Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Richard Swedberg’s very interesting and comprehensive book Tocqueville’s Political Economy (2007) focuses on de Tocqueville’s thinking regarding the economy and economics, trough readings of his two major books and many of his other writings. At the center of Democracy in America, Tocqueville produced a magnificent analysis of the emerging entrepreneurial economy that he found during his 1831-32 visit to the United States. It is good that they see the danger and restrain themselves.” (de Tocqueville 2007: 957-8) Such is the fatal circle into which democratic nations are pushed. This taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that everything is only matter and materialism, in turn, finally carries them with an insane fervor toward these same enjoyments.

Materialism is, among all nations, a dangerous sickness of the human mind but it must be particularly feared among a democratic people, because it combines marvelously with the vice of the heart most familiar to these people.ĭemocracy favors the taste for material enjoyments. “ While man takes pleasure in this honest and legitimate pursuit of well-being, it is to be feared that in the end he may lose the use of his most sublime faculties, and that by wanting to improve everything around him, he may in the end degrade himself. This four-volume book is brimming with insights and sharp observations. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859) was a notable French political scientist and historian, best known for Democracy in America - a perceptive and groundbreaking analysis of the social, political and economic system of the United States.

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville