Alexis de Tocqueville: Weaknesses of Democracy
Alexis de Tocqueville: Weaknesses of Democracy
Most of the researches consider publications of Alexis de Tocqueville as longsighted and even prophetic. That actualizes the issues which Tocqueville investigates in his publications and books. For instance, Tocqueville in his “Democracy in America” foresees the future confrontation of Russia and United States. The reason for that is two different perception of life – for Americans the motive is a freedom, for Russians - service.
Another significant problem which Tocqueville analyzed in his “Democracy in America” is the weaknesses of democracy and the relations between equality and liberty, which is the issue of continuing relevance.
According to Tocqueville one the main weaknesses is the individualism, which democracy brings to birth. Tocqueville writes that this feeling instigates every person “to distance their self from the crowd and to separate their family and friends in small society”. The main goal of such society is satisfying its own needs. It should be mentioned that such “phenomenon” is naturally determined because of instability and anxiety of democratic times when you always can win and lost. Thus, Tocqueville writes “the poor conceive an eager desire to acquire comfort, and the rich think of the danger of losing it…”. Yet, individualism and materialism are not the main difficulties in the democratic society. They lead to even more dangerous consequence - greater concentration of power by administration. Since people prefer to build and to care about their own “small society”, a “big society” makes significant policy decision by itself. It should be mentioned that this problem is still actual even for modern democratic societies. For instance, there is a widespread phenomenon of absenteeism in western developed countries. Therefore, citizens are interested only in those political, economical, cultural or social issues which directly influence their own “small society”.
Another serious weakness of
Most of the researches consider publications of Alexis de Tocqueville as longsighted and even prophetic. That actualizes the issues which Tocqueville investigates in his publications and books. For instance, Tocqueville in his “Democracy in America” foresees the future confrontation of Russia and United States. The reason for that is two different perception of life – for Americans the motive is a freedom, for Russians - service.
Another significant problem which Tocqueville analyzed in his “Democracy in America” is the weaknesses of democracy and the relations between equality and liberty, which is the issue of continuing relevance.
According to Tocqueville one the main weaknesses is the individualism, which democracy brings to birth. Tocqueville writes that this feeling instigates every person “to distance their self from the crowd and to separate their family and friends in small society”. The main goal of such society is satisfying its own needs. It should be mentioned that such “phenomenon” is naturally determined because of instability and anxiety of democratic times when you always can win and lost. Thus, Tocqueville writes “the poor conceive an eager desire to acquire comfort, and the rich think of the danger of losing it…”. Yet, individualism and materialism are not the main difficulties in the democratic society. They lead to even more dangerous consequence - greater concentration of power by administration. Since people prefer to build and to care about their own “small society”, a “big society” makes significant policy decision by itself. It should be mentioned that this problem is still actual even for modern democratic societies. For instance, there is a widespread phenomenon of absenteeism in western developed countries. Therefore, citizens are interested only in those political, economical, cultural or social issues which directly influence their own “small society”.
Another serious weakness of