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How Is Tocqueville Relevant Today

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“I have tried to see not differently but further…”(Tocqueville, 1835) was Alexis de Tocqueville’s conclusion to the introduction of his perennial classic text Democracy in America, and adumbrates to the reader of his modern ideas and observations that were to follow. At the same time, he measures the progress of society through its relationship with equality and liberty. In this paper, I will highlight Tocqueville’s use of equality and liberty to compare the past and the modern, and establish his views on the effects of these concepts with society and each other. Finally, I will put forth that Tocqueville does not favour one concept over the other, but notes the complex relationship between the two and the importance of the co-existence of liberty and equality for a society of people. To begin, let us build the base case to compare with and look the past as defined by Tocqueville, with emphasis on equality and liberty. Although the past was not explicitly described as the focus was the modern, we can illustrate a picture of history by inference of the snippets that were offered. France, where Tocqueville was from, “seven hundred years ago… was divided up between a few families who owned the land and ruled the inhabitants… the right to give orders …show more content…

Of course, there would be freedom for those on the upper rungs of society who benefit from inequality. However, this small segment of the population does not represent the people. Without the base of equality, society would still exist in the past state of aristocracy, and the rights of the people would be surrendered to the limited few who concentrate most of the power. This much was clear to Tocqueville, who attributed the “middle-class and democratic freedom of which the world’s history had not previously provided”(34) to the absence of inequality found in America(33). However, this does not necessarily mean that equality guarantees

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