Compare And Contrast Rousseau And Tocqueville

Tocqueville, on the other hand, believes that, in practice, the majority is a tyrannical force “whose opinions, and frequently whose interest are opposed to those of another individual who is called a minority”. This is due to the fact that “the majority possesses a power that is physical and moral at the same time, which acts upon the will as much as upon the actions and represses not only all contest, but all controversy.” In other words, their power goes effectively unquestioned, and the minority is left to be oppressed by the majority. The aforementioned physical force is what prevents a wronged minority from going to the government for aid. This political monopoly exists because the majority controls any body whom the minority might attempt
For the issue of factions, he proposes that there be a clear declaration within the society against factions as a condition for entry. To counter the corruption of individual wills, he proposes the introduction of a Legislator who can make the public see what they want and “conform their wills to their reason” This legislator must be “in all respects an extraordinary man in the State” who can protect the people’s right to a say in the legislature and participation in the legislative process. This is only achievable by being separate from the rest of the civil society and therefore not, himself, corruptible. By being such, he guards the people from their becoming subject to the short-sighted, impulsive goals, or from creating factions within society. This is not, however, to say that he holds all the power. Only the general will can bind humanity and therefore for the majority must approve all of his decrees through legislative process as one “can never be sure that a particular will conformable to the general will until it has been submitted to the free votes of the people” In the end, Rousseau holds that majority rule is a very realistic possibility, given the right provisions of a ban on factions and of a legislator. As the majority’s will is the best available approximation of the general will, once a decision has
He enumerates several conditions by which the government could be remedied including the following: the decentralization of government; the decentralization of the administration; the creation of non-political associations; and the imposition of religion. Only then “a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a proper share of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of the other two powers, a government would be formed which would still be democratic while incurring scarcely any risk of tyranny” Unlike Rousseau, Tocqueville has the advantage of having working with more than just a theoretical model of a society and, as such, his understanding of how realistically the majority rule could function differs significantly. He perceives the majority rule of the legislature less as a route for achieving the common good, but rather as a threat of tyranny both political and social; furthermore, and the solutions he offers to this condition are not only far more complex but would require an entire social