’s Social Philosophy Cambridge University Press, 1994
Weil, E. Hegel and the State John Hopkins University Press, 1998
Avineri, S. Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State Cambridge University Press, 1972
Franco, P. Hegel’s Philosophy of Freedom Yale University Press, 1999

Pippin, R. B Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life Cambridge University Press, 2008, Part 3
Westphal, M. Hegel Freedom and Modernity State University of New York Press, 1992
Taylor, C. Hegel and Modern Society Cambridge University Press, 1979
Stewart, J.(Ed) The Hegel Myths and Legends Northwestern University Press, 1996 Part 2
Cullen, B. Hegel's Social and Political Thought: An Introduction Gill and Macmillan, 1979, Chapters 5&6
Kelly, G. A. Hegel's Retreat from Eleusis Princeton University Press, 1978, Chapters 4&5
Benhabib, S. Critique, Norm, Utopia Columbia University Press,
New York, 1986, Chapter 3
Smith, B. S. Hegel 's Critique of Liberalism Chicago University, 1989, Chapter 5
Lamberti, J. C. Tocqueville and the Two Democracies Harvard University Press, 1989
Zetterbaum, M. Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy Stanford Uni Press, 1967
Dallmayr, F. G W F Hegel: Modernity and Politics Sage, 1993, Chapters 3,5
Mitchell, J. The Fragility of Freedom Chicago University Press, 1995 Chapters, 3, 4, 5
Manent, P. Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy Rowman & Littlefield, 1996
Mitchell, H. America After Tocqueville Cambridge University Press, 2002
Wolin, S. Tocqueville: Between Two Worlds Princeton University Press, 2001Part 2, 3, 4
Lawler, P. The Restless Mind: Tocqueville on the Origin and Perpetuation of Human Liberty Rowan & Littlefield, 1993, Chs 1, 4, 7, 9

2. How do Hegel and Nietzsche see the role of the individual in the modern world? Who do you think has the most adequate account and why?

Reading
Hegel, G. W. F. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction (Trans H B Nisbet) Cambridge University Press, 1975
Nietzsche, F. 'On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life' Untimely Mediations Cambridge University Press, 1983

Plant, R. Hegel Allen & Unwin, London, 1973, Chapter3
O'Brien, G. D. Hegel on Reason and History University of Chicago Press, 1975

Pippin, R. B Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life Cambridge University Press, 2008, Part 3
Wilkins, B. T. Hegel 's Philosophy of History Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1974
Gillespie, M. A. Hegel, Heidegger and the Ground of History University of Chicago Press, 1984
Löwith, K. From Hegel to Nietzsche Constable, London, 1964, pp31-53
Löwith, K. Meaning in History University of Chicago Press, 1949, Chapter3 and Appendix
Ackermann, R. J. Nietzsche: A Frenzied Look Massachusetts University Press, 1990, Chapter 4
Statten, H. Nietzsche’s Voice Cornell University Press, 1990, Chapter 7
Jaspers, K. Nietzsche Regnery/Gateway, 1965, Chapter 3
Love, N. Marx, Nietzsche and Modernity Columbia University Press, 1986, Chapters1-3
Kaufmann, W. Nietzsche Vintage, New York, 1968 Part Two Chapter 4

3. After the fall of communism in the late 20^th century some critics thought Hegel was the true prophet of modernity. From a contemporary perspective, has Hegel’s defence of modern civil society rendered obsolete Marx’s critique of it? Evaluate the views of both.

Reading
Hegel, G F W. 'Civil Society' and 'State' Elements of the Philosophy of Right Cambridge University Press 1991, pp220-274
Marx K, 'On the Jewish Question',
‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon' a
'The Civil War in France' in Marx/Engels Reader (Ed) R Tucker, Norton, New York, 1972

Fukuyama, F. The End of History and the Last Man Hamish Hamilton, London, 1992
Márkus G, 'Hegel and the Antinomies of Modernity' Antipodean Enlightenments; Festschrift Für Leslie Bodi, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 1987

Pippin, R. B Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life Cambridge University Press, 2008, Part 3
Brod, H. Hegel’s Philosophy of Politics Westview Press 1992
Patten, A. Hegel’s Idea of Freedom Oxford University Press, 1999
Steinberger, P.J. Logic and Politics: Hegel’s Philosophy of Right Yale University Press, 1988, Chapter 1, 7
Plant, R. Hegel Allen&Unwin, 1973
Hardimon, M O. Hegel’s Social Philosophy Cambridge University Press, 1994
Avineri, S. Hegel's Theory of the Modern State Cambridge Uni Press, 1972
Westphal, M. Hegel Freedom and Modernity State University of New York Press, 1992
Avineri, S. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx Cambridge University Press, 1968
Bradbury, D. Marx’s Attempt to Leave Philosophy Harvard Uni Press, 1998
Hunt, R. The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels  Vol 1, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974
Pelczynski. Z A. The State and Civil Society Cambridge University Press, 1984, Chapters 4,6
Avineri S, (Ed) Marx's Socialism Artherton, New York, 1973 Ch 6, 7
Fehér F, 'The French Revolution as Models for Marx's Conception of Politics' Thesis Eleven 8; Clayton Victoria, 1984
Aron R, Main Currents in Sociological Thought 1 Penguin, 1965 Chapter 2

4. Both de Tocqueville and Nietzsche give priority to the value of freedom. What is the difference between their views on this question? Who has the most plausible view and why?

Reading
Tocqueville, A de. Democracy in America Vol 2, Vintage, New York, 1946
Nietzsche, F. Human, All Too Human University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1984, Chapters 6&7
Nietzsche, F. The Genealogy of Morals Anchor, New York, 1956
Nietzsche, F. Beyond Good and Evil Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, Parts 5&8

Lively, J. The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville Oxford, 1962
Boesche, R. The Strange Liberalism of Alex de Tocqueville Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1987
Zeitlin, I. Liberty, Equality and Revolution in Alexis de Tocqueville Boston, 1971
Zetterbaum, M. Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy Stanford University Press, 1967
Mitchell, J. The Fragility of Freedom Chicago University Press, 1995 Chapters, 3, 4, 5
Mitchell, H. America After Tocqueville Cambridge University Press, 2002
Kahan, A. Aristocratic Liberalism Oxford University Press, 1992
Detwiler, B. Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism University of Chicago Press, 1990 Chapters 5,8
Hamacher, W. “Disintegration of the Will”: Nietzsche on the Individual and Individuality in Harold Bloom (Ed) Friedrich Nietzsche Chelsea House, New York 1987
Ackermann, J R. Nietzsche: A Frenzied Look Massachusetts University Press, 1990, Chapter 7
Warren, M. Nietzsche and Political Thought M I T, 1988, Ch7
Love, N. Marx, Nietzsche and Modernity Columbia University Press, New York, Chapter 5

5. Bourgeois individualism is forcefully critiqued by both Marx and Nietzsche. Compare and contrast these critiques. Can the bourgeois individual still be defended?

Reading
Marx, K. Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844 Progress Publishers, London (many editions)
Marx, K. Communist Manifesto Progress, London
Nietzsche, F. Human, All Too Human University of Nebraska Press, 1984 Chapters1, 4,6,9
Nietzsche, F. Beyond Good and Evil Penguin, London, 1974, Parts 2,5,9
Nietzsche, F. The Will To Power Vintage, New York, pp85- 215

Love, N. Marx, Nietzsche and Modernity Columbia University Press, 1986, Chapters 1,2,5
Simmel, G. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1986 Chapters 7,8
Detwiler, B. Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism University of Chicago, 1990 chapter 5,8
Thiele, L P. Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul Princeton University Press, 1990
Berkowitz, P. Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist Harvard University Press, 1995, chapter 6, 7
Hamacher, W “’Disgregation of the Will’: Nietzsche on the Individual and Individuality” Friedrich Nietzsche (Ed) Harold Bloom, New York, 1987
Duncan, G. Marx and Mill Cambridge Uni Press, 1973 Part 2
Márkus, G. Marxism and Anthropology Van Gorcum, Assen, 1978
Schaff, A. Marxism and the Human Individual McGraw Hill, 1970, Chapters2, 3
Forbes, I. Marx and the New Individual Unwin Hyman, London, 1990
Avineri, S. (Ed) Marx's Socialism Atherton, New York, 1976, Chapter 6
Fetscher, I. Marx and Marxism Herder & Herder, London, 1971, Chapters 2,3,4
West, C. The Ethical Dimension of Marxist Thought Monthly Review Press, 1991

Leopold, D The Young Karl Marx: German Philosophy, Modern Politics and Human Flourishing Cambridge University Press, 2007, Ch 4

6. Robert Pippin maintains that "problem of modernity" is often conceived as a question of self-grounding. What does he mean? Compare the idea of self-grounding in any two thinkers (Hegel, Marx or Nietzsche)?

Reading

Marx, K. 'Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy as a Whole' Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Progress Publishers, London
'An Exchange of Letters' Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society (Ed) Easton& Guddatt, Doubleday Anchor, New York, pp203-216
Hegel, G F W. 'Preface" Phenomenology of Spirit Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977
Nietzsche, F. Twilight of the Idols Penguin (with the Antichrist ) Harmondsworth, 1968

Pippin, R. Modernity as a Philosophical Problem Blackwell, Oxford, 1991 Ch 1-4

Dudley, W. Hegel, Nietzsche and Philosophy Thinking Freedom Cambridge University Press, 2002, Chs 4, 8
Habermas, J. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity Polity, 1987, Ch 1-4
Heller, A. A Theory of Modernity Blackwell, 1999 Chapter 2
Bradbury, D. Marx’s Attempt to Leave Philosophy Harvard Uni Press, 1998
Breckman, W. M. The Young Hegelians and the Origins of Radical Social Theory Cambridge University Press, 1999
Mah, H. The End of Philosophy and the Origin of Modernity University of California Press, 1987 Parts 1,4

Jurist, E.L Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency MIT, 2000, chs 1,2
Kolb, D. The Critique of Pure Modernity University of Chicago Press, 1986
Rundell, J F. The Origins of Modernity Polity, 1987, 2-6
Löwith, K. From Hegel To Nietzsche Constable, London, 1964
Benhabib, S. Critique, Norm, Utopia Columbia University Press, New York, 1986, Part 1
Owen, D. Maturity and Modernity: Nietzsche, Weber, Foucault and the Ambivalence of Reason; Routledge, 1994, Chapters 1-4

Lecture 4: Hegel (cont) Theoretical Tensons & Lecture 5: Tocqueville Putting Democracy in the Center

 11. Thus the task of social integration in the modern world involves all spheres of modern society. Hegel’s is the first great attempt to unify both liberal and republican paradigms. He recognises the importance of both private and public autonomy and his model attempts to synthesis these two in a complex, mediated understanding of socio-political organization.

12. A real tension exists between the idea of the end of history as the realisation of reason and freedom and the fact that Hegel views the state as the final bearer of these ideas in the domain of Objective spirit. Afterall, we live in a globalised world and the limitations of the nation state are now readily apparent. While the idea of cosmopolitanism is common amongst late 18th century thinkers like Kant, it does not survive the post-Napoleonic world. Hegel characterises the natural state in the domain of international relations as one where the individual subject suffers from the particularity of all such subjects: relations between states are governed by treaties alone. But the observance of these treatises is simply an obligation that can call on no higher universal will, only the will of the particular states themselves. As the relations between states are extensive, the opportunities for injury are many and their determination is just as arbitrary. This means the arena of international relations is like Hobbes’ state of nature where there are many sources of disagreement and conflicts. These can ultimately only by resolved by power and war. That Hegel looks upon this chaos with so much apparent resignation may seem strange, given his general description of modern as an era of rationality and freedom. Several remarks are relevant here. Firstly, he does not share our modern distaste for war. He lived in the last epoch before technological advances introduced mass slaughter to the battlefield and brought total war even to non-combatants. He could still view war as an energising and unifying force that consolidated national feeling and allowed the bourgeois individual to see something higher and more noble than his own self-interest. However, more than these empirical considerations, he has deep philosophical reasons for a reconciliation with Realpolitik. He rejects the traditional philosophical task of providing normative values. Values that cannot specific their own conditions for realisation are merely utopian. A philosophy that chooses immanence over utopianism must constrain itself to norms that exist as a rational power within the present. For the post-Napoleonic Hegel, the nation-state is the contemporary bearer of the rational mission in contemporary history and he contends that philosophy has no legitimate role beyond the study of immanent reason.

13. In view of Hegel’s affirmation of modern freedom and subjectivity it may seem surprising that he rejected democracy. This rejection rests on two points. 1/ Functional differentiation and complexity of modern society. The business of government is often a complex matter requiring education, expertise and impartiality. The aristocracy and the bureaucracy are the most qualified to overseer and direct these affairs. 2/ The irrationality of atomised citizens. Civil society is a collection of antagonistic and potentially explosive interest conflicts. While he affirms modern freedom, he still views it as an obstacle to full political participation. This introduces a moment of ambiguity into his support for modernity. He favours political elites to uphold the highest universal interests against the unruly dialectics of real civil freedom.

14. This is not just an empirical question concerning the contemporary viability of democracy. These doubts are conceptually inscribed in his understanding of spirit. In this paradigm the individual plays a dual role: as both a particular and as an expression of spiritual universality. No institutional expression of spirit is wholly irrational: all have a relative historical right. This brings us to the limits of Hegel’s embrace of modernity. He sets out to ground and make modernity meaningful after the collapse of tradition. This means somehow reconciling rationality with modern contingency. For Hegel, this reconciliation is effected through the concept of spirit. However, because spirit is essentially rational, the moment of modern contingency is compromised from the start, it is never treated on equal terms: it is either the finite accidentality of mere existence that is without philosophical significance or it must be raised by it own immanent essence to the full status of rationality. As a result, the conceptual vehicle that is supposed to signify the realisation of freedom and reason—spirit-- becomes both unbelievable and overpowering. It threatens to submerge the real fragile, empirical freedom and rationality of contemporary citizens. 

Lecture 5: Tocqueville Alexis de (1803-1858)


1. Although Hegel celebrates modernity as the realisation of reason and freedom, he is concerned about the potential for increased social atomisation and rejects democracy. Tocqueville, by contrast, will make modern democracy both the centrepiece and focus of his analysis. J.S. Mill said that Tocqueville’s book was the first philosophical account of democracy in the Modern world: the first attempt to explore the political commitment of the many. For him, democracy is much more than a constitutional commitment or a set of political institutions: it is a way of life. He wants to understand the world historical significance of democracy. In America, he sees much more than America, he sought the image of democracy itself, it tendencies, character, prejudices and passions, what could be hoped from it and what feared. By focusing on real democratic socialisation he hopes to follow the logic of democracy to its limits. America becomes the paradigm for the future, especially the future of Europe. This strategy is not the product of his desire to embrace democracy. This would be difficult for a man with his aristocratic credentials and life history; however, he feels the need to come to terms with it.  Democracy is the new social force in the modern world; it has an almost irresistible power and necessity that issued from the power of numbers. As he says, he examines America not out of mere curiosity but seeking instruction from which Europe might profit.    Biography. Aristocratic past, career aspirations, trip to America, Vol 1, Beaumont’s Marie, political career, Vol 2, trips to England and Ireland 1848, foreign minister, Napoleon III’s Coup, the Ancien Regime, Tocqueville is dogged by a sense of estrangement and ambivalence. He is at home neither in the present nor past. He is between worlds and he views his role as that of a neutral mediator. Democracy in America Vol 1(1835), Vol 2(1840), The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution (1856).

2 As with Hegel, the French Revolution is the pivotal event of modern history. It represents the acceleration of long historical processes and the beginnings of a new type of society. His question is: when will the revolution end? But he is not sure that it will at all; that is the unprecedented character of the modern democratic revolution. He suggests: “the past no longer illuminates the future and the mind proceeds as amongst shadows”; his contemporaries are on a voyage and he is not sure how long it will last or whether their destiny is not to sail the sea eternally. What attracts him in America is the possibility to distinguish between revolution and democracy. That is why America becomes paradigmatic for the future. America has produced a democratic society without revolution that demonstrates the political potential of the people. In the New World, the puritans had before them an apparent tabula rasa and democracy issued not from revolution or legislators but from the political habits, ideas and character of the people. This is why he will emphasise the question of political culture or what Hegel might has called “disposition”. He is especially interested in the practices and institutions that moderate the worst excesses and potentials of majoritarian democracy. This is also why his portrait of American democracy will tend to homogenise its variety with the New England township taking pride of place. The township is large enough to encourage individuals to think more comprehensively than in terms of self and family while it is still small enough to encourage affection and personal identification. Furthermore, in the New England case, there was a long history of religious community. For Tocqueville, religion in America served as a sort of cultural cement that holds a community together and legitimates morality. In America, contrary to the European experience, the separation of Church and State was envisaged as a way of protecting religion for state power, allowed religion to develop freely in voluntary religious communities, to hold on to the heart of the population and to be a source of social integration and stakeholder interest.

3. The French Revolution had exposed the internal dialectic of democracy between emancipation and 0ppression. The revolution broke the old political hegemony of aristocratic-church power and emancipated the masses as a political force. But, at the same time, it eliminates all intermediate social powers leaving the centralised state at the behest of this unprecedented new power. The new power was easily transformed into an instrument of terror, of oppression of the minority by the majority. Tocqueville’s highest value is freedom. However, he comes to view the chief tendencies of modernising process to be equally threats to freedom: these tendencies are increasingly powerful central government and social homogenisation; thus the crucial question becomes: is an egalitarian democratic society possible without relinquishing liberty? While modern democracy emancipates the people as a new class of political actors and facilitates real political engagement and participation, shared beliefs, values and interests amongst this new politicised mass can operate oppressively as an irresistible social and moral force. The oppressive potential of this mass force is only enhanced by its access to the central power of the state. The state can be either reduced to an instrument of this despotic power or the holder of this power may manipulatively harness this mass force. Either way Tocqueville turns the traditional problem of freedom on its head. Whereas the previous liberal tradition had viewed the state as the great threat to individual liberty, in this new democratic scenario the possibility emerges that society itself could be just as much or even a more dangerous threat than the state. But these potential are initially not at the forefront of Tocqueville’s thinking. Fresh from America in the early 1830’s, the question of compatibility between democracy and freedom is answered positively, underlining the way in which its most dangerous potentials of majoritarian democracy were moderated in the American case by certain historical, strategic, institutional and cultural safeguards. However, the second later more philosophical volume explores more deeply into the darker potentials of democratic power.