Alexis De Tocqueville: Democracy In America

The political and economic debate that never seems to end on our television, in print media, in our social media feed, has a very long history that dates back to the French Revolution and the English Industrial revolution, which gave us these new political and economic ideas which formed under liberal political party and conservative party of the time. We understand these parties or ideas as classical liberalism or classical conservatism. In “Democracy in America” P-376, Alexis De Tocqueville argues that “I am therefore led to conclude that the right of association is almost as inalienable as the right of personal liberty”, which means the right of citizen to associate with any political party or organization can’t be violated by any legislation without impairing the democratic values, ideas like these were revolutionary. Classical Liberals of the time was very much defined by the policy of free markets, Private Property rights, and civil liberties. Some of these classical liberals didn’t believe in economic liberty. During these earlier years of fermenting political ideas, these right was not universal. Even though the right was not for all, these policies were
French Revolution was such a radical and far-reaching event in history, it gave us a whole new set of political ideas. I don’t think the French revolutionary ideas were far reaching for the women, though. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a critical essay on French revolution titled “A vindication of the rights of Woman” p-367, “that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion” in which she argues that instead of seeing women as feeble sex, always needing of protection, Wollstonecraft writes that they are human beings deserving of the same basic rights as