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April 25, 2013

"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, "

which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate.

That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Tocqueville: Book I Chapter 1

Posted by gerardvanderleun at April 25, 2013 10:00 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

This paragraph from Tocqueville is scary in its prescience.

Has American democracy always been this vulnerable, with the leviathan looming so close? How did he so clearly see our circumstances?

As others would say, "Read the whole thing."

Posted by: Chipper at April 26, 2013 11:54 AM

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