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The age of revolution



Below is a pair of letters between Tocqueville and a political opponent, Victor Prosper Considerant, a utopian Socialist in the tradition of Charles Fourier.

Tocqueville was briefly Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Second French Republic under President Louis Napoleon, during which time these pre-Marxist Socialists, incensed by a military expedition in Italy authorized in secret (before Tocqueville joined the Ministry), attempted an insurrection.

Talk about tumultuous times. Tocqueville, a moderate prepared to serve under constitutional monarchy or republic, had already been elected to the French Assembly after the Orleans monarchy had been overthrown in 1848. This infant Republic had been menaced immediately by proletarian agitation that promised (and on a small-scale delivered) radical social upheaval. The assault on the institution of property united most of France against the Parisian workers, and the latter were defeated. But Socialism was just beginning its rise. As a movement to inspire men, its future was bright in a rapidly industrializing world.

A year later, now in the Cabinet as Foreign Minister, Tocqueville was faced with a new threat of political violence directed toward half-baked utopian schemes. His position was discomfited by folly of the Government he had only just signed on to, which had blundered into the Rome expedition under the pressure of domestic turmoil.

In his Recollections he writes that “It would be difficult to imagine a more critical moment in which to assume the direction of affairs. The Constituent Assembly, before ending its turbulent existence, had passed a resolution, on the 7th of June 1849, prohibiting the Government from attacking Rome. The first thing I learnt on entering the Cabinet was that the order to attack Rome had been sent to the army three days before. This flagrant disobedience of the injunctions of a sovereign Assembly, this war undertaken against a people in revolution, because of its revolution, and in defiance of the terms of the Constitution which commanded us to respect all foreign nationalities, made inevitable and brought nearer the conflict which we dreaded.”

To sit in a representative assembly, as a Cabinet minister in a Republic on the verge of flying to pieces, must have been an extraordinary experience. “The members arrived from every side, attracted less by the messages despatched to them, which most of them had not even received, than by the rumours prevalent in the town. The sitting was opened at two o'clock. The benches of the majority were well filled, but the top of the Mountain [the radicals] was deserted. The gloomy silence which reigned in this part of the House was more alarming than the shouts which came from that quarter as a rule. It was a proof that discussion had ceased, and that the civil war was about to commence.”

Presently the Assembly declared Paris in a state of siege. Martial law governed until the insurrection was put down. In these and subsequent events, Karl Marx would perceive great portents of the future; and pondering these he would coin one of his most famous sentences — the one about farce reprising tragedy in the course of historical events.

It was a formidable time to draw breath under heaven. Europe was in a state of peculiar flux. These were the formative years of revolutionary politics. The ancien regime was no more, but fallen kings and princes stood all about the peripheries of republican power, ready when the opportunity presented itself to take up the instruments of new modern totalizing nation-state. There would never again be mediaeval monarchs ruling by divine right; but there would be autocrats in abundance, ruling by right of lex talionis. Louis Napoleon would soon stage a coup and make himself emperor. Industry and political agitation were making new classes — the working classes at once debased and enthralled by the material benefits of industrial capitalism — first self-aware and then organized. Tocqueville would live to see only the earliest presages of these movements, which in time would shake the earth and form a considerable part of the story of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The letters below offer a very small but intriguing window into this remarkable age. We see the remnants of aristocratic duty, in the social bonds maintained between these men even through bitter political acrimony. We see the shocking rancor of the political quarrels: veiled threats even in personal correspondence, ready reference to political violence: all somewhat softened by a beguiling tradition of rhetoric. We see, in a word, one world dying and another being born.

My Dear Tocqueville,

(Here followed a request for a service which he asked me to do for him, and then he went on):

Rely upon me at all times for any personal service. You are good for two or three months perhaps, and the pure Whites [monarchists] who will follow you are good for six months at the longest. You will both of you, it is true, have well deserved what is infallibly bound to happen to you a little sooner or a little later. But let us talk no more politics and respect the very legal, very loyal, and very Odilon Barrotesque [Barrot was a monarchist tool of Louis Napoleon] state of siege."

+++

My Dear Considerant,

I have done what you ask. I do not wish to take advantage of so small a service, but I am very pleased to ascertain, by the way, that those odious oppressors of liberty, the Ministers, inspire their adversaries with so much confidence that the latter, after outlawing them, do not hesitate to apply to them to obtain what is just. This proves that there is some good left in us, whatever may be said of us. Are you quite sure that if the position had been inverted, I should have been able to act in the same way, I will not say towards yourself, but towards such and such of your political friends whom I might mention? I think the contrary, and I solemnly declare to you that if ever they become the masters, I shall consider myself quite satisfied if they only leave my head upon my shoulders, and ready to declare that their virtue has surpassed my greatest expectations.

Comments (178)

All those things that degrade men and government in a democracy are laid out in his two volume opus, and it was only through his trip to America that he discovered the particular conditions which actually made democracy work. We have methodically removed every one of them.

Montage from Democracy
"Administrative centralization only serves to weaken those nations who submit to it, because it has the constant effect of diminishing their sense of civic pride. The overwhelming characteristic of public administration in the United States is its extraordinary decentralization.

I have made the distinction between two types of centralization; the one called governmental, the other administrative. The first exists solely in America; the second is almost unknown (there). (So) in the United States, the majority, which often has despotic tastes and instincts, still lacks the most developed tools of tyranny.
If the direction American societies (took)...combined the right of total command with the capacity of total execution...freedom would soon be obliterated in the New World.

Those who support centralization in Europe maintain that the government is better able to administer localities than they can themselves. That may be true when central government is.....accustomed to command and they to obey. One can, moreover, appreciate that with the increase of centralization, this dual tendency increases so that the capacity of the one and the incapacity of the other become more striking.

The principle objective of good government is to ensure the welfare of the people and not to establish a certain order at the heart of their misery. Centralization easily succeeds in imposing upon the external behavior of a man a certain uniformity which comes to be loved for itself without reference to its objectives. Centralization has no difficulty in...maintaining in society a sort of administrative lethargy which administrators usually call good order and public tranquility. When the issue is....the imposition of swift progress, its strength evaporates. Whenever its measures require help from individuals, this huge machine is astonishingly weak and is suddenly reduced to impotence.

There are European nations where the inhabitant sees himself as ...indifferent to the fate of the place he inhabits. He thinks that everything is outside his concern and belongs to a powerful stranger called the government. This detachment from his own fate becomes so extreme that, if his own safety or that of his children is threatened, instead of trying to ward off the danger, he folds his arms and waits for the entire nation to come to his rescue. How can liberty be upheld in great matters amongst a multitude which has not learned to make use of it in small ones? The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens. Freedom has revealed itself to men at different times and beneath different forms; it has not been exclusively bound to one social state and it makes its appearance elsewhere than in democracies. Thus it cannot possibly be taken as the distinctive characteristic of democracies.

For Americans, the force behind the state is much less regulated, enlightened, or prudent but a hundred times greater than in Europe. It is no good looking at the United States for uniformity and permanence of attitude, minute attention to detail, or perfection of administrative procedures. What one does find is the picture of power, somewhat wild perhaps, but full of strength; life liable to accidents but also full of striving and activity."


The principle objective of good government is to ensure the welfare of the people and not to establish a certain order at the heart of their misery. Centralization easily succeeds in imposing upon the external behavior of a man a certain uniformity which comes to be loved for itself without reference to its objectives. Centralization has no difficulty in...maintaining in society a sort of administrative lethargy which administrators usually call good order and public tranquility.

That's the best part of that quotation, James Wilson.

and it was only through his trip to America that he discovered the particular conditions which actually made democracy work.

Hmmm. Democracy in America was written early in a very active life. I certainly think it ranks high in his thought, but Tocqueville went on to write on works. And more importantly, he went on to see more abuses and misery by democracy.

And more importantly, he went on to see more abuses and misery by democracy.

Your point being, Paul...?

That he probably tends toward too much optimism about democracy in that great study of America. That the Tocqueville of 1848 who had seen the future of democracy, might have reproached his younger self for a somewhat reckless enthusiasm.

Which would of course reinforce the basic point about America's unique success with democracy; but also serve to caution sternly against hubris.

[typo corrected --Ed.]

Tocqueville was Tocqueville. DIA is a very interesting book with many valuable insights and many truths. But unfortunately, what he said is absorbed with little reflection or awareness and it is fair to say at this point the received understanding is nearly an orthodoxy. For those who accept his method and assumptions, it is largely unreflective.

An outsider has advantages, but in a short trip where he never attached himself to anything he missed a great deal. His understanding amounted to a collection of attitudes and a pose, and can be seen from Henry Adams (described the encounter in terms of a Damascus road experience) through Santayana to American Studies and into present-day conservatism and neoconservatism.

Here's a couple of quotes from my Evernote file from "The Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage":

The tradition of interpretation that Tocqueville can be said to have founded has flourished in American letters. American scholarship has followed Tocqueville's suggestions and venerated his methods and understanding. Such monuments of American interpretation as the classic American Studies movement are difficult to imagine without Democracy in America.

. . . Tocqueville's remarkable view of America purposefully discourages the sympathetic engagement with democracy as a community of value and expression–as a human community of which one forms a part–on its own, democratic terms. The American Tocquevillian takes up that detachment in imitation of his distance, as if Tocqueville had been as detached from his own community. He was not. His detachment was not open but closed, a blind for his vigorous other attachments.
What is heartwarming about contemporary Tocquevillianism is the charming spectacle of a class of Americans draped in gear drawn from the ancients and the moderns–the third, second, first, and next worlds–all expressing the need for something else, which the Constitution merely said could not be legislated and which Tocquevillians thought would not develop but that in fact exists. American civilization is–in addition to being imperial, colonial, colonialist, provincial, materialist, sterile, and unoriginal–grandly, gloriously multitudinous. And the key to its glory is to exchange the Tocquevillian perspective of seeing it at a middle distance for the Whitmanian perspective of seeing it swirling about you (and you swirling with it about others).

The Tocquevillian American or the American Tocquevillian?

I can't make much of that quotation, Mark; but I can say that I have been quoting from Tocqueville's texts on France, Europe and the Continential revolutions, so this idea of the man's austere detachment, his "purposeful" discouragement of "sympathetic engagement" "with democracy" on democracy's terms," leaves me a little puzzled.

Tocqueville's Recollections is not detached at all. It is an emotional and personal and not infrequently caustic work.

Here's a taste:

Dupin completed our defeat: he defended the single Chamber [unicameralism in the new French Legislature, which Tocqueville thought would be fatal to its repose] with surprising vigour. One would have thought that he had never held another opinion. I expected as much. I knew him to possess a heart that was habitually selfish and cowardly, though subject at times to occasional fits of courage and integrity. I had seen him for ten years prowling round every party without joining any, and pouncing on all the vanquished: half ape and half jackal, constantly biting, grimacing, gambolling, and always ready to fall upon the wretch who slipped. He showed himself in his true colours on the Committee of the Constitution, or rather he surpassed himself. I perceived in him none of those sudden fits of which I have just spoken: he was uniformly commonplace from beginning to end. He usually remained silent while the majority were making up their minds; but as soon as he saw them pronounce in favour of democratic opinions, he rushed to place himself at their head, and often went far beyond them. Once, he perceived, when he had gone half-way, that the majority were not going in the direction he had thought; whereupon he immediately stopped short with a prompt and nimble effort of the intelligence, turned round, and hurried back at the same run towards the opinion from which he had been departing.

Paul, the quote explicitly stated that he wasn't detached about everything. "as if Tocqueville had been as detached from his own community. He was not." That was the point. I think the problem is that Democracy in America has been the subject of the comments, as were mine, whereas the topic of your article was Recollections.

The charge (as I read it) was that Americans know only one work by Tocqueville (or think they know it), and a whole tradition of unreflective imitation has risen. It was not clear from your comment whether you think Tocqueville himself is responsible for this unworthy tradition.

My point is merely that in a post on Tocqueville's other writings, it [would] seem that that tradition has at least temporarily been set aside.

You're very cold.

Take it easy, Mark.

I can barely post a comment without a blunder or typo, so I am hardly in a position to boast. It is of course true that you did not launch the quasi-threadjack into Democracy in America, but I think your comment suffers from the kind of vagueness, an insouciant mistrust, for which you would show no patience in, oh, say, a Civil War thread.

I have not read this book on the Genteel Tradition. I do not doubt that it is a worthy study. Probably it is includes a healthy discourse on the War, which all studies of American history must. I venture to infer from your comment history that it does not speak highly of the remnants of aristocracy that flourished in the antebellum American South. I may be wrong in that, of course.

The subject here is democracy. Further inferring, I notice that you do not much care for my implied criticism of democracy. Again, I could be wrong in this conjecture.

And again I confront that nebulous edge of antagonism. If you got a whiff of passive-aggressive Southern partisanship in some thread, you'd be out with the sharp elbows and polemics in a heartbeat.

How about a more direct approach to things? How about you give us a brief outline of your rejoinder to what you take as my implied criticism of democracy?

To go back to the main post, and at the risk of being annoying, I find the matter-of-fact-ness of this sentence (or part of it) puzzling:

Industry and political agitation were making new classes — the working classes at once debased and enthralled by the material benefits of industrial capitalism — first self-aware and then organized.

Paul, I find it hard to believe that you expect all of your readers (especially knowing some of us :-)) to take it as simply uncontroversial that the "material benefits of industrial capitalism" were at once "debasing and enthralling" the working classes. Doesn't that seem a bit...vague? At least. I realize that people do talk this way, as though we all just admit that, sigh, industrial capitalism gave material benefits but those material benefits were _so darned bad_ for people, and somehow, this badness gave rise to the successes of Marxism among the working classes. But I for one am not prepared just to accept something like that as uncontroversial. Are there really specific, concrete ways in which, at the time Tocqueville was having this correspondence, the working classes were being "debased and enthralled" by "material benefits" of industrialism? And if so, what does this mean? That they would have been better off un-industrialized but also retaining their higher natures and spiritual freedom? Tallow candles and ox-farming forever together with peasant nobility?

I'm sorry if this sounds sarcastic, but it's actually intended seriously (which perhaps will make it worse). The sentence does bug me a bit because of what it seems to take for granted as simply fact.

On democracy, is there supposed to be a link between the claim that Tocqueville was unduly optimistic in DIA, on the one hand, and the "age of revolution" theme in the main post, on the other? That democracy is too linked with destructive revolution? Or am I trying to make a link there that wasn't intended? If anything, it would seem to me that James Wilson's long quotation from DIA helps to "guard against hubris" not by telling us that there is something wrong with democracy but by telling us that there is something very problematic with centralization and that America should have avoided it and is losing her exceptional ability to sustain democracy because she became too European. I'm not sure what connection (maybe none) this has to revolution.

Paul: I wasn't annoyed at you. I sensed that the comment wasn't of much interest to anyone and decided to not take it up immediately. I'm a fairly practical guy. My cryptic response was just to buy time to see if anyone else would take issue with what I'd say are some standard version of the received Tocquevillian judgements I was hinting at that I saw in James comments and yours. My bad for tossing out a cryptic comment. I should have just waited.

I now see Lydia is taking up one of these points, so life is good.

I hope I will not be required to go to great lengths to demonstrate the debasement of the early industrial working conditions of Europe. That this misery came alongside a gradual but very real increase in prosperity is what I was alluding to.

There was a law in France, passed under the Orleans monarchy some years before the 1848 revolution, forbidding child labor under 8 years old during the day and 13 years old during the night. One of the primary complaints with this monarchy was its stale corruption; particular emphasis was laid on the flouting of the child labor laws. Lax enforcement could be easily bought at the right price.

At the same time, French cities were rapidly filling up with internal emigrants from rural areas. One of the springs of this movement of men was surely a desire to share in the material gains that industry provided. But "pauperism" instantly becomes a major concern. Industrial cities suffered very high unemployment -- 60% according to some reports. The monarchy was very restrictive on civil association: trade unions were essential outlawed.

The Second Republic enacted a handful of social laws to address these problems. Unemployment relief in particular concern. Either the provision revolutionary government or the later National Assembly embraced a "right to work" principle and established the National Workshops which, a few weeks later, would provide the headquarters and organization for the Socialists when they rose against the Republic.

I think it is demonstrable that the conditions of the working class (particularly in Paris) gave rise to the success of Socialism among them. The revolutions that gave them political equality did not address their privations; the demand for radical reform of society itself was very popular. The institution of property was a ready target of hostile agitation. Some twenty years later the Socialists would achieve a brief victory with the Paris Commune.

The connection to democracy is also pretty clear to me. The cry for political equality gave rise to cries for social equality. The sort of liberal who uncritically cheered the former but recoiled from the latter only rarely had any vision of how the two could easily be subsumed under the same doctrine and rhetoric. Tocqueville is particularly critical of Republicans of this sort. Once inaugurate a wave of revolutionary leveling and you have little power to stop it.

That they would have been better off un-industrialized but also retaining their higher natures and spiritual freedom? Tallow candles and ox-farming forever together with peasant nobility?

It seems here a bit like you are simultaneously scouring me for being too solicitous of working class conditions, and for pining for a restoration of their old serfdom under the ancien regime. Well which is it: am I too much of a Social Democrat for your tastes or too much of a Luddite Reactionary?

I hope I will not be required to go to great lengths to demonstrate the debasement of the early industrial working conditions of Europe.That this misery came alongside a gradual but very real increase in prosperity is what I was alluding to.

Not for me you won't. It seemed obvious that that's what you were referring to.

It seems here a bit like you are simultaneously scouring me for being too solicitous of working class conditions, and for pining for a restoration of their old serfdom under the ancien regime. Well which is it: am I too much of a Social Democrat for your tastes or too much of a Luddite Reactionary?

That would have depended on what you meant by "debased and enthralled." The term "debased" generally implies a loftier _previous_ condition from which people have been pulled down--which would seem to fit with the Luddite reactionary view: Better to stay on "the land" and be noble, happy, and content without all the soul-destroying luxuries brought by industrialism.

If by "debased" you merely mean to refer to things such as child labor, then that needn't be "too much" of anything for my tastes, though I would say that the material benefits and the debasement would not always in that case have accrued to the same people. That is to say, a child who was in a terrible situation being forced to engage in child labor might have been better off on a farm with his family, etc. So, as usual, I'm inclined to be a splitter rather than a lumper and to suggest that perhaps we shouldn't talk about some whole group of people as simultaneously "debased and enthralled" and "materially benefited." After all, if they _really were_ materially benefited, then I'm not at all sure that "debased and enthralled" is a correct phrase to describe them!

Moreover, I'm not sure that this "you can't have it both ways" challenge is quite right in terms of political sympathies. Let's be honest: Are anti-industrial, back-to-the-land sympathies _really_ incompatible with loud complaints about industrial working conditions? Very very much to the contrary. One _usually_ finds the same people showing both sorts of inclinations--capitalism was evil both because it allegedly took people away from the nobleness of the pre-industrial state and also because the people thus "lured" away from the land were then employed under bad conditions because of the greed of the capitalists. So I'm not at all sure that you couldn't be taking that sort of position and thus being "solicitous of working class conditions" while at the same time hinting that the proles were better off in the old ways of life, indeed, that in that case they wouldn't have been "proletarianized." That's what I hear from the Tory-paleo crowd all the time. It's a position that seems to me quite wrong-headed (and to have a whiff of too-uncritical acceptance of Marxist historiography about it) but not, per se, incoherent.

You may be right about the coherence of a Left-Reactionary position in theory; but in the historical context under examination here I'm not sure it could work. Socialists and Monarchists forming an alliance would have been a fantastical idea to their contemporaries.

My sympathies (as I hope as been clear) are with the prudence of Tocqueville's middle party. Neither monarchy nor republic as such has a necessary connection to liberty. A constitutional monarchy may well secure ordered far better than a republic under leveling pressure from proletarians. Once the monarchy was gone, Tocqueville labored long and hard to establish the Republic on firm enough ground to protect it from the levelers. He had no sympathy for the scheming Monarchists who aided Louis Napoleon's coup, and neither do I.

Paul/Lydia,

Now that this discussion has gotten interesting, I thought I'd jump in ;-)

Lydia's last comment in particular caught my eye:

Moreover, I'm not sure that this "you can't have it both ways" challenge is quite right in terms of political sympathies. Let's be honest: Are anti-industrial, back-to-the-land sympathies _really_ incompatible with loud complaints about industrial working conditions? Very very much to the contrary. One _usually_ finds the same people showing both sorts of inclinations--capitalism was evil both because it allegedly took people away from the nobleness of the pre-industrial state and also because the people thus "lured" away from the land were then employed under bad conditions because of the greed of the capitalists. So I'm not at all sure that you couldn't be taking that sort of position and thus being "solicitous of working class conditions" while at the same time hinting that the proles were better off in the old ways of life, indeed, that in that case they wouldn't have been "proletarianized." That's what I hear from the Tory-paleo crowd all the time. It's a position that seems to me quite wrong-headed (and to have a whiff of too-uncritical acceptance of Marxist historiography about it) but not, per se, incoherent.

Now I'm in sympathy to Lydia's quite sensible point that it is sort of ridiculous to blame the greedy capitalists for "debasing" or "impoverishing" the working class, who used to be the peasant out in the rural areas -- as Paul himself says, no one had to "lure" the peasant to the city -- they were quite content to come in great numbers because they wanted to improve their situation from what it was in the country. Even the "horrors" of child labor, which I'm glad was outlawed in case I'm misunderstood, must be put in context. Those same kids were often working on the farms of their parents and putting in plenty of back-breaking labor while suffering material privation -- again, that's why these families picked up and went to the cities when they could.

What is interesting for me are the results of that internal migration -- how accurate are those reports about unemployment? Is Paul correct that the conditions in the cities were such that:

"I think it is demonstrable that the conditions of the working class (particularly in Paris) gave rise to the success of Socialism among them. The revolutions that gave them political equality did not address their privations; the demand for radical reform of society itself was very popular. The institution of property was a ready target of hostile agitation. Some twenty years later the Socialists would achieve a brief victory with the Paris Commune.

But if this is true, why not London? Why not New York? Chicago? Etc. in the Anglo world? And even now, why not all over Southeast Asia -- where capitalism has led to internal migration to the cities and has led to remarkable growth and material widespread gains for large segments of the population.

Finally, is Paul correct that the "cry for political equality gave rise to cries for social equality"? If true in France is it true for the Anglo (and Asian) worlds? I read a lot of reactionary blogs and I must say this is a constant theme of folks like Mencius -- give the people an inch and they'll take a mile. So better not to give them anything (politically) and let enlightened despots rule us all. Is that the lesson of the later de Tocqueville?

Jeff, if I put "horrors" in quotation marks, in the course of referring to the abuses and bloodlust of the proletarian class when it was in charge of things, would you object? We must remember the "context" of a massacre of policemen by striking labor as well.

In my judgment both sets of horrors were quite real. Perhaps you think hiring children (while leaving the fathers on the dole) to get their smaller bodies inside the mineshafts is a innovation that deserves a nice Bravo to the ingenuity of the enterpriser. Perhaps another man thinks the slaughter of policemen a happy event, given the oppression they inflict on the lowly. I'm sticking by my guns and saying that both horrors are very real and need no scare quotes; though I do not deny for a moment that context is necessary for true understanding.

Now then. Why not the same in London as in Paris? Perhaps the 1832 Reform Act, and its successors. Why not New York? Well, Lincoln had to send veterans of Gettysburg to put down insurrection in NYC, so maybe that city tells a tale more comparable to Paris. And anyway didn't I underline the importance of American exceptionalism upthread?

As for Asia, I cannot confidently draw on enough knowledge to venture a strong opinion as to whether details of material condition gave rise to Socializing parties and movements. It does seem to even my untrained eye, however, that Communism has had some success in that part of the world.

Asian economies today are booming -- except for Japan, whose slow decline may well have an imitator across the Pacific. Singapore reported a GDP growth rate the other day that sounded positively ridiculous to me. China shows everyone that a certain kind of capitalism can work just fine, and may soon be the envy of the world. Its relation to the Anglo tradition seems tenuous to me.

In any case, I'm not sure why I am required address such wide comparison to carry my point here. I wrote a post about France and revolution on the European continent. Industrial capitalism was referred to. The dread term "debased" appeared. Are the defenders of capitalism so on edge that even this cannot pass? Is it such an imposition to acknowledge that the conditions of early industrialism were often frightful and egregiously unjust?

Also, I'm suspicious of the rural-urban comparisons that the defenders of capitalism introduce here. Is child labor on a farm owned by the family (the Revolution of 1789 had uprooted the landed gentry) comparable to child labor in factories? A boy works under his father and siblings in grueling fields, mostly to feed themselves and only rarely for a tiny profit; another boy works the same hours in a factory, generating more income but away from home and in the squalor of a man's world. Which boy's is the healthier life?

So better not to give them anything (politically) and let enlightened despots rule us all. Is that the lesson of the later de Tocqueville?

It is most certainly not. It's remarkable how Tocqueville gets it both going and coming. Too sympathetic to the people (he voted for all kinds of welfare-like laws when in the National Assembly), he yet is questioned also as a despiser of them, who secretly pines for enlightened despots.

Finally, I beg you, Jeff, to drop the "de" from Tocqueville when writing of him. I cannot bear that affected nonsense. Are there towns and schools all over America called "De Lafayette"? When a foreign word is absorbed into English we are free to drop its former linguistic accouterments. We no longer have need of the foreign prepositions.

It does seem to even my untrained eye, however, that Communism has had some success in that part of the world.

Surely not as a result of the badness of capitalist working conditions, though, Paul. I doubt you really think this is how Communism got going in China, for example. On the contrary, the historical order there seems the other way around: First Communism, then some faint ersatz of capitalism to keep the economy going.

Is it such an imposition to acknowledge that the conditions of early industrialism were often frightful and egregiously unjust?

I'll be frank, Paul: I think that equating, "Industrial working conditions in the 19th century were often frightful" with "The working classes were debased and enthralled by the material benefits of industrialism" is just confused. If the former is what you meant, I don't see any reason to express it by the latter. Again: To refer to a group of _people_ (not their working conditions, but the people) as "debased and enthralled" by x is to imply that prior to x, or independent of x, those very people were in some sense in a "higher" state (hence, they were "debased" _by_ x) and that they were previously free or at least free-er (hence, they were "enthralled" by x). Now, it seems to me that you can say that about industrialism _only by saying_ that the working class were _better off_ prior to it and would have retained their higher state and freedom had industrialism not occurred.

But that doesn't seem to be what you want to say. You just want to say, in translation of the original sentence, that the working conditions were terribly bad and that they were in some sense unjust. For the young children, I'll very likely agree with you and perhaps even pass the phrase, since they had (let's assume) no choice in the matter. There _was_ child slavery in those times, and in that sense I'll agree that enslaving a child was "debasing and enthralling" him. A twelve-year-old's working willingly to help out his family, making wages his family needs, making both himself and his family better off than they ever were before or otherwise would be--that I might not call "enthralling and debasing."

And if his father chooses to work in the factory because he and his family are materially better off that way both than they would be any other way and also than they would be in a pre-industrial age and context, no. I don't think you should call that "enthralling and debasing" the man, even if you think the factory should have better working conditions.

If people capable of deciding for themselves gain real material benefits from working in industrial factories, then I cannot see calling them "enthralled and debased" by the real material benefits they have gained--as if they were somehow seduced by something that was ultimately not worth what they lost. I think the workers might just know best for themselves whether the game is worth the candle.

Now: As for democracy and leveling. Americans knew for a very long time that equality before the law and equality in the ability, say, to vote were not at all the same thing as equality of income and did not imply it. In fact, the understanding of this distinction was pretty darned near central to Americanism--one of those "propositions" that I think an American well-trained in civics ought to have been taught at a young age. Even in my own lifetime, even post-New Deal, even post-LBJ, there have been many, many Americans, ordinary Americans, who have understood this. Hence the hot rejection of Communism and of the whole idea of "from each according to his ability to each according to his need." I think we can surmise that from the Founding to Tocqueville's time people understood this distinction even _better_. It seems to me to be a matter of projecting a) European attitudes and b) contemporary confusions back onto the early days of America to imply that somehow American democracy was doomed by a sort of vague and confused "association of ideas" between various types of equality and "leveling" to fall into socialism. Baloney. America has become more and more socialized because of the very determined efforts of ideologues who have carefully turned the minds and hearts of the American people away from notions of private property, the Protestant work ethic, one's right to keep what one earns, and self-reliance toward their own ideology, which is itself in no small part informed by socialism if not outright Communism. This wasn't just some sort of invisible hand, natural development "arising" out of the essence of democracy itself.

I think that equating, "Industrial working conditions in the 19th century were often frightful" with "The working classes were debased and enthralled by the material benefits of industrialism" is just confused.

Guilty as charged. It is confused. "Industrialism" alone is pretty vague: a term I probably should have avoided. The purpose of the "debased and enthralled" was to suggest that good and bad things came of it. Mostly but not all good materially, and mostly but not all bad spiritually.

Lydia, look at it this way. There are many means of achieving real material benefits, which you put such emphasis upon. The methods of achieving material success in human society are wondrously diverse.

If I moved to Denver, Colorado, where I was born and raised, and made a fortune selling marijuana, would you object to that source of wealth?

If I moved to California and made a fortune selling pornography, would you object?

If I moved to Wall Street and made a fortune high-frequency trading in agency mortgage debt, would you object?

Not being at all a libertarian, I have readily explainable philosophical defenses* for why we should object to all three; and thus I am in the position of being led by my philosophical reflections to object to three technically "legal" sources of wealth. Furthermore, I would say that the man who follows any of these paths, despite the material advantages accruing to him and his family, is debased and enthralled. Perhaps it is mere love of lucre that has debased and enthralled him. Perhaps the poor soul is henpecked by a grasping woman. Perhaps the particular sin of the each particular industry arouses his concupiscence. Perhaps it is the ambition to exceed his arrogant older brother that has conquered his virtue. Etc.

Therefore I can revise your statement to clarify our disagreement. If people capable of deciding for themselves gain real material benefits from working in industrial factories [or medical pot sales, or online porn, or Wall Street usury], then I cannot see calling them "enthralled and debased" by the real material benefits they have gained. I disagree strongly with this statement and remain quite convinced that "debasing and enthralling," though hardly a monument to English prose, is nevertheless a serviceable phrase with which to describe the allure of material gain, the acquisitive impulse within man.

__________
* These defenses may not persuade you, but they will hardly be shown to be unreflective, borne of sheer prejudice, unthinking, etc.

Paul, I'd missed your comment above, so sorry for the third post. Okay, in the French context, I see that you're saying that as a matter of historical fact, the "leveling" urge really was a confused amalgam of a lot of things and was likely to lend support, even if unintentionally, to socialism. In any given historical context, I could see how that could happen.

But I'm _guessing_ from your reaction to James Wilson, above, that you think somehow this has some sort of relevance to America and, specifically, to American democracy, and that in short Tocqueville was too optimistic even about democracy _in America_ at his own time. Now, this is saying a lot more than just that in France there was this omnibus leveling talk going on and that it was difficult to get people to make distinctions between types of equality. After all, one might expect that in France after 1789 (Liberte, egalite, etc.) This really does seem to be saying that there's something about democracy even in the form it took _in Tocqueville's time_ and _in America_ such that one shouldn't have been terribly optimistic about it. Hence I think that my points in the previous comment are still relevant.

The American Republic _was_ established on a firm and orderly foundation (such as you say T. was seeking for France) that had no particular "tendency" to assist or give rise to socialist levelers. The socialist levelers have had to subvert and severely undermine the Constitution itself to achieve their ends. And it's taken them a long time.

Okay, Lydia, I think we can stipulate that the distance between France and America 1825 (when T. came here) was pretty striking, with America clearly standing out for having achieved the democratic revolution with far less ruin and misery, and better material benefits to boot. We can further stipulate that 1848 reinforced T.'s previously inchoate reflections on future peril.

So far, so good.

Next, I think it can be shown that by the time he died, T. had seen even graver portends, both in Europe (now featuring another Bonaparte emperor) and in America. Always disgusted by slavery, by the 1850s T. was positively allied with abolitionists and worrying of future sectional conflagration.

So in Tocqueville's maturing thought, not only does France remain distant from successes of America circa 1825; in a sense America herself, both past and present, remains distant from the ideal. Tocqueville's outlook has darkened. A new sobriety characterizes his treatment of the democratic age.

Finally, let me offer one last bit of mischief. What if I told you that centralization concerned T. a great deal in those later years, and that more and more he saw it as the fatal flaw of the modern French. What if I told you that my interest in Tocqueville on these matters had been kindled in part by the sense that American centralization has reached French-like levels and thus that there are (or at least there may be) some particular lessons to be discerned in a study of French and wider Continental history as Social Democracy went national and even continental?

Paul,

A couple of quick points:

1) Thanks for the responses to my probing questions. Yes, I am guilty as charged for being a robust defender of capitalism. On the other hand, my questions were not meant as an attack on your post -- rather they were meant in a real spirit of Socratic dialogue as I think you may be at least partly right about the rise of socialist movements in France. In other words, as someone who loves capitalism and wants to defend it from its enemies, I'm interested if your short sketch of France/Paris in the 1840s and makes sense -- was it a failure of capitalism (or the early industrial economy if you prefer), in the sense of providing a decent living for large groups of people, lead to the success of the radicals? Or were there other factors that the radicals capitalized on to sway an already truculent mob? For example, I was intrigued in the original post by your offhand comment concerning the new government which Tocqueville had just joined "had blundered into the Rome expedition under the pressure of domestic turmoil." What the heck was that all about? Part of the reason Lenin and gang were so successful in Russia at the time was that they capitalized on widespread unhappiness with Russia's performance in WWI and promised the people peace. Was something similar going on in France?

2)"Is it such an imposition to acknowledge that the conditions of early industrialism were often frightful and egregiously unjust." For me, yes. That statement is way too vague and broad for my taste. But as I said in #1, perhaps there were times and places when poverty and unemployment co-existed with early industrialization -- then the question becomes was that poverty and unemployment caused by the industrialization or was it a result of government policies that worked against a functioning market?

3) We'll just have to agree to disagree about child labor. I'm probably a minority of one on this issue, but I just don't think it ranks up there with the "massacre of policemen".

4) Finally, I'd be interested in your response to Lydia's posts on Tocqueville's thoughts on democracy. I was trying to capture the same idea but perhaps I was too crass -- what should the take-away lesson be from T's later skepticism about democracy, given his moderate democratic credentials?

P.S. Thanks for the stylistic tip -- if I could become half the writer you are at my own blog, I will have achieved a worthy accomplishment.

was it a failure of capitalism (or the early industrial economy if you prefer), in the sense of providing a decent living for large groups of people, [which led] to the success of the radicals? Or were there other factors that the radicals capitalized on to sway an already truculent mob?

Jeez. I really hope you do not take me to be setting up so false a dichotomy. There was an enormous turbulent rush of influence and dislocations. The factor exerting pressure on events are too numerous to mention, let alone master. I mentioned repeatedly the tumultuous history we're dealing with here.

Louis Napoleon's foreign policy, both as President and Emperor, was, shall we say, energetic. I have not even mentioned the word nationalism. This force was on the rise in a big way too. Italian nationalists had just deposed the Pope and seized the Papal States; their ultimate aim was a unified Italian nation, republican in form of government. French rulers where often inclined to make foreign policy for domestic audiences, a trait they shared with many rulers. In this case Louis Napoleon used the chance to intervene in Italian affairs to solidify his support with French Catholics by sending soldiers to the aid of the Pope. French Republicans and Socialists were cool at best on this idea. The expedition was unpopular in Paris.

You don't have to agree that child labor ranks with insurrection to agree that it is unjust. Your silence on that more important question worries me.

PS -- Flattery will get you no where, my friend.

But Paul, slavery has _nothing_ to do with democracy. Not that I can see, anyway.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if America 2011 has reached French-mid-1800's levels of centralization. This, also, has nothing to do with American representative democracy as the republic was set up or as T. could possibly have known it in 1848. Please take as repeated my remarks above concerning the near-total subversion of our constitution with its limits on government. By ideologues already influenced by Communist and socialist thought themselves.

I'm just not as nice as Jeff, so I won't flatter about "Tocqueville" vs. "de Tocqueville." (As you say, it gets him nowhere anyway.) I have no idea what you're talking about. If the "de" is affected, then practically everybody I've ever known who has referred to the author is "affected" in copying everybody they've ever heard of. Maybe if Lafayette had written a famous book about America so that Americans throughout the generations had learned his entire name with a "de" in the middle (as in "Alexis de Tocqueville") and then had to decide how to shorten it to refer to him by last name only, he would also be known as "de Lafayette." But obviously, since it's important to you, I, like Jeff, will be careful not accidentally and in all innocence to refer to T. in the way that I've all my life heard and read him referred to.

Paul,

"You don't have to agree that child labor ranks with insurrection to agree that it is unjust."

Unjust everywhere in all situations? For example, an eight-year old working on the family farm? I think I know the kind of child labor you are talking about, but even in a factory situation, I'm not sure I would call it "unjust" everywhere at all times. A lot depends on specific conditions and situations.

"Your silence on that more important question worries me."

Except I wasn't silent about the situation in Europe:

"which I'm glad was outlawed in case I'm misunderstood"

Anyway, I posted my response right after you responded to Lydia's points about democracy, so thanks again for the thoughtful answers.

But if this is true, why not London? Why not New York? Chicago? Etc. in the Anglo world?

Jeff,

Paul has already addressed London and New York, but I'll just address Chicago and the larger "Anglo world."

First, you live in Chicago, right? Have you never heard of Haymarket Square? I believe that May 1 was chosen as International Labor Day in order to commemorate those who died there.

Second, as to the Anglo world, or at least America, we had "red scares" after each of the world wars. Either what you say is true and Marxism never gained traction in America, meaning that those scares were really just outbreaks of severe paranoia--or those scares had some basis in reality precisely because Marxism had already gained traction in America.

By the way, what Paul says here is a bit surprising:

Now then. Why not the same in London as in Paris? Perhaps the 1832 Reform Act, and its successors.

But the Reform Act of 1832 expanded the vote. If democracy is the problem, then giving more people the vote (and I believe, Paul, that you have implicitly criticized the 1832 reform act, or so I understood you, for expanding the franchise) should make the "leveling" tendencies and momentum _worse_ rather than better.

Lydia, I think slavery had a lot to do, historically, with American democracy. Not in an obvious way that admits of some easy causal analysis, but in the more elusive intertwining of life and history. The two developed concurrently in North America. Slavery provided the leisure which gave rise to the quasi-aristocracy of Virginia, from which emerged about half our greatest thinkers and statesman whose influence on our democratic mores and principles is incalculable. Slavery was at back of many of the great debates in the antebellum period where American constitutional democracy was worked out in practice. Its defenders developed sophisticated democratic theories (popular sovereignty and concurrent majorities) to shelter their peculiar institution under American constitutionalism. Slavery was the indispensable cause of a great conflict that pitted enormous democratic armies, armed and transported by industrial might, against one another in a war that reached down to the rudest farmer or laborer.

Furthermore, the ancient world presents plenty of associations between slavery and democracy. Lord Acton noted these associations and pronounced slavery "essential" to most democracies if sheer mob rule is to be avoided.

As for the Reform Act of 1832, well, being a Burkean type of guy, I very much prefer reform to revolution. I guess on the matter of leveling what I'm trying to say is that if we're going to embrace democracy (which we most emphatically have) we're probably going to have to make peace with Social Democracy too. I'm not sure that modern history supplies many workable examples of granting the people political power while effectively protecting against any attempts to expand their power into social realms as well. The drive for equality is a formidable one indeed.

Not in an obvious way that admits of some easy causal analysis,

I'm afraid in that case that the assertion that slavery somehow _justified_ a "darker" view of democracy in the later Tocqueville is either a fairly vague or a fairly controversial assertion, and maybe both.

Lord Acton noted these associations and pronounced slavery "essential" to most democracies if sheer mob rule is to be avoided.

I'd be interested to see Acton's argument for this somewhat startling pronouncement, especially if he meant "slavery" literally. What's the reference in Acton?

I guess on the matter of leveling what I'm trying to say is that if we're going to embrace democracy (which we most emphatically have) we're probably going to have to make peace with Social Democracy too. I'm not sure that modern history supplies many workable examples of granting the people political power while effectively protecting against any attempts to expand their power into social realms as well.

I take it that by "social realms" here, you mean some sort of government-guaranteed minimum income, government-enforced partial (or more than partial) equalizing of income and of outcomes, a fairly hefty welfare state, or some combination of these?

I could not disagree more. And I'll never make my peace with any of those, by the way. Again: We would not have gotten _any_ of these things at the federal level in the United States, and (for that very reason) only patchily and in greatly varying degrees at the many state levels had our form of government, the constitutional limits on federal powers, the separation of powers, and many other aspects of the very fundamental original nature of our country not been overturned--in some cases by openly non-democratic means, and in all cases by a failure of the system of checks and balances originally set up by the Founders.

By the way, I shd. note that it seems to me an historical accident that, say, popular sovereignty or concurrent majorities were used or defended in an attempt to shield slavery. There was nothing particularly populist about demanding that the Fugitive Slave Act be enforced in the North! Such moral issues as slavery run orthogonal to procedural and structural issues such as democracy, the extent of democracy, etc. In fact, the Southern position on the limits of federal power (which in a number of ways was what we would today rightly call an "originalist" position on the Constitution) would severely _limit_ the extent to which majorities could vote themselves largess out of the federal public treasury--hence, if anything, one could look at the states' rights approach of the South, which also of course was developed to shield their peculiar institution, as a limitation on the power of democracy at the federal level.

But again, all of this is historically accidental. Something similar is true of abortion today. There is nothing either populist or anti-populist, either democratic or undemocratic, about being either pro-life or pro-abortion. One could make up rhetoric to argue both ways in both cases, but it would be just that: rhetoric. An absolute monarch might forbid or protect either slavery or abortion. A popular majority might do the same.

Thank goodness, I was able to find the Acton citation. For a moment I feared that memory had failed me when you called for the cite.

This from a review of Sir Erskine May's Democracy in Europe, which I have in a Liberty Fund collection called Essays on the History of Liberty:

The effective distinction between liberty and democracy, which has occupied much of the author's thoughts, cannot be too strongly drawn. Slavery has been so often associated with democracy, that a very able writer pronounced it long ago essential to a democratic state; and the philosophers of the Southern Confederation have urged the theory with extreme fervour. For slavery operates like a restricted franchise, attaches power to property, and hinders Socialism, the infirmity that attends mature democracies. The most intelligent of Greek tyrants, Periander, discouraged the employment of slaves; and Pericles designates the freedom from manual labour as the distinguishing prerogative of Athens. At Rome a tax on manumissions immediately followed the establishment of political equality by Licinius. An impeachment of England for having imposed slavery on America was carefully expunged from the Declaration of Independence; and the French Assembly, having proclaimed the Rights of Man, declared that they did not extend to the colonies. The abolition controversy has made everybody familiar with Burke's saying, that men learn the price of freedom by being masters of slaves.

Let me further associate myself with the remarks of that great English Liberal. If Lord Acton, the man who nearly broke with Rome because of his classical liberalism, which is another way of saying his readiness to defend Capitalism; if he can say that Socialism is "the infirmity that attends mature democracies," by golly so can I while still maintaining my credentials as a friendly critic rather than an unthinking opponent of Capitalism.

Some comments on this:

1) Who died and made Tocqueville the authority on all these matters?

The book "The Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage" is not a study of American history, and it says nothing about the aristocracy in the antebellum American South. It is about Tocqueville views, the received understanding of Tocqueville by Americans, and a comparative analysis of these views with rival views. I should think doing so would be a minimum requirement before accepting anyone's view on such sweeping abstract matters. Here's another quote:

The Tocquevillian makes assumptions . . . the first assumption is the humanist axiom that good books make good men. It was the axiom of the genteel tradition . . . The second assumption is that, left to itself, the democracy will quickly produce a diminished, majoritarian cultural alternative to the past. This more powerful assumption remains at the core of that critique of American intellectual life that would subject even the genteel tradition to criticism because it represents the inevitable cultural corruption brought on by a democratic society.

2) Are we sure that Tocqueville's view "darkened"? In the footnoote to GT&SR, is an intriguing reference to the book "The Making of Democracy in America," and I just found out that the whole thing is online.

Some excerpts from the above linked chapter:

". . . his attitude by 1840 was different from the one expressed in earlier, more emotional drafts. Gone were his intense fears of barbarian ascendancy and of the immediate, catastrophic collapse of civilization. After an initial delay—possibly once again caused, in part, by an unwillingness to intrude upon areas marked out by Beaumont—further thought had persuaded Tocqueville that Europe, under the onslaught of advancing equality, would not necessarily go the way of Rome."

Read the whole reference and ask yourself if there is some reason to doubt that the "received Tocqueville" that Americans have been taught must be their own from the teaching priesthood and curating bureaucracy of our educational institutions. Because, you know, who knows America like a Frenchman on vacation in the 19th century for nine months?

3) I'm forming a committee to nominate Lydia for president, whether she likes it or not. :) I wish I could state what she did as well.

Paul, I did a bit of research myself and found a pretty interesting money quote from Acton on the subject with which I think you will _not_ want to associate yourself. But it may take me a bit to type it out, as it seems to be only in a non-html form.

Socialism is "the infirmity that attends mature democracies,"

I think this is true, but isn't it just because the sinful human nature works itself out in certain ways socially? I'm not saying any level socialism is necessarily evil, but rather that the desire to control others is a common trait to sinful man. Plato thought that philosophers should be the ruling elites, and this and those who disagreed with him has a history. I thought _this article_ had some decent insight on matter. Some things never change. If there were a political option that could avoid the problems the strongest critiques of democratic systems have, we'd take it but there isn't. The other systems have their own problems that are worse.

The question is whether the problem is baked into the system; whether the system is inherently corrupt. Or is it the humans within it that are the problem? Or put another way, the question in this fallen world is one of comparison. If one answers the question of whether a democratic system is inherently corrupt as "yes," as one may plausibly do since it mostly comes down to perspective and definitions, then one must also answer the question "Is there any system that better avoids the problem"? If not, then this is a fault of idealism. If there is no system that avoids these same problems to any degree, then to be fair one should acknowledge this openly and frequently or one may be seen as guilty of idealism or despair at the fallen world we live in, rather than offering a true critique of a system of ideas in a fallen world.

Where society is constituted without equality of condition or unity of race, where there are different classes and national varieties, they require a protector in the form of governmetn which shall be distinct from and superior to ewvery class, and not the instrument of one of them, in an authority representing the State, not any portion of society. This can be supplied only by monarchy; and in this sense it is fair to say that constitutional government, that is, the authority of law as distinguished from interest, can exist only under a king....But the tyranny of republics is greatest when differences of races are combined with distinctions of class....Democracy inevitably takes the tone of the lower portions of society, and, if there are great diversities, degrades the higher. Slavery is the only protection that has ever been known against this tendency, and it is so far true that slavery is essential to democracy. For where there are great incongruities in the constitution of society, if the Americans were to admit the Indians, the Chinese, the Negroes, to the rights to which they are justly jealous of admitting European emigrants, the country would be thrown into disorder, and if not, would be degraded to the level of the barbarous races....The Red Indian is gradually retreating before the pioneer, and will perish before many generations, or dwindle away in the desert. The Chinese in California inspire great alarm for the same reason, and plans have been proposed of shipping them all off again. This is a good argument too, in the interest of all parties, against the emancipation of the blacks.

“Political Causes of the American Revolution"

http://books.google.com/books?id=APsDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=%22Democracy+inevitably+takes+the+tone%22&source=bl&ots=jcM7a1QAyu&sig=d0NGb62HliCJk95bon6Bbvazgxc&hl=en&ei=hOyxTd-1LuqG0QHV3KywCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=without%20equality&f=false

What can I say? Where does one begin? Acton here is by no means a "friendly critic" of democracy but rather an outright monarchist, at least for any society that is not homogeneous. He _favors_ slavery and argues here quite explicitly against the emancipation of the blacks, not because he is for democracy but because he is against it. He bases his argument against democracy for non-homogeneous countries on a quite crudely, strongly-worded, and blatantly racist premise which no advocate of constitutional democracy is bound to accept.

To top it off, he expressly states just a paragraph or so earlier that he is talking about what he calls "pure democracy," which he defines thus:

"Pure democracy is that form of government in which the community is sovereign, in which, therefore, the state is most nearly identified with society."

And he seems to think that this is the form of government present in America, which to my mind shows a certain ignorance of the actual structure of the American Republic.

And which, again, no defender of "democracy" in some significant meaning of that term needs to accept. It is not, for example, necessary hotly to assert the injustice of various possible limits (e.g., property requirements, for example, or literacy requirements) on the franchise in order to be in an important sense an advocate of democracy and thus to disagree with the proposition that the American Republic carried within it the seeds of its own demise simply because it _was_ a Republic.

As, again, every civics-educated American citizen should know, American representative, constitutionally limited, Republican democracy is not pure democracy and wasn't intended to be from the outset.

Lydia, keep in mind that I cited Acton (1) in support of the argument that democracy and slavery have some intricate historical associations, which you had denied in the most absolutist terms; and (2) to burnish my credentials as a friendly critic, not of democracy but of capitalism.

I have that "Political Causes" essay too, in the same collection. I'm sure you realize he the American Revolution he is talking about is the one that precipitated the Civil War. Acton sympathized with the South. His treatment of the history, even if it is wrong, tends to support my view that democracy and slavery are major interrelated parts of the American story.

tends to support my view that democracy and slavery are major interrelated parts of the American story.

I'm sorry but no, no, and no. That is just too vague. I tear my hair out over such vagueness. Listen: From the Actonian point of view, we start with these _incredibly_ controversial racial assumptions to the effect that the "lower" races cannot possibly be "raised" to (or even come close enough to) the level of the "higher" as to be members of the same democracy with them. We also start with the _identification_ of democracy with the most unlimited, pure, direct democracy in which "the state is most nearly identified with society," a view of democracy in America that _directly_ contradicts both the conditions of the Founding, the actual limits on the franchise at the time, and the observations of Tocqueville himself about the vibrancy of non-governmental social institutions in America. From these two _extremely_ controversial assumptions Acton concludes that the "intricate historical association" of democracy and slavery is just simply that the lower races must be enslaved so that they aren't allowed in any way, shape, or form to participate in democracy!!! This is nuts.

I'm sorry, but this whole argument doesn't support anything. It's ideologically a mess. You cannot _possibly_ in any way taint democracy with the opprobrium of slavery, using some sort of vague "guilt by association," on the basis of an argument from Acton to the effect that slavery is necessary to democracy, once we see how dreadful his argument actually is.

When I said, and say, that slavery has nothing to do with democracy I

1) of course do not allow as a counter-instance the purely accidental fact that advocates of slavery _sometimes_ (but not at other times) found populist arguments handy for their purpose, which I've already addressed above,

2) meant to address your implication that Tocqueville was justifiedly more pessimistic about democracy in America later in life because he started thinking more about slavery in America and opposing it,

3) cannot for the life of me see how Acton's extremely poor, not to say objectionable, argument (based as it is on his pro-slavery views, no less!) means that Tocqueville _would_ have been justified in being pessimistic about democracy in America because of his opposition to slavery.

Are you able to gather these threads together into a good argument as opposed to a loose congeries of associations of ideas? Here's what it would take: You would have to show that somehow the evil of slavery, combined with Acton's argument (and somehow despite the fact that it's a perfectly dreadful argument), means that there is something innately wrong with democracy as set up by the American Founders!

Good luck with that.

Well that settles it. Tocqueville died and made Lydia authority on all these matters.

For myself I am going to continue to believe that there is abundant reason to regard democracy in America as historically entangled with slavery. You're using a fragment of an Acton essay against the evidence of history, which can indeed be annoyingly vague. Many of the same racialist assumptions undergirded (wait for it) American democracy in its formative (that is, antebellum) years. The development of thought on the subject, from Founding generation to the Civil War age, from Jefferson to Calhoun, further reinforces my point. As American democracy progressed, slavery was increasingly dragged into the very center of public life. The Founders thought it was troublesome evil that had to be compromised with but would in time die out; by 1850 one section promotes it as a positive good, proudly, and the other side is pushed into profound antagonism by that promotion, finding a source of identity in that antagonism. To me the idea of studying American democracy from 1776 to 1860 informed by a principle that slavery and democracy have nothing at all to do with each other is hidebound dogmatism.

On Acton in particular, I have doubts that you are interpreting his arguments properly, but haven't had time just yet to revisit that "Political Causes" essay. It's a very long and intricate essay; and frankly, Acton can be a nettlesome writer. Too much subtlety for his own good. Is it possible that you are attributing to Acton Southern arguments he is recapitulating rather than endorsing?

As for Tocqueville's pessimism, here is a review essay on a volume of his later writings on American democracy that is worth reading: http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1719/article_detail.asp

You may note that slavery figured pretty high in his thought. In fact, "all of [his] concerns [about American democracy] pale beside his greatest preoccupation during this period: the threat that the expansion of slavery posed to America's moral integrity, self-respect, and international prestige."

Tocqueville died and made Lydia authority on all these matters.

I haven't seen Tocqueville's argument alleging a need for pessimism about American democracy because of something-or-other to do with slavery. I've seen your claim that somehow his later pessimism about democracy had something to do with his abolitionism. If I see an argument from Tocqueville on the subject, I reserve the right to evaluate it as best I can. Presumably you do, too. He's not some sort of unquestionable authority. But as I say, I haven't actually seen this argument from him.

Again, the question isn't whether the issue of the slaves, for example, the freed slaves, had to be _coordinated_ with democracy. Of course it did. People had to decide whether they'd be allowed to vote, whether they would be regarded as citizens, what requirements would be put on their voting. Hence various post-Civil War amendments and lots of fights during reconstruction. And no doubt people ahead of time worried and thought about those issues.

But the question is whether slavery as an issue is intrinsically related to democracy (in its American structure) as a form of government. Acton's argument that they're related (which one can see in outline in the quotation you gave as well, so it hardly seems misrepresented by the very long quotation I gave) apparently derives from his assumption that only slavery can keep democracy in non-homogeneous Republics from imploding because of the intrinsic, huge, and intransigent differences among groups of men. I suppose this _might_ constitute an argument for some kind of in-principle connection between the two. But it's a _poor_ argument. Simply gesturing in the direction of either other people who apparently made a similar, also poor, argument for slavery or of some sort of general "intertwinings" in America's history between the issue of slavery and various issues of democracy hardly even comes close to showing (again) that one should be pessimistic about the form of government set up in the American founding if one opposes slavery. What _exactly_ is supposed to be the _good_ argument, here? After all, even if we say that America was going to have the deuce of a time assimilating all of those newly freed slaves (which heaven knows was true) the problem there is not with the form of democracy set up in the Constitution--as if that somehow generated a problem--but with the fact that slavery existed in the first place (which we can all agree was evil and wrong)! Which hardly reinforces some sort of argument that "democracy needs slavery" or "democracy necessitates slavery" or "you must accept slavery in a non-homogeneous society if you want to have democracy in that society" or any other in-principle connection of the sort.

Moreover, if a literate citizenry or even a citizenry with a "stake in the land" was needed for good government, then literacy tests should have continued to be allowed. Or even property tests. Enslaving people was hardly required. To put it mildly. Nor was that why the slaves were enslaved in the first place--to prevent them from voting (if one needs to add that).

It's pretty important to maintain what ought to be an obvious distinction between, "There were reasons to worry about the future of America because of slavery" and "There was something wrong with American democracy as a type of government because of slavery." It makes a pretty big difference which of those one tries to defend. The former has to do with the particular history of America. _Of course_ the institution of slavery set America up for huge problems. To use that utterly undeniable fact to criticize the constitutional, Republican form of representative government (which is what I mean when I defend "democracy" in this discussion) set up in 1789 and manifested separately in state governments as well is just very, very strange. I haven't seen any convincing argument making _that_ connection.

Lydia,
If I may, and Paul will certainly correct me if I am wrong, I think it may be easier to look at this through the angle of American democracy being irrevocably linked with capitalism and capitalism depending upon labor exploitation, hence the reference to both child labor and slavery.

Tangential to that, this pessimistic interview considers those whose labor is no longer needed:

David Simon: Again, we would have to ask ourselves a lot of hard questions. The people most affected by this are black and brown and poor. It’s the abandoned inner cores of our urban areas. As we said before, economically, we don’t need those people; the American economy doesn’t need them. So as long as they stay in their ghettos and they only kill each other, we’re willing to pay for a police presence to keep them out of our America. And to let them fight over scraps, which is what the drug war, effectively, is. Since we basically have become a market-based culture, that’s what we know, and it’s what’s led us to this sad denouement. I think we’re going to follow market-based logic right to the bitter end.
http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/2530/simon_4_1_11/

Please explain, Step2, which parts of the form of government set up in the Constitution are inextricably linked to "labor exploitation." You may have to define "labor exploitation" as you understand it for that purpose. Perhaps you are going to argue that the Fugitive Slave clause of the Constitution, rather than being a compromise to bring the southern colonies into the union, was somehow inextricably tied to things like the form and nature of representative government (as opposed to what? non-representative government?) as set up in the powers and membership of Congress? See, this just doesn't work very well, I'm afraid.

Paul, I'd wholeheartedly endorse the assessment in your 8:40 comment of the development of slavery in the nation between the Founding and 1850, but I am with Lydia that slavery and/or racism are not inherent in America. I do think it is impossible to understand American history without knowing a good deal about slavery because it was a historical feature of the nation, as it was of many nations, but in my opinion the association of a democratic government and slavery here was accidental, rather than inherent.

One of the main reasons I think understanding slavery is so important to American history is to understand how titanic the struggle was, and how it was a virtual cold war from the start. Those who think it would have died out on its own I think are engaged in wishful thinking. It was a viable and sustainable economic system, and the intellectual and cultural support that grew up to support of it in the last antebellum decades has to be studied to be believed.

The force of slavery grew as you say, but at the risk of sounding triumphalist all I can say is that many of the British observers were astonished at the unity and determination of the North in gearing up for such a grim and final push that was not certain to succeed. The cynical Europeans just couldn't get why anyone would adhere to principles in such a way. American history isn't explainable without reference to a strong anti-racism, but the racism is all many see now.

I can only echo Lydia's insistence that American democratic experiment owes nothing to slavery, and that the two are only accidentally related. I don't say this because I wish it, but because I think this is the best explanation of the facts as I understand them.

And don't the Brits just love all the aristocratic dash of the South? Churchill was the same way, even with his half-American blood--the traitor--and thought RE Lee was the second coming of Christ.

Put another way, I think the struggle over slavery, rather than slavery itself, is a defining thing in American history. As with persons, and so with nations, there is limited control over the situations in which we find ourselves. Because we have so little control over our circumstances at a given moment in time, how we respond to the circumstances that present themselves to us is the most important thing.

I don't think the circumstances were such that having a single nation in the 1780's without slavery was possible. I don't think the compromises were made without consideration. At least I'm convinced that the Founders who hated slavery thought it was impossible. So they made compromises and thought they could starve it to death over time. And it was a reasonable thing to believe could happen, though by no means certain. To not have compromised would have likely resulted in two nations at the outset and a similar struggle in the end. I don't see how this implies a reliance or affinity with slavery.

Tocqueville died and made Lydia authority on all these matters.

Do I detect the hint of the idea that one needs to be an authority on Tocqueville to be an authority on "these matters"? Too few are confident enough to challenge the received Tocquevillian orthodoxy.

Mark,

I just wanted to give you a "shout out" for your excellent comments both at 5:05 PM and more recently at 10:17 PM. Both contain important insights, at least for me, especially as I think through the 'decay' of modern Western democracies in the sense that many have adopted liberal policies that I think are inimical to robust capitalism (and therefore continued economic growth) and ordered liberty.

And speaking of "traitors", as someone who was just in Atlanta admiring Lee's visage in Stone Mountain (I'll do a post soon on that remarkable place -- stop by my blog and check it out), while I wouldn't characterize him as "the second coming", he was without a doubt a great American. Of course, I'm a bit of a "traitor" myself when it comes to Churchill -- I tend to think he was the "second coming" and I also tend to lament the end of the British Empire, so what can I say ;-)

In the North, majorities were against slavery. In the South, there were majorities for slavery. Hence one could just as easily say that abolitionism was very much "tied up" with democracy in America as that slavery was "tied up" with it. Obviously, on any hot issue of the day where majorities in different places disagree, one can say in one sense that democracy is "tied up with" or "entangled with" the positions that the majorities take. That this is an accident of history and has nothing to do with democracy as a form of government is evident from the very fact that one can as easily make a case _for_ democracy from the triumph of the majority on the good side (in some places) as a case _against_ it from the triumph of the majority on the bad side (in other places). Obviously, when I said that "slavery has nothing to do with democracy," I didn't mean that people didn't use democratic ways and means to address the issue--on one side or another--in the history of America. Of course they did. The same is true of any burning issue in any democracy and is trivial as regards the legitimacy, innate tendencies, necessary conditions, or anything of that kind, of constitutional democracy itself.

one should be pessimistic about the form of government set up in the American founding if one opposes slavery

That is a very interesting rendering of my position. Let's say, arguendo, that I accept this rendering. How would I go about defending it, supposing that you are setting yourself firmly against it? Could I defend it? Yes, I believe I could.

Let's say one was born in the cradle of the early Republic (1805 say) and came of age under Jackson. As the autumn of life neared, with Calhoun, popular sovereignty and the stirrings of the fireaters supplying the entertainment, one might well reason to pessimism about the American form of government.

Let's say one was born in Savannah, 1905, on the black side of town. That's the setting for the old blues tune "Delia." For most of one's life, one might well reason to strongly pessimistic assumptions about the American form of government. One might look around in Savannah 1930, at 25 years old, and exclaim, "America was founded on this oppression! We barely got anything out of the war; our liberty is nominal only! Let Sherman return to this hellhole!" One would have to live well into one's 50s to see the glimmers of hope.

Now, in so happens that in both of these cases the pessimism, though perfectly understandable and just on its own merits, was proven wrong in the event. Despite grave forbiddings, American democracy did overcome these things: but not without considerable loss.

the question is whether slavery as an issue is intrinsically related to democracy (in its American structure) as a form of government.

You're forgetting the dimension I keep harping on. I would object to your modifier "intrinsically" and replace it with "historically."

It's pretty important to maintain what ought to be an obvious distinction between, "There were reasons to worry about the future of America because of slavery" and "There was something wrong with American democracy as a type of government because of slavery."

This is a valuable distinction; but clearly I am much more reluctant than you are to abstract "American democracy as a type of government" from history. As if we could say "oh yes: slavery surely made a real mess of things, but we mustn't imagine that it tainted our government; that is a separate thing entirely." "America" and "American democracy" are coextensive historical entities, for the most part.

I am now in the position of another annoying instance of "gesturing in the direction of" -- in this case for the third time in the direction of my own arguments from about a year ago explaining why I believe the American form of government is truly unique and exceptional, with all the superlative connotation of that word. So you still have to balance that with my supposedly incorrigible and unprincipled pessimism.

The way I see it, on both the subject of Democracy and of Capitalism, I've been subjected to be a pretty extensive interrogation here. Now and then there has been an undertone of insinuation, suggesting that I might be a secret Monarchist or closet Socialist. I just don't have enough good things to say about Democracy and Capitalism; and I sneak in a lot of critical assumptions and controversial premises.

Now, the accusation of vagueness, of rhetorical blunders borne of haste, I absolutely cop to. It begins with the post and continues in the comments. The post itself is nothing more than a collection of reflections jotted down in few quiet moments one night while reading Tocqueville.

To simply state my contentions here: I think Tocqueville a very wise man. I think his lifelong study and commentary on democracy a treasure of incalculable value. I think Acton quite right when he calls Socialism "the infirmity that attends mature democracies," but generally speaking I have a much lower opinion of Englishman, whose Manchester Liberalism was right next door to Plutocracy, than I do the Frenchman.

And now there is a third insinuation: my slavish dedication to the saintly Tocqueville. Not only might I be a Monarchist or Socialist; I probably also worship at the feet of this Frenchman.

Well, if I am proved a slavish devotee of Tocqueville, at least I can no longer be called a Monarchist or Socialist, for he was emphatically neither.

And now there is a third insinuation: my slavish dedication to the saintly Tocqueville. Not only might I be a Monarchist or Socialist; I probably also worship at the feet of this Frenchman.

A saintly Frenchman? There's a few jokes in there, but another time. Seeing through the lens of a person's supposed views and worshipping them are different things. And if you've never heard of the conspiracy then maybe . . .

Jeff, thanks for the kind words. I was really kidding when I said Churchill was a traitor, but I do chide him posthumously for the typical biases. I have great admiration for Churchill though. But I don't admire anyone that I think is vain and petty. I just can't do it. Go right down the list. Lee? I don't think so. Truman? Nope. Vain and petty. Did he get the important questions right? Yes, but that isn't good enough for me to admire someone. No humility, no greatness. Those who say great people can't be humble are just wrong. The idea that good teachers, presidents, generals, or any given vocastion doesn't require a good person is just against the classic ideal and wrong.

I didn't know you had a blog. I'll check it out. Thanks.

Mark, it seems to me that when you say, "I think the struggle over slavery, rather than slavery itself, is a defining thing in American history," you are much closer to my view of things than to Lydia's. Frankly, I cannot see how such a statement on your part can be reconciled with your earlier statement that "that the two are only accidentally related." If the struggle over slavery is the defining feature of American history, I question whether "accidental" is a word that makes any sense here. It would seem that you are giving it systematic not accidental content in your vision of history.

I say that slavery is historically inextricable from American democracy; we cannot, except by idle academic abstraction, pull the two apart such that it is possible to examine the one historical entity (American democracy) in complete isolation from the other (American slavery). We can't even read the original Constitution as a document without slavery entering the picture.

Now, I have made no claims about a causal pathway between the two, much less a rigid pathway of necessity. I did recall a half-remembered passage from Acton on the "essential" relation between slavery and democracy, which provoked a long digression that probably should have been avoided. I have only myself to blame for that.

Lydia, meanwhile, contends that slavery has nothing to do with American democracy. If you embrace that formulation, to repeat, I do not see how you can reconcile it with your own argument about the centrality of slavery.

Let me make one final attempt at explaining myself. Consider the importance of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the development of American democracy. Their importance would rank very high, no? Students of Harry Jaffa will argue that they constitute the apogee of American democracy, an extraordinary test of political philosophy played out on a vast public stage.

Now consider the LD debates abstracted completely from slavery.

By that operation they have been reduced to nonsense. Right?

I am sorry to have missed your excellent discussions, but life happened.

DIA is the only book I have ever reread, and then twice more, before taking a pencil to it and making notes in the margins. My copy looks like a Talmud. There is often more insight on a single page than in entire worthy books, and it could not be absorbed at once. By me.

Tocqueville was no fan of democracy. His obsession with understanding all its forms and mutations was rooted first in a literal desire to keep his head on his shoulders. His admiration for the methods and customs that Americans applied in working a democratic society successfully were laden with details, and warnings. Further, although he saw in the clearest terms what things Americans were doing exactly right and Europeans exactly wrong, he was certain that European nations would have to evolve on separate models. "We Europeans are accustomed to look upon a restless spirit, an inordinate desire for wealth and an extreme passion for independence as grave social dangers. Yet precisely all these things guarantee a long and peaceful future for the republics of America. Without those disquieting passions, the population would be concentrated around certain places and would soon experience as we do, needs which are difficult to satisfy. This exerts a great influence upon the way human behavior is judged in the two hemispheres". And, "I would regard it as a great misfortune for mankind, if freedom should assume the same features in all places. Freedom has revealed itself to men at different times and beneath different forms; it has not been exclusively bound to one social state and it makes its appearance elsewhere than in democracies. Thus it cannot possibly be taken as the distinctive characteristic of democracies."

In fact he often demonstrated how democracy could be the most oppressive to freedom, concluding "I know nothing so miserable as democracy without liberty."

His book easily could have been titled Equality in America. The democratic disease was equality, yet America has successfully dealt with it. "Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom, but for equality their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, and invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery." Of course, that was then and this is now; we have finally become France through centralization, as Paul suggested.

"It is believed by some that modern society will be always changing its aspect; for myself, I fear that it will ultimately be too invariably fixed in the same institutions, the same prejudices, the same manners, so that mankind will be stopped and circumscribed; that the mind will swing backwards and forwards forever without begetting fresh ideas; that man will waste his strength in bootless and solitary trifling, and, though in continual motion, that humanity will cease to advance.
What concerns me in our democratic republics is not that mediocrity will become commonplace, but that it may be enforced."


Paul, I said slavery was "a defining thing," because that was the best way I could think of at the time to characterize what I meant, and I don't see the problem or contradiction. Thinking about it again I still can't come up with anything better than "a defining thing," but maybe there is. At some point you have to drop down to descriptions anyway.

I think great people, organizations, and nations are made through trials. Their responses to trials makes them who they are. I don't think the CW was the "birth of a nation," but I do think it did affirm the remarkable and unique principles of the American "experiment," a term of some significance. Experiments need to be tried by opposition, in fact all people do. Nations have characters as people do. Slavery provoked secession, which provoked the war which was a gut-check that tested the determination of those committed to the principles of the founding. Even if we accept that the Southerners thought the same thing, the point is still the same.

In this world, in God's providence, slavery was the spark that led to the trial. That's all. It could have another spark. The modern day secession advocates don't seem to get this, but there are very few things Americans, would fight a war over on either side. It has to be the most fundamental issue. States could tell the feds to jump in a lake over any number of demands (and I wish they would) and there isn't squat the feds could do about it except withhold money. The states could refuse Obamacare, and if they have any sense they will.

Anyway, in the American context slavery happened to provide the trial, the question of which I think Lincoln correctly stated: whether "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" . . . "so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure." But I'd say slavery was the spark that lit the fuse accidentally.

In a parallel universe the American experiment as framed by Lincoln could have been tested by tall people dominating short people. Or people with other innate characteristics dominating people without it, as long the positions were irreconcilable and the sides were willing to fight it out to the bitter end. In less than total forms we have other battles being fought now, and I think comparisons of abortion to slavery are actually useful.

I just don't like the expression "slavery is historically inextricable from American democracy." It is too ambiguous. It all depends on what you mean by "inextricable," and the extent to which "democracy" does real work in that proposition, and for what. I just don't see any way around the accidental/essential distinction here. We might not have been able to form a nation without slavery because of the historical fact of the institution of slavery that was here and the politics of it being here, but if it had not been here it wouldn't be correct to say America could not have been founded without the institution or that it wouldn't be what it was meant to be without it.

That's the best I can do. I don't see the contradiction between acknowledging the centrality of slavery to our history as it happened to rejecting that it is essential to it, or our system of government.

I'm fully prepared to agree that part of that vague and ambiguous intertwining of democracy and slavery lies in their opposition. So it is true that "slavery is historically inextricable from American democracy" both because so many Americans conceived their ideas about democracy in opposition to slavery and because so many Americans (sadly) conceived their ideas about democracy as a way of sheltering slavery. I apologize for the vagueness and ambiguity than peeves you and Lydia, but I feel that much of it is in the world not in my mind.

Look at Lincoln's own famous phrase: "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" -- the great statesman has verily integrated the meanings of democracy and slavery into one ringing rhetorical flourish! He has caught up in a phrase the American tradition and forced us to confront the moral challenge of our historical association of slavery and the regime of equality, that is democracy.

The Doctrine of Perspicuity must apply to DIA. Well, since we're just using quotes now . . .

Tocqueville's insights into poetry are barren. They discourage the very openness his political views encourage. . . . Tocqueville's detached observation erected a wonderful system to contain the realities of American democracy. The American Tocquevillian builds on that system an understanding of democracy that is meant to cure enthusiasm for it. Conceived before the fact of the things it teaches one to despise, Democracy in America deals in the perpetuation of its own values rather than in the sympathetic understanding of democracy. In cultural matters, especially, Tocqueville exalts distance from surrounding phenomena, the fear of annexation excusing one from participation. The point is to consider phenomena as symptomatic of a previously arrived at account of democratic culture. The love of and pleasure in things, their flavor, gets lost in the placing of them. It is supposed to. The taste for democratic civilization is regarded as evidence that one is lost to it. The traditional is assumed, the democratic examined.
. . . There is that tradition of political and cultural conservatism that has fielded groups of Americans who view with determined skepticism the claims of the modern and the democratic and the egalitarian in cultural, as in political life. The tradition of interpretation that Tocqueville can be said to have founded has flourished in American letters. American scholarship has followed Tocqueville's suggestions and venerated his methods and understanding. Such monuments of American interpretation as the classic American Studies movement are difficult to imagine without Democracy in America.

Robert Dawidoff, "The Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage: High Culture Vs. Democracy in Adams, James, and Santayana"

So it is true that "slavery is historically inextricable from American democracy" both because so many Americans conceived their ideas about democracy in opposition to slavery and because so many Americans (sadly) conceived their ideas about democracy as a way of sheltering slavery.

I don't think it is true that Americans conceived their ideas about democracy in opposition to slavery. Slavery is a privation of freedom, and though the latter is related to democracies you can't equate the two. I think you could say that slavery apologists and agitators did often see freedom in terms of slavery, but I don't think it fair to say opponents of the institution did also. Slavery opponents and the nation generally drew on a great intellectual tradition and moral understandings also. Not sure if you're saying opponents were mostly reactionary in their opposition slavery, rather than also having a strong principled opposition, but to say that would be incorrect.

Unless Google has failed me, I can report that Prof. Dawidoff is also the author of a book called Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America and is working on a history of gays in the closet. Now these many be fine studies indeed, but particularly for Lydia's benefit I'm going to conjecture that he would go a lot farther than I ever would in expanding equality beyond the political realm. His idea of democracy emphatically embraces the social and cultural context. The good Professor is in all probability a Social Democrat and cultural Leftist.

Perhaps in this light we can better evaluate his (and Mark's) criticism of Tocqueville.

Part of what I admire about Tocqueville is his foresight in discerning the tendency of democracy to make these emergent leaps. Political equality inspires a taste for broader equality; and democratic forms would weakness the resistance to it.

The spirit of ressentiment was exceptionally strong in France, such that Republicans having thrown down the institution of the crown, soon found themselves nearly prostrate before later radicals who connived a bringing down the institution of property as well. But that spirit was hardly absent in America. The second volume of DiA expands at length on the worry that Americans, discovering the scale of resources and might available to the federal government, would in their drive for equality convert it into am "immense and tutelary power" which in time would cover "the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

Well, Paul, I own the soft impeachment of "academic abstractions." Where I live, we call that "trying to think and speak precisely." As far as I can tell, Mark and I completely agree on this thread, and I couldn't have put what he says here better (emphases mine):

In a parallel universe the American experiment as framed by Lincoln could have been tested by tall people dominating short people. [Or wars over religion, as it had been in other countries, LM] Or people with other innate characteristics dominating people without it, as long the positions were irreconcilable and the sides were willing to fight it out to the bitter end. In less than total forms we have other battles being fought now, and I think comparisons of abortion to slavery are actually useful.

I just don't like the expression "slavery is historically inextricable from American democracy." It is too ambiguous. It all depends on what you mean by "inextricable," and the extent to which "democracy" does real work in that proposition, and for what. I just don't see any way around the accidental/essential distinction here.

And everything you say about pessimism is subject to this criticism--namely, that it trades on an ambiguity between the democracy in America and America as a country in its treatment of the slaves and former slaves. Since you yourself acknowledge that democracy was used both for and against slavery, it's amazing to me that you should still think there is anything in the original argument.

Notice, too, that what you say in your last comment about democracy creating a "taste" for other forms of equality really does not have any connection--or at least not one that can be made clear--to the supposed slavery-democracy argument. So far, Acton's argument is the only clear argument on the latter topic. I will at least say for Acton that he makes clear statements and makes clear and precise arguments for those statements, so that one has something other than historical-associational mist to aim at in disagreeing with him. It's just that his arguments _don't work_. He also has one on a previous page for the proposition that monarchy is a better form of government than democracy for heterogeneous societies. I'll spare you my critique of that. But it depends, again, on egregiously false premises. And as far as I can tell, no argument for the necessity of slavery to democracy (which you triumphantly cited from Acton) nor for the vague "historical connection" between slavery and democracy in American history relies in any important way on this supposed tendency of democracy to create a taste for equality of income.

In any event, as I have pointed out now times without number, _if_ the American people _did_ simply become inexplicably confused as their history went on between equality before the law or even the extent of the franchise, on the one hand, and equality of incomes and social outcomes, on the other, if they just developed a "taste" for the latter osmotically because they had the former, then the very system of checks and balances, the doctrine of enumerated powers, and all the other careful systematic aspects of our Constitution should have kept their attempts to experiment with socialism at the state level, where they would have had only varying success depending on the state. It was only by attacking and destroying our constitution through activist judges or through judges who did not do their job of applying the 10th amendment that these things were brought in on a tank at the federal level.

Moreover, I don't actually for a moment grant that this "taste" just developed naturally as a result of the political form of our Republic. I think that's historically nonsense, and obviously so, because one can _see_ the way that socialist-minded ideologues--very, very determined ones--set out to _teach_ that "taste," to _erase_ the distinction which had been essential to American civics between equality before the law and equality of outcomes, and to confuse and enervate the American people and the American polity.

What about Lincoln's integration of the themes slavery and democracy in the Gettysburg Address, or his debates with Douglas? Perhaps you can show us how it is possible to teach that history and that philosophy either without reference to slavery, or, alternatively, without reference to democracy. Can you imagine a course "Lincoln on Democracy" that does not mention slavery, or a course "Lincoln on Slavery" that does not mention democracy? I do not believe even the most strident call for precision can permit the posited condition of complete nonidentity of these themes in Lincoln's ideas.

Well, again, the very fact that Lincoln uses democratic rhetoric in the Gettysburg address _against_ slavery (a point which southerners have of course jumped on as weak) and also that pro-slavery debaters used populist rhetoric of the Douglas "let the people in the local area decide the question" variety to _preserve_ slavery supports the position that democracy per se is merely a rhetorical and political tool, that it has no actual connection qua form of government to either position.

As I pointed out before, the populist rhetoric was nowhere in evidence when it came to demanding that northerners be forced to abide by the Fugitive Slave Act. So much for letting the locals decide for themselves! Nor was the Dred Scott decision in any sense democratic, as it declared unconstitutional a law passed by Congress on the basis of an a priori insistence that slaves must be treated as property even when brought into non-slave jurisdictions.

The strident call for precision is a demand that we not use exceedingly general statements like "democracy and slavery were entangled in the course of American history" to tar American democracy _with_ slavery, to imply that we should be pessimistic _about democracy as a form of government_ because we think slavery wrong. And that is definitely how you originally attempted to argue.

To put it a different way, think how pointless to your original argument for caution and pessimism about democracy it would have been to say, "Democracy and abolitionism have been entangled in the course of American history." It is only because of the opprobrium attached to slavery and an attempt in some fashion by association to taint democracy with that opprobrium that there was any point in bringing slavery up in the context of the argument on the "we should be cautious about democracy" side at all.

He also has one on a previous page for the proposition that monarchy is a better form of government than democracy for heterogeneous societies. I'll spare you my critique of that. But it depends, again, on egregiously false premises.

I don't have any definite opinions on the various associations of slavery with democracy, but I think it's clear that Acton is right on the point quoted above. One doesn't need to subscribe to Acton's erroneous racial theories to agree generally with his conclusion. Substitute religion or culture for race and his argument holds.

Democracy works only when democracy's losers don't lose all that much. It takes an objective, somewhat distant (but not too distant) third-party - whose authority is recognized by all - to hold things together when the stakes are high and the various interests of the commonwealth are irreconcilable. In the United States, the Constitution has functioned as something of a substitute monarch - that objective "third party" invested with authority and respected by all. If, as many believe, it proves less corruptible than a monarch-in-the-flesh, but no less able to conform to changing circumstances, then we have our republican "silver bullet". But the jury is still out on that question.

It takes an objective, somewhat distant (but not too distant) third-party - whose authority is recognized by all - to hold things together

I think that Charles I and Louis XVI would have something to say about whether they were viewed as objective and/or even _somewhat_ distant "third parties." It's not even a matter of being or not being corruptible but of whether or not it's hopelessly false to history to hold that the king is somehow _not part of_ one of the factions in his realm. Every single religious war that happened in the 16th-17th centuries shows that to be false. Louis was _of course_ regarded as being associated with the nobility; hence, when the revolution happened, he was attacked along with the aristos. Kings and royal families do not spring forth from the head of Zeus. They come from some class, caste, or group within their own country and are of course identified with the perspectives and interests of that group. This can be good, bad, or indifferent, but it certainly undermines the idea that somehow when the stakes are high and the parties strongly clashing the king will be acknowledged to be above the fray and respected and followed accordingly, so that the "lower" groups will simply happily submit to continuing in their low estate under his governance, whereas they would have gotten more uppity (thus requiring their harsher suppression by enslavement) under democracy. Again, this argument (which appears to be Acton's, even if it isn't yours, Jeff) is falsified by the French Revolution alone.

I think that Charles I and Louis XVI would have something to say about whether they were viewed as objective and/or even _somewhat_ distant "third parties."

Sin happens, Lydia, in every system, and in the age of revolution many demons were loosed. The best we can do in politics is arrange probabilities.

It's not even a matter of being or not being corruptible but of whether or not it's hopelessly false to history to hold that the king is somehow _not part of_ one of the factions in his realm ... They come from some class, caste, or group within their own country and are of course identified with the perspectives and interests of that group.

Quite right. And the same can be said of the Constitution: it is a governing document created by an elite and wealthy caste with its own perspectives and interests.

And there's nothing whatsoever wrong with that. The idea is to be governed by a ruling class whose perspectives and interests are best able to transcend the petty and parochial. Is that class commercial? Certainly being governed by commercial interests is better than some alternatives (e.g., tribal interests, or the interests of a false religion), and the rule of commerce is generous in many respects - but it has proven to be narrow, exclusive and ruthless when it comes to suppressing challenges to a commercial hierarchy of values.

You mentioned Charles I, because he failed. Yet I believe he only failed because his reign came so close to achieving a harmonious and settled peace between all factions. Democracy, even apart from Cromwell, would have destroyed that peace if it had the chance.

Lydia, so you're saying it would be okay to tar America with slavery but not American democracy with slavery?

And what about my examples above, of the child of the early Republic who lived to watch her careen toward ruin and war precisely because of the entanglements of slavery and democracy; or of the black American under segregation? Do you grant them just cause for pessimism about the course of American democracy?

Finally, are you really saying that the study of history finds no ground for caution about the potential of democracy in the American tragedy of slavery?

To take a more modern example, the apathy and lassitude that attends our democracy today on the question abortion -- 56 US Senators put themselves on the side of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood last week, and very few will ever face any popular discipline for it -- is, for me, a regular source of pessimistic reflection.

Lydia, so you're saying it would be okay to tar America with slavery but not American democracy with slavery?

In a sense, of course. This seems obvious to me. America _had_ slavery. Many Americans _defended_ slavery and wanted to protect it. It was a part of our history. America as a country is just in that sense "tarred" by it, like it or not, because it really happened and happened here. (That doesn't, needless to say, mean that I endorse reparations or any such nonsense.) To tar democracy per se with it seems completely wrong-headed, because the form of government wasn't the reason that we had the slavery, the two were "entangled" only by the accident of history that a democratic country had slavery. There have been plenty of monarchies with slavery, too. And in England, eventually the people's representatives in Parliament abolished the slave trade. As with any moral question, the whole thing can go in any of a number of different directions. The form of government doesn't have any interesting connection to slavery _or_ to abolitionism, though in some given historical instance a given form of government might be the means by which either slavery or abolitionism is upheld or enacted.

And what about my examples above, of the child of the early Republic who lived to watch her careen toward ruin and war precisely because of the entanglements of slavery and democracy; or of the black American under segregation? Do you grant them just cause for pessimism about the course of American democracy?

I already addressed that. Here's what I said:

[E]verything you say about pessimism is subject to this criticism--namely, that it trades on an ambiguity between democracy in America and America as a country in its treatment of the slaves and former slaves.

Let's do it this way: Suppose we turn it around and say this, "What about the child of the early Republic who watched her careen toward ruin because of the entanglement of abolition and democracy..." You know, one could say that. For example, Lincoln was elected President, and the South responded by seceding. Congress voted to limit the spread of slavery in the territories, and we got Dred Scott. In other words, if all the voting people in the country had been pro-slavery, the Republic would certainly not have been "careening." It was because there was a _conflict_ over it that we ended up with a Civil War.

Not that I'm saying everyone should have been pro-slavery!! Far from it. My point is just that again (again, again) you are trying to make it sound like democracy had some sort of special and interesting connection _to slavery_ that should reflect negatively _on democracy_. You haven't made a single good argument for this.

What, exactly, is the quarrel of the black American under segregation supposed to be _with democracy_? You haven't made that clear. That democracy didn't at that time bring about the end of segregation? Did someone (anyone?) who defends constitutional democracy as a wise and good, perhaps even the most prudent and best, form of government claim somewhere that it will end all evil in the world??!! That majorities never do wrong? If the black American under segregation is imagined to long for some *other form of government* or to conclude that democracy is a *bad form of government* because it hadn't yet ended segregation in his time, then he's engaging in exceedingly sloppy thinking. It's utopians, fools, or mountebanks, not serious thinkers, who promise that their preferred governmental form will bring all good things to birth!!

The same applies to abortion. It seems to me, Paul, that you are blaming democracy for what should properly be laid at the door of human fallenness. American majorities aren't strongly pro-life, therefore something is wrong with democracy? That's a terrible argument. Our culture contains much that is evil. Human nature contains much that is evil. That's why Planned Parenthood exists. That's why people defend it, fund it, and vote for it. And what, exactly, does this have to do with there being *something wrong with democracy*? It seems to me that you're going at that point to have to come out and argue that some non-representative form of government that you wish to propose is better able to restrain the evil of mankind. I doubt you'll be able to make any such argument fly.

It would be a bit _more_ reasonable, though I think still illicit, for someone to argue that being pro-abortion is elitist and anti-democratic and that democracy is on the pro-life because it took a judicial fiat to strike down all the abortion laws in the country, and because even now most Americans would favor more restrictions on abortion than they are permitted to enact by Roe v. Wade. In fact, pro-lifers often do make these populist arguments. I don't actually think that democracy is inherently pro-life anymore than it is inherently pro-abortion, but at least the facts do show that the regime we live in now was in no small measure a top-down imposition--a top-down imposition, I might add, that has over time _caused_ a lot of the apathy and pro-abortion opinion we see today. Tell people that abortion is "constitutional right" and this does have a bit of an effect on the views of many people on the morality of the subject!

So while I wouldn't argue that democracy is pro-life, it makes if possible even _less_ sense to argue that democracy is pro-abortion or that abortion opinions in America should make us pessimistic about democracy. Moreover, such a view could easily sap our will to hope, pray, and work for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. After all, why bother trying to overturn the precedent and give people a chance to vote in restrictions if somehow the very form of government, democracy, is tainted and entangled with the pro-abortion position as opposed to the pro-life position?

Jeff, the thing is that the argument for monarchy in a heterogeneous society is supposed to be that it arranges probabilities to make peace and order more probable than democracy because the king is, and is perceived to be, a person who transcends the hottest differences and conflicts of his day and country. By agreeing that the king may in fact be solidly on one side or other (or be perceived to be so) in the hottest conflicts of his day, you undermine the argument that monarchy is a superior form of government for keeping happiness and peace in strongly diverse societies.

In fact, the king has been _usually_ and _often_ on one side or the other of such conflicts. I'm not saying this is per se bad. I'm saying it removes a crucial premise for a particular argument for monarchy as preferable in heterogeneous societies where the stakes are high.

By the way, Jeff, you are the one who made the analogy between a king and the constitution, not I. I have no stake in the analogy nor in arguing that the constitution serves the role of a king, only better, nor anything of the kind. I haven't endorsed the analogy. It's a very intriguing one, but on reflection I think not a good one. I don't really think the Constitution was meant to serve the governing role that the king serves in a monarchy. In America, that role is played by a set--the Congress and President. The Constitution bears _some_ affinity to a document like Magna Carta or to the background of English Common law, though even there the analogy has flaws. The point being that the Constitution is something like a set of background rules, rules which change only seldom and slowly and which are not intended to address many of the specifics of the actual issues that arise. Within this background the day-to-day or at least year-to-year activity of governing takes place. In fact, some people who defend monarchy defend a constitutional monarchy--a monarchy that is not absolute but in which the king is constrained by a document or set of pre-existing limiting rules. This point I think shows that a Constitution isn't really intended to be anything like a substitute king.

In fact, the king has been _usually_ and _often_ on one side or the other of such conflicts. I'm not saying this is per se bad. I'm saying it removes a crucial premise for a particular argument for monarchy as preferable in heterogeneous societies where the stakes are high.

Lydia, I don't see how my position is undermined at all. Of course a monarch has to take positions on the issues of the day. The point is that, by virtue of his inherited office and social status, he has little to lose personally and is therefore not beholden to the interests of various parties and factions. Sure, you might say that he is a member of his own "faction" - but his is the faction in possession of the strongest capacity for freedom, liberality, and genuine impartiality. This capacity can be jettisoned by wicked monarch, as has happened many times, but that doesn't change the fact that, apart from the Church, the capacity exists in the institution of monarchy to a degree unattainable in any other political arrangement.

In fact, some people who defend monarchy defend a constitutional monarchy--a monarchy that is not absolute but in which the king is constrained by a document or set of pre-existing limiting rules.

In the modern world, I would favor such a hybrid system as well - at least for those populations whose democratic ethos have not rendered them so jaded and cynical that reverence for a monarchy of any kind has become unthinkable.

This point I think shows that a Constitution isn't really intended to be anything like a substitute king.

Well, if you insist, but it can't be seriously disputed that Americans, at any rate, speak of the Constitution as the highest authority, the "law of the land", which is traditionally the role of a monarch. The powerful symbolism of the Constitution as impartial and just despite its origins in faction and partisanship, and the devout reverence all Americans have for this document, finds no parallel in anything but Monarchy.

Fair enough, Lydia. I suppose part of our dispute lies in this, that I am essentially arguing for an ambiguity in democracy, which you may be interpreting as a more comprehensive critique. I began by saying that observation of the trajectory of American democracy from 1825-1859 (the end of his life) darkened Tocqueville's view of it. I'm saying that he had ample grounds of this growing pessimism; and that we should be careful to not let our hindsight (hey, everything worked out okay after a terrible war and another century of racial subjugation) seduce us into a uncharitable view of his pessimism.

It seems to me, Paul, that you are blaming democracy for what should properly be laid at the door of human fallenness.

What do you think of the very common historical rubric that presents slavery as the peculiar form of human fallenness in America, the Original Sin of American democracy?

What, exactly, is the quarrel of the black American under segregation supposed to be _with democracy_?

That a popular regime was oppressing him; that an unpopular and almost alien regime, which attempted his emancipation (or rather that of his predecessors) after the War, was pushed aside in favor of an elected system that effected his subjugation. Surely you're not going to allege that Reconstruction was democratic. Lincoln earned not a single electoral vote in the South; and yet his Party's more radical members were the South's governors under Reconstruction.

In a word, I can readily understand why a black man in Savannah 1905 would pine for the anti-democratic regime and curse the democratic one.

The point is that, by virtue of his inherited office and social status, he has little to lose personally and is therefore not beholden to the interests of various parties and factions. Sure, you might say that he is a member of his own "faction" - but his is the faction in possession of the strongest capacity for freedom, liberality, and genuine impartiality.

Your argument is apparently that because the king's position is inherited rather than gained by election the king is more likely to be a just and impartial judge of the rights and wrongs of concrete issues. I think this is completely false. He'll have his opinions, and they won't be any more likely to be right because he's in an inherited position, and that's all. Who his mentors were is a far better indication of what his opinions are going to be than the mere fact of his inherited title. Just as with anyone: How was he raised? What was he taught? The fact that his position is inherited just doesn't make any difference to the likely fairness of his conclusions. And remember, too, that this is supposed to have something to do with keeping disparate groups living happily with one another. How does the king's inherited position make sharply differing groups more likely to live in harmony, especially if the king agrees with one group rather than the other?

I would add that this doesn't have much to do with pettiness or parochialism. Not that I particularly grant that a hereditary monarch isn't going to have at least as many parochial prejudices as some given commoner. I'll bet Prince Charles has plenty! But the issues that typically tear a country apart aren't parochial anyway. They wouldn't have the destructive power that they do have if they were.

What do you think of the very common historical rubric that presents slavery as the peculiar form of human fallenness in America, the Original Sin of American democracy?

Paul, I would be inclined to see something in this right up to the last word of the sentence. In fact, had someone presented it to me in a context where I didn't think the word "democracy" was doing any _work_ (to use Mark's term) or were not the crux of a debate, I might not have noticed it and might have passed the sentence. Since the debate has turned around democracy and has been all about democracy, then I would insist on cutting off the sentence a word sooner and saying, "Original Sin of America."

The black American you are envisaging is longing for a particular form of government simply because in the hurly-burly of history in his particular country (which is what I mean by "accident") he thinks that form of government would yield, or would have yielded, a result that would favor him and be more just to him. Of course, it could happen to go the other way in some other concrete historical situation. We can imagine a substantially non-democratic country in which a minority ruling class imposes segregation and in which the person disfavored by segregation would cheer for proportional democratic representation of the majority. (Wasn't South Africa previously such a country? Near enough.) If the black American you imagine thinks that the fact that, as it happens, a non-democratic government would have given a better concrete result than democratic rule in his region is an indictment of democracy qua governmental form, he is, as I said, confused. Just as you are confused if you think that the failure of the Senate to defund Planned Parenthood is an indictment of representative democracy.

Prof. Dawidoff is also the author of a book called Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America and is working on a history of gays in the closet. Now these many be fine studies indeed, but particularly for Lydia's benefit I'm going to conjecture that he would go a lot farther than I ever would in expanding equality beyond the political realm. His idea of democracy emphatically embraces the social and cultural context. The good Professor is in all probability a Social Democrat and cultural Leftist.

Perhaps in this light we can better evaluate his (and Mark's) criticism of Tocqueville.

You're right that he is the author of that, and I think also highly likely that he is a Social Democrat and cultural Leftist. But this does not invalidate his critique of Tocqueville, especially in light of the fact that there are so few critiques of Tocqueville known to those who quote him approvingly (and without argument.)

If one's politics determines one's views on abstract things then all of us are subject to have our views similarly deconstructed. Either fair analysis is possible or it isn't. Look, one of the best scholars on Reconstruction is a Marxist. As strange as a modern Marxist may be, one who wants to understand Reconstruction would be foolish indeed to avoid his books on that basis. We could go on and on and describe the biases of authors of any book, but the fact is that fair scholarship is not possible if one can't rise above that.

When an author doesn't seem to rise above his politics, it is fair to say so. But one must say where and how. Not to do so is just begging the question on that matter one hopes to protect my impugning an author's motive. Is Dawidoff showing his leftist politics in his critique of Tocquevile more than you are showing yours in your critique of Dawidoff? Well Dawidoff is engaging at a very high scholarly level, and his views need to be treated as such. Besides which, though I think his book is a good starting point he refers to other authors that likely don't share his politics in any case.

I know you know this postmodern critique, so I don't want to overdo it or sound preachy, but man this sentence was hard to take. "Perhaps in this light we can better evaluate his (and Mark's) criticism of Tocqueville." For the reasons I've given such insinuations must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. Insinuations may be great starting points, we all insinuate things and that is fine. But when they are given as some final judgement or in lieu of a real argument one simply must call it for the destructive move that it is.

I'm going to say something in a separate comment on the value of critiques of supposed well-known works, most certainly old ones, to emphasize why I think reading books like Dawidoff's are necessary call oneself informed on a given topic or author.

Your argument is apparently that because the king's position is inherited rather than gained by election the king is more likely to be a just and impartial judge of the rights and wrongs of concrete issues. I think this is completely false. He'll have his opinions, and they won't be any more likely to be right because he's in an inherited position, and that's all.

Lydia, you have had plenty to say about fallen human nature: do you really think that justice and impartiality are not more easily accomplished by men whose authority, status, and wealth are not thereby placed at risk?

I'm off to prepare for Easter Vigil. A joyful feast to you and all the McGrews!

I began by saying that observation of the trajectory of American democracy from 1825-1859 (the end of his life) darkened Tocqueville's view of it. I'm saying that he had ample grounds of this growing pessimism; and that we should be careful to not let our hindsight (hey, everything worked out okay after a terrible war and another century of racial subjugation) seduce us into a uncharitable view of his pessimism.

What you said was "I think it can be shown that by the time he died, T. had seen even graver portends . . . Tocqueville's outlook has darkened. A new sobriety characterizes his treatment of the democratic age."

Seems to me this is an argument that Tocqueville's view should have darkened, rather than that it did in fact darken.

I asked if there was reason to doubt your assertion that Tocqueville's view darkened. After all, others have come to different conclusions.

do you really think that justice and impartiality are not more easily accomplished by men whose authority, status, and wealth are not thereby placed at risk?

Probably not. Kings have and act on wrong opinions just because they have wrong opinions and sometimes because their own friends, advisers, and members of their own caste and class teach them these opinions and pressure them to act in accordance therewith. And sometimes democratic pressures are in the right direction and push elected lawmakers to do the right thing. We could turn your argument around: Kings are also immune to these pressures. Their wealth, status, and authority are not placed at risk by being partial and unjust. So it's pretty much a wash.

You'd really have to argue that inherited monarchs are more likely to be right about things in their own minds, in their own ideas and persons, than commoners. I don't think you're going to be able to present a convincing argument to that effect.

We should also consider that there are more ways than one for one's authority, status, and wealth to be placed at risk. Pontius Pilate was not an elected official, but when the crowd cried out, "If you do not crucify this man, you are no friend of Caesar's," that worked.

I might just as easily say that the President of the United States is more likely than a king to be impartial about the burning national issues of his time because the President has to get electoral votes from a variety of states in the country. Which would be a silly argument but no worse than the argument that a king is more likely to be impartial about the burning national issues of his time because he isn't elected at all.

To clarify and speak more precisely. When I said "probably not" I should have said, "This is poor as an argument for monarchy." Of course in some given situation, where there is pressure to do wrong ("You will lose your wealth and position if you do what is right"), it would, all else being equal, be easier to do right if that pressure were not there. My first point after "probably not" was meant to show that all else is rarely equal. My second was meant to challenge the assumption that the popular pressure from which a hereditary monarch is insulated would be disproportionately likely (were he not insulated from it) to urge him to be unjust rather than to be just.

Lydia,
Please explain, Step2, which parts of the form of government set up in the Constitution are inextricably linked to "labor exploitation."
I would describe it more as a strong tendency than an absolute requirement. The tension as I see it comes from the cultural economic assumptions that pervade many democratic societies (including various types of slaves in ancient Athens) and especially America's, which even in its earliest days seemed destined for commercial empire. So my critique is aimed more at that instead of representative governance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece

You may have to define "labor exploitation" as you understand it for that purpose.
http://rightswork.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Issue-Paper-2.pdf

Perhaps you are going to argue that the Fugitive Slave clause of the Constitution, rather than being a compromise to bring the southern colonies into the union, was somehow inextricably tied to things like the form and nature of representative government (as opposed to what? non-representative government?) as set up in the powers and membership of Congress?

I am not an originalist. For those who are, in the context of the time it was drafted, it meant labor exploitation was condoned.

I think reading insightful book reviews simply *must be done* in the case of old original works. So much so that it isn't clear to me at all that someone who hasn't done so is really knowledgeable about a given old original work at all. A mentor years ago told me to read book reviews where possible before reading important books. Counterintuitive? Well, it marks a certain humility about one's abilities, but more so I think it shows a certain view of the learning process that I think is correct.

In a _brilliant_post_ that touched on the learning process, Omni Ceren put it in Rumsfeldian terms:

. . . take Rumsfeld’s three categories. Known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. The starting situation when you’re learning something new is a bunch of unknown unknowns. You don’t know what you’re looking for and you won’t recognize it if you accidentally see it. Learning is getting to known knowns by passing through known unknowns. The trick is that there’s a certain point where you’ve learned enough stuff that you get a sense for what’s out there, what you’re trying to learn, what you have to do to learn it, etc. Many of the unknown unknowns become known unknowns.

But until you pass that threshold you’re just fumbling around. And if you’re brimming with overconfidence – either because of too much self-esteem or because the liberal catechism seems really neat – then we have the joy of contemporary education. Students get convinced they’ve already got a handle on what’s going on. They don’t bother learning anything new. Their reading skills are stunted. Misplaced confidence on specifics causes increasingly liberal students to be overconfident in general. And all of it stems from not having learned enough stuff in the first place to develop any amount of metaknowledge.

This is the clearest map I can imagine about the learning process: unknown unknowns -> known unknowns -> known knowns

When you approach an old work that everyone thinks they know, but in fact few really do because of all the accumulated baggage, there is an impossibly strong tendency to read into it what one expects or desires to find. When I see professors judging the value of immediately having students with no prior knowledge jump into a direct read of old and difficult books by watching students faces light up, or their own enthusiasm over reading the first time, I get alarmed. If a student's face lights up when reading Descartes' Meditations, I'd think it worth asking afterwards if they perceived that the genre is considered by the most knowledgeable about it to be a "spiritual exercise," or if they perceive anything about the major view presented: a metaphysics based on a mathematical view of reality. If not, surely their faces light up because they see what they most expect or wish to see, rather than what is there.

The same is true of less difficult books such as DIA where there is a received understanding that approaches the status of orthodoxy--where critiques of this understanding aren't even known, let alone considered. None of us should be satisfied that this represents deliberated judgement. None of us should be satisfied that reading DIA or even being struck with some kind of quasi-religious impression is an accomplishment, or that quoting it without being able to argue for what one takes the quote to say is sufficient. Unfortunately, all too often this is what students get in higher education. One of the many reasons it is a bubble about to burst, which will likely be salutary.

Step2: But which nations of the world you say would not have "seemed destined for commercial empire"? I suspect such a view comes down to a view against industrialization or some such.

I think I might put up a separate post about Jeff C's arguments for monarchy after Easter. (Btw, Jeff, a very Happy Easter to you and yours, too, and I'll have an Easter post up tomorrow.) (Btw, btw, Jeff, I hope you don't consider "monarchist" an insulting term, because in this thread at least your arguments certainly give the impression of being those of a monarchist.)

To Paul, I want to add this: It's exceedingly short-sighted to favor a form of government or disfavor a form of government on the grounds that in this concrete instance that form would have a desired or undesired concrete result. One needs to make some stronger argument than that to make this a good reason--e.g., that the form of government in question has a real tendency to favor the desired or undesired result, or even statistically that in a wide variety of times and circumstances it has favored that sort of result, leading to the suspicion that there is some such tendency even if we don't know what it is. Otherwise, the argument is extremely weak and extremely short-sighted, since in some other situation the roles could just as easily be completely reversed (as in my example of South Africa and segregation).

It surprises me that this should even need to be said. It should be obvious: You can't argue with any force for or against democracy, absolute monarchy, oligarchy, constitutional monarchy, etc., etc., simply by saying, "Oh, look, in my time and place, if we had _that_ form of government in place, this desirable thing would have happened instead of the undesirable thing that did happen. So I favor this form that will, or would, yield the result I want here and now."

But your repeated reference to the black American in the era of segregation, and your spelling out the supposed argument there against democracy, seem to make it necessary. In a different country, someone could just as easily argue against monarchy because the monarch favored segregation or slavery and because there was a strong popular movement against these things. And so forth. This is all pretty straightforward.

Mark, we all have limited time and energy. We have to be selective about our reading. All too frequently, we have to judge a book by its cover. Your testimony to the quality of Prof. Dawidoff's scholarship weighs somewhat on the other side of the ledger, but even that is ambiguous. In comments here at W4 you've shown yourself to be a pretty implacable partisan of democracy; this gives me pause as to whether it would be worth subjecting myself to what might turn out to be an implacable screed against dirty aristocracy and idle monarchism. Throw in the discovery of evidence suggesting that the book's perspective is culturally Leftist and I hope you can understand my hesitation. Suppose I recommended some obscure scholar on mixed regimes, praising him to high heaven in the course of rather vigorous castigations of democratic forms; suppose you went online and investigated the guy, discovering that he is also sympathetic to the Lost Cause narrative. I really doubt that assurances that "this does not invalidate his critique" and "he's engaging at a very high scholarly level" would move you.

None of which is to say that I refuse to read the man's book. On the contrary, I'll try to find it at the library and give it a fair shot.

On the matter of book reviews, I am fully on board with your argument. I am a huge fan, for instance, of The Claremont Review of Books. I even cited a very substantial Claremont review of a collection of Tocqueville's letters upthread, as support for my contention that the Frenchman's view of democracy in America darkened.

Happy Easter to all! The Lord is Risen.

Paul, I can understand the hesitation, but it is a narrowly focused academic work so there is zero comparison to other systems of government, let alone any opportunity to be a screed on anything. I was surprised when I found out Allan Bloom was gay some years ago. He's the one who taught me to read anything other than current events in the first place. I'm sure Dawidoff's other book arguing about gay rights I'd disagree with, though it would be interesting to see if the disagreement would be over political issues, or whether the matter turns on whether or not one thinks homosexuality is congenital.

It isn't that the book is the end all, and it isn't that it takes a more positive view on democracy than you or others. What it does is point out one a fundamental distinction that I think is very important. The categories of those who are won to the cause of democracy in spite of its burdens (like Jefferson) on the one hand, and on the other the Tocquevillians who are defined by their motivating disappointment with democracy's effect on civilization. It is probably the most important distinction in American cultural life. I think that these categories are fundamental to an understanding of the polarity in many of the debates we have here. I will run down some of the books and articles in the footnotes find out more about other's views that he draws on.

Happy Easter!

I just finished "The Strange Liberalism of Alexis De Tocqueville" by Roger Boesche. Here are some quotes below from it that really get at what I've been driving at, for all the undisputed value of DIA. Looks like _this_one_ look promising for those looking for critical analysis as well.

"I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and view any privation of it with regret. But for equality, their passion is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, barbarism – but they will not endure aristocracy."

". . . The foremost or indeed the sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality, or to get men to believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced, as it were, to a single principle."

One cannot conclude from this, as some authors have done, that Tocqueville wanted to find a new elite or new forms of inequality to curb the dangers of equality and so-called "mass" society. . . . in this sense, equality was not dangerous; it was indispensable to freedom. As a consequence, Tocqueville never urged that the modern world abandon its quest for equality; instead he thought it must seek to reconcile equality with freedom. "I love liberty by taste, equality by instinct and by reason." All aristocracies have assumed that "inequality of condition" was a right, but such assumptions, said Tocqueville, are no longer valid in a modern democratic world."
One might legitimately wonder why those who comment on Tocqueville's ideas stress the potential tension between freedom and seem to see in Tocqueville's analysis an argument that the laboring classes will advance beyond a demand for legal and political equality to do battle for economic equality. In other words, these commentators understand Tocqueville to be suggesting that the primary danger to modern democracy lies in the irrational masses, motivated by what Nietzsche called envy or ressentiment, demanding equality of condition, even if the condition is servitude. In fact, Tocqueville probably did harbor that fear. "Democratic institutions develop to a very high degree the sentiment of envy in the human heart." Yet Tocqueville always thought that the origin of working-class envy lay in the ethic that accompanied the bourgeoisie to power, and ethic of self-interest and obsession with consuming goods and pleasures. As a consequence, Tocqueville's fear of the working classes could not lead him to defend the privileges of the middle class, or what he called a new industrial aristocracy. Some commentators, forgetting Tocqueville's analysis of the origin of working-class greed had his powerful reservations about the commercial classes, have seized upon his argument to justify the privileges of inequality and property as well as a pluralist political system boasting of a new elite composed of the very commercial classes Tocqueville blamed the most.

-------

. . . Time and time again, his analysis of the problems of democracy is so persuasive that, in the reader's eyes, it seems to leave all optimism unwarranted. Consider three examples. First, against a detailed analysis of all the forces contributing to centralization of both political and economic power, he offers only the hope of voluntarily joining associations that would help disperse that power. Second, against a careful examination of the reasons the modern world will become obsessed with acquiring goods and pleasures, he merely warns us that the accumulation of goods should not have such a central place in the life of the nation. Finally, after analyzing the reasons for indifference, apathy, and withdrawal, he tells us that all political transformations demand great political passions and commitment. "After all, gentlemen, there is but one real secret to making men do great things--by appealing to great feelings."
Over and over, his penetrating but pessimistic analysis seems to outrun even his mild optimism. What, we want to ask, can possibly push and apathetic people into effective associations? How can a nation so enamored of with accumulating wealth heed the warnings about the dangers of this practice? Tocqueville knew that his proposed reforms frequently remained empty exhortations, because he could point to no possible group or class or political movement to take him from point A to point B. He must have felt very much like Weber looking for a political party that might combat bureaucracy, finally arguing that all successful political parties became bureaucratized. Tocqueville leaves his readers not simply with pessimism but with ambivalence. His suggested reforms are too widespread to allow for a complete pessimism, but his pessimism is too well-argued to allow for complete belief in his suggestions. Tocqueville had no wish to offer the hope of an ideal world, and indeed, he asserted that a yearning for such a world was simply the result of the hopes and wishes of individual men and women in their powerlessness. . . . In fact, he wanted a politics of pessimism, but one that took realistic advantage of the limited possibilities for action, not one that paralyzed action. He offered a politics for those willing to see both the potential for great danger in the future and only limited possibilities for improvement.
Tocqueville offers ambivalence and uncertainty because, he thought, that is what the political world has always offered. In his conception of the world, one can uncover none of the classical harmony of Plato or the modern harmony of Marx, both of whom assumed that the good things of this world--happiness, justice, freedom, peace, excellence, creativity--are ultimately compatible. Tocqueville had no such confidence. For example . . . In short, Tocqueville refused to offer a philosophy of fatalism that might give anyone an excuse to avoid choice and political participation, yet he also refused to offer another nineteenth-century panorama of progress that might give reassurance and consolation. . . .

The line beginning with "One might legitimately wonder . . ." was accidentally truncated and should read like this:

"One might legitimately wonder why those who comment on Tocqueville's ideas stress the potential tension between freedom and equality and not their compatibility. What is at stake here? Many seem to see in Tocqueville's analysis . . ."

Tocqueville leaves his readers not simply with pessimism but with ambivalence. His suggested reforms are too widespread to allow for a complete pessimism, but his pessimism is too well-argued to allow for complete belief in his suggestions.

I absolutely share his frustration. Democracy, in its place, is a fine thing - but where, precisely, is its place? I am convinced of one thing: the modern world suffers not from democracy, but from (for lack of a better term) democratism, the ideology which insists that egalitarian democracy solves everything. It is essentially anti-authoritarianism with an iron authoritarian fist. And the cruelty of democratism is that it leads directly to the cynical plutocracy under which we now languish - the rule of those most capable of manipulating the masses.

The problem is that modern democracy lacks an authoritative context greater than itself for its justification and limitation. In other words, real democracy depends for its very life upon non-democratic context and authority. Until that truth is recognized and revived, we will deserve all the Obamas and Trumps our "democracy" imposes.

Right on, Culbreath.

I see little to gainsay in the quotation Mark provides and much to admire. This passage in particular: "Tocqueville refused to offer a philosophy of fatalism that might give anyone an excuse to avoid choice and political participation, yet he also refused to offer another nineteenth-century panorama of progress that might give reassurance and consolation." Few thinkers in his own time or since have accomplished this balancing act.

I am certainly no advocate of any ideology that holds that egalitarian democracy solves everything. And in fact I think that saddling a mere form of government with a mandate to solve everything is one of the roads to the vague feeling that there *must be a better form of government out there* along monarchical or authoritarian lines when this intuition is not, in fact, correct. Moreover, I'm not sure what "egalitarian democracy" is as opposed to the democracy with which this nation was originally set up, so I'm not sure that I'm willing to advocate it even as the wisest form of government for our country in the first place.

Speaking for myself only, throwing an "egalitarian" in front of democracy is just the kind of thing I might do after have been castigated for a week for having failed to show how "democracy" -- that is, just normal rule by the many -- tends to privilege the many's private interests, thus quickly leaping the bounds from the political to the economic and social.

[wink]

Well, you can do that if you want, Paul, but that would seem like what one author has called a "triumph of theft over honest toil"--using terminology to bake one's controverted position into the debate from the outset. If _that's_ what "egalitarian democracy means" ("democracy that has an innate tendency to turn into socialism") then all the more so would I not say that it solves all problems. If someone concocted such a critter--perhaps some sort of pure, Athenian mob-rule without the checks and balances so carefully built in at the American founding?--it would have even less of a chance of producing a stable and well-governed country than what we were actually wisely given.

Let me add too that that "perhaps" in my characterization of a possible form of "egalitarian democracy" is really doing work. Whether or not even an (in my opinion, unwise) direct democracy, as opposed to the type of representative republic our country was at the founding, had a tendency to turn into socialism would probably depend on a lot more than just that governmental form itself. The monetary system of the country would be relevant, it seems to me, and the awareness of the majority of the citizens of various economic facts and probabilities. I could imagine situations in which even a pure, direct mob-rule-style democracy would not have a tendency to turn into socialism.

The categories we think in were not in place when DIA was written, and so quotes intended to support the various positions of anti-democratic conservatism often amount to very dubious assertions of what Tocqueville had in mind. Just as one example, Tocqueville had several ways of using the term "democracy," each with distinctly different meanings. How many are even aware of this?

Mischievous commenters here have of late adduced claims of Tocqueville secret allegiance to the ancien regime, which is how they interpret his steady caution about modern democracy’s capacity for justice; but certainly on this point only a really brassbound fool would insist on contrarianism, and present Tocqueville as pining for the old regime’s iron unity of church and state. He was fully persuaded by Americans on this point. Tocqueville privileged liberty, of conscience above all.

Who here has alleged that?

I see little to gainsay in the quotation Mark provides and much to admire. This passage in particular . . .

Paul, I didn't see anything wrong with that part you chose to respond to either. I don't think this should be surprising.

Are you winking at Jeff in his use of "egalitarian democracy"? Not sure who you're winking at.

I think, Paul, that you may not realize sometimes that when people question what appear to be _your_ opinions, when you claim to be both "channeling" and agreeing with Tocqueville, it does not follow that we agree with you in attributing these opinions to Tocqueville. I, for one, don't know enough about Tocqueville to know to what extent your interpretations or attributions are accurate. For example, when you said way upthread that Tocqueville became pessimistic about democracy because of his abolitionism, I said forthrightly that I would evaluate an anti-democracy argument from T. made on the basis of American slavery *when I saw* such an argument from T. Meanwhile I was forced to do the best I could with _your_ argument (or associational claims) and with Acton's, as those were all I had to respond to.

Or where you asked whether _you_ were "too much of a social democrat" for my taste or else whether you were "pining" for the ancien regime, I pointed out that in our own time (you being a contemporary of mine and not of Tocqueville), these types of positions are entirely compatible in the Tory-anti-capitalist-anti-democratic-paleo Right. You responded by saying that such a rapprochement would have been unheard of *in Tocqueville's time*. And so it goes, back and forth.

It would help if you would a) state your own positions very clearly, b) make it clear when you are attributing a position to Tocqueville which may or may not be your own position, and c) make it clear when you agree with a position (which should also be stated clearly) which you are attributing to Tocqueville! It would then be easier for people to say things (which I thought I had made clear enough) such as, "Whether or not this was T's position, I disagree with it insofar as I understand it" and so forth.

Whether or not _you_, Paul, have an attraction to monarchy, I cannot for the life of me tell, because on the one hand you seem to resent such implications as insults while on the other hand you make all manner of negative, though vague, implications against representative democracy.

Jeff Culbreath _clearly does_ have an attraction to monarchy, and I cannot imagine that he would consider that statement about him to be an insult. After all, he has made his own positive argument for his clearly stated thesis that monarchy is the best form of government in a diverse society.

I fully admit to not knowing enough Tocqueville to confirm or disconfirm this possibility, but it would be interesting to know to what extent T's supposedly "more pessimistic" writings would fit into the rubric of "the worst system in the world except for all the others."

Jeff Culbreath _clearly does_ have an attraction to monarchy, and I cannot imagine that he would consider that statement about him to be an insult. After all, he has made his own positive argument for his clearly stated thesis that monarchy is the best form of government in a diverse society.

That's right, Lydia. I do have monarchist "sympathies" and don't consider the term insulting. But I'm not a monarchist in the political sense of advocating for a monarchy in the United States today. These folks do exist - really! they're not hard to find - but I'm not one of them. So as not to be confused with real monarchists, the term really shouldn't be applied to me.

The understanding of man and society that undergirds monarchy has implications for other systems as well, including our own. When I said that, in America, the Constitution had taken on the functional role of a monarch, I did not mean that as criticism. I see it as a plausible alternative.

These folks do exist - really! they're not hard to find - but I'm not one of them.

Maybe like Mencius Moldbug? I would never classify you with them.

I do take your point, Jeff.

I knew you didn't mean the analogy of the constitution to a monarch to be a criticism. I just don't think the analogy works. Of course, to some extent it depends on what _kind_ of monarchy one is trying to compare to the American system. But suppose we imagine a monarchy without an elected Parliament, or with a Parliament that serves only an advisory role to the king or something of that kind. In that case, it seems to me that the role of the king in America's federal government is played by a combination at least of the President and Congress, and possibly of the Supreme Court as well. I think that was one of the Framers' points--to spread those many functions of active governing over a large number of different people, most of whom do not serve for life terms, so that their stupid or wicked ideas will to some extent get in each others' way. Creative gridlock, one might call it, though "checks and balances" sounds better.

I agree fully with Lydia's characterization at 10:54. My problem with debates of this sort is not that I want to say "Tocqueville is wrong," but that I want to say "is that what he said?" The groups that Lydia referred to as the "Tory-anti-capitalist-anti-democratic-paleo Right" seems to feel that he is the Good Housekeeping Seal of approval on their various views, and I think that is a problem. First, did he say it, and second is it true? I think the "Strange Liberalism . . ." book is a wonderful critical introduction to Tocqueville's thought. It isn't anti-Toqueville at all, and I can think of no good reason to be such. I would question the judgement of any author who tried to undermine him in this way. It examines his views as they were and what shaped them, and the answers are quite interesting. In my view the current debates are not very productive because they don't actually engage Tocqueville, but only appear to.

A real debate on the merits on democracy and comparisons to others depends on a critical engagement with Tocqueville, and the point of a number of books is that we simply don't have that today because . . . well here is the first sentence of the book I quoted that I think hints at what Lydia said: "Too many people call Tocqueville's ideas their own. . . ."

I'd also point out what I should have earlier, but I didn't want to risk offending anyone, but perhaps made it worse for being non-personal. Namely, that my comments on this thread weren't, and aren't now, all or mostly aimed at Paul. If I understood correctly, James Wilson is a professor who teaches Tocqueville, and I've yet to see any critical analysis of or real interaction with T's beliefs. When I referred to a "quasi-religious understanding" and lack of critical analysis, I had _this_ in mind. Apologies to James.

Anyway, it isn't the case that I am a died in the wool democracy advocate, but more of a "American-Tocquevillian" skeptic. I've strongly hinted before the role of the "anti-bourgousie" types such as Henry Adams, whose influence had a strong effect on the same "Tory-anti-capitalist-anti-democratic-paleo Right" crowd, as well as the Left. I think much talk of the "robber baron" era is total bunk, and owes much to uncritical analysis of Adams. At the end of the day I just can't think folks who've never read a critical analysis on Henry Adams "Education" or the received American-Tocquevillian understanding of T has really made a strong effort at what it takes to understand US history or politics. For example I found the starkly conflicting views of American politics in the 1890's mostly baffling until getting a grip on Adams's views and purposes in "Education."

In any case, I have to wonder sometimes what is the point of expressing somewhat strident anti-democratic rhetoric when, as Lydia said, the idea that democracy is marginally better at this point in time by comparison with other systems is all I'd have to think to be skeptical of much of it. Again, I think Henry Adams "Education" is a very large clue here.

In my view the current debates are not very productive because they don't actually engage Tocqueville, but only appear to.

Partly this is because I wrote a post about Tocqueville's statesmanship in France at that critical age when socialism was rising in Europe, while about 80% of this comment thread has ended up as a discussion of America, democracy and Tocqueville. Previous posts on Tocqueville by me this spring have similarly concerned France and Europe, and America only as an ancillary topic. The other book I read and quoted from was his unfinished The European Revolution, assembled, introduced and annotated by the historian John Lukacs.

My position is that the 19th century in Europe supplies us with a fascinating record of the emergence, within democratic theory and practice, of what we call Socialism -- the spread of equality as the guiding principle of human life into the social and economic realms. In America, this emergence follows a different pattern; and Socialism emerges later. But even here it emerges out of democratic theory. We find the early 20th century Progressives busily undermining the principles of the American Founding based on the complaint that those principles are not democratic. For these folks, everything about the Founding exudes anti-democratic inclinations. Bicameralism; the Senate's aristocratic features; the various means of filtering popular enthusiasm; federalism; etc. We have the economic interpretation of the Founding as a shield for plutocracy. We have the introduction of exotic new plebiscitary reforms, especially out West, and the concomitant elevation of the presidential election as the primary ritual of national politics.

My view is that the critique of Socialism, in both its European and American forms, must not scruple to implicate parts of democratic theory as well.

In other words, Social Democracy -- which is what today governs both Europe and America, though in varying degrees -- is both a true form of democracy, emerging out of effort to make equality real, and is open to criticism on a many fronts.

is both a true form of democracy, emerging out of effort to make equality real,

...emerging out of, by your own account, Paul, a deliberate attack upon, rejection of, and overturning of representative, constitutionally limited, democracy with checks and balances (including federalism) *as carefully founded in this country*. As for the phrase "make equality real"--well, I would challenge that as an empty and deliberately equivocal and confusing phrase if uttered as an advertisement by an advocate of socialism. Why should we, as conservatives, allow it to pass as if it were a legitimate and helpful description of socialism?

Paul,

I really like this:

My position is that the 19th century in Europe supplies us with a fascinating record of the emergence, within democratic theory and practice, of what we call Socialism -- the spread of equality as the guiding principle of human life into the social and economic realms. In America, this emergence follows a different pattern; and Socialism emerges later. But even here it emerges out of democratic theory. We find the early 20th century Progressives busily undermining the principles of the American Founding based on the complaint that those principles are not democratic. For these folks, everything about the Founding exudes anti-democratic inclinations. Bicameralism; the Senate's aristocratic features; the various means of filtering popular enthusiasm; federalism; etc. We have the economic interpretation of the Founding as a shield for plutocracy. We have the introduction of exotic new plebiscitary reforms, especially out West, and the concomitant elevation of the presidential election as the primary ritual of national politics.
With the exception of the last sentence (those "exotic plebiscitary reforms" seem to me more of a reaction to the efforts of the Progessives destructive work -- i.e. you don't need a referendum on affirmative action if you don't have courts that impose affirmative action in the first place) this seems like the key idea to this whole debate. And for those of us who cherish the Founding, our American republic, notions of ordered liberty and even industrial capitalism -- it should trouble us that the Progressives were successful. Figuring out why and how is important because it will help us restore America (assuming such a restoration is possible -- and I believe it is!)

In my view the current debates are not very productive because they don't actually engage Tocqueville, but only appear to.

Partly this is because I wrote a post about Tocqueville's statesmanship in France at that critical age when socialism was rising in Europe, while about 80% of this comment thread has ended up as a discussion of America, democracy and Tocqueville.

I know. The thread was hijacked, and before I got to it this time! Like I said, many of my comments weren't even directed at you. But the way it always ends up being about DIA as the discussion progresses does show the idea that many don't know how to talk about America abstractly except as taught by Tocqueville. We grew up here, but many describe it as if they aliens. Think about a better world where debates about the subjects dealt with by T in DIA without such heavy reliance on direct quotes, and we really tried to unpack what he meant outside of our categories, which he didn't know and/or accept.

Figuring out why and how is important because it will help us restore America (assuming such a restoration is possible -- and I believe it is!)

We've got most of the good musicians on our side for starters. Republicans have The Donald.

"Yeah, now the work force is disgusted down tools and walks
Innocence is injured, experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze

On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless, theology is worse
History boils over, there's an Economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean industrial disease"
- Dire Straits

emerging out of, by your own account, Paul, a deliberate attack upon, rejection of, and overturning of representative, constitutionally limited, democracy with checks and balances (including federalism) *as carefully founded in this country*.

Yes, an attack upon it from the position of a partisan of democracy. Are you going to allege that the Progressives were outside the modern democratic tradition? They wanted more complete democracy: they wanted equality enforced by more direct application of majority will. It is fascinating when reading the literature of liberals from the 40s and 50s to discover how ardently they wanted the presidential election to become a great media-driven ritual of majoritarianism, with the new President (naturally a forward-looking progressive himself) now armed with a real "mandate" from the people to right wrongs and conquer poverty and take on racism and heal the sick and everything else. They're enthralled by the idea of the General Will, which naturally resolves into a very strong Executive with the backing of the people.

I of course place myself in opposition to all this. I side emphatically with the Framers and think the Progressives love of democracy has blinded them to how wise a system we've got. But it is precisely ardent love of democracy that has blinded them. The structure of the Senate is not appreciably democratic, at least as the Senate was made by the Framers (the Progressives pushed a reform that introduced a much stronger plebiscitary element, a reform of dubious value in my judgment). The power of small states in the structure of our government far exceeds their popular influence. Californians' equality really is hampered by the disproportionate voice of Vermonters and Dakotans in Congress. The electoral college is definitely a dilution of democracy's immediate force. Congressional traditions very often do hinder the legislative agenda of even the Executive armed with a considerable "mandate from the people." The coalition of oppositional interests that has so often risen to block ruinous legislation (think immigration or the Equal Rights Amendment), which is at the heart of Publius' vision, is not democratic in the normal sense of the word; it relies on the oppositional supermajority, which within itself can barely even get along much less become a legislative majority, as a restraint rather than an active and progressive General Will.

All of which is to say that American constitutionalism seems to clearly borrow from elements outside democratic theory, elements even hostile to that theory, to round out its political tradition. Partisans of democracy are right, by their own lights, to dislike all the fetters the Framers clasped around pure majority will.

But in that case, Paul, you're just going to _define_ "democracy" as having none of the limits built in at the founding (for all I know, not even a bill of rights) so that any attack on those limits will be called "democratic theory" and so that the whole set-up of checks and balances in the constitution, or any way in which our government as founded is not direct rule by the people, really, is going to be defined as "anti-democratic." Now, _that_ is why from the outset of this discussion I said "American democracy" on occasion after occasion. _Not_ to associate our form of government with every aspect of American _history_ but to associate our form of government with...our form of government. In fact, I said over and over again that it was that form of government I was defending and not some sort of direct Athenian democracy for the entire country. For example, I think federalism and the bill of rights, to choose just two examples, are very important limits on the power of the majority of the whole country to rule everyone within the country. The protection of the rights of, say, religious minorities is a very important limit on majority rule.

If you are just going to define terms in such a way that this means that I'm "anti-democracy," if nothing else, that makes the conversation rather uninteresting.

By the way, I should add that as a sheerly empirical matter, I'm glad Jeff Singer called my attention to the fact that you were referring to state referendums. First, these are no attack on the form of government set up by the founders, as far as I can tell, as that was at the federal level. And second, and more interestingly, their results are all over the map, from bad to good, and I have no data that support the thesis that in the aggregate or taken as a whole statistically they tend to favor socialism in the economic realm. Do you? Off the top of my head I can think of a lot of results of such direct votes by the people of a given state. They range from the legalization of assisted suicide on the one hand to capping property taxes and defining marriage as being between one man and one woman (and outlawing civil civil unions in my own state's constitution) on the other. This seems rather to support my contention that socialism per se is not a particular trend of democracy and possibly not even of more direct forms of democracy but rather that one can predict the results of a majority's vote only by knowing in the concrete instance what the majority actually happens to favor, which may be almost anything depending on circumstances.

"for those of us who cherish the Founding, our American republic, notions of ordered liberty and even industrial capitalism -- it should trouble us that the Progressives were successful. Figuring out why and how is important because it will help us restore America"

Yes, it might be interesting, for instance, to determine why so many industrial capitalists were involved in bankrolling the Progressive movement.

If America has any chance of being "restored" all of its Enlightenment-rooted presuppositions must be examined, not just the ones that the Right and Left respectively find problematic. I don't see much hope of this however, as neither side seems particularly interested in avoiding the swallowing of its own camels but rather spends the vast majority of its time attempting to identify what species of gnat it is that's doing the backstroke in its opponents' soup.

Rob G.,

I'd like some data to back up your claim that "so many industrial capitalists were involved in bankrolling the Progressive movement." A select few I can understand -- there will always be the Soros' of the world (and on a more mundane level, the GEs of the world) who use their wealth to fund bad causes (or use their wealth to push for government protection or subsidies from competitors). That's why most free-market types support government policies that promote competition and innovation.

Anyway, to go back to the theme of the dangers of democracy, I can't resist sharing this amusing post:

Democracy in the Ivorty Coast

It makes me think of our own problems with immigrants and the dangers of importing a "new people" (and then pandering to them politically).

(HT: Foseti -- one of my favorite reactionary bloggers)

Paul, you're just going to _define_ "democracy" as having none of the limits built in at the founding (for all I know, not even a bill of rights) so that any attack on those limits will be called "democratic theory" and so that the whole set-up of checks and balances in the constitution, or any way in which our government as founded is not direct rule by the people, really, is going to be defined as "anti-democratic."

I'm going to define democracy as "rule by the many," and allow a wide range of particular instantiations of it in the world. It is very hard to identify democracy as such. We need to the particular to realize the universal abstraction.

What I'm also doing is conceding that the Progressives were operating based on a sincere desire to advance the extent to which "rule by the many" is consummated in American government and society. They identified aspects of the American tradition that hindered equality being realized and worked to remove them. And I'm going to concede that they had good reason, in many cases, to suspect that the Framers themselves were uncomfortable with democracy and therefore had erected various arrangements to restrain it. The small-state bias really does amount to the introduction of a principle or spirit of "rule by the few" that appears in numerous aspects of our political tradition.

There is also this: we're talking here about a tradition, which is susceptible of development and reform, not a static system. Important parts of it find no direct origin in the Constitution but rather appear over time. Judicial review, for instance, is an extra-constitutional development which now plays an enormous role in our politics. The direction development of tradition takes must always owe a great deal to the character of the age in which it occurs. The Progressives left their mark on our tradition (most of it of baleful effect, in my judgment); that mark may be said to consist largely in the diminution of whatever "rule by the few" arrangements they could get their hands on, and the extension or introduction of "rule by the many" arrangements.

So the Progressives are now part of our tradition too. Some of their reforms are nearly a century old. Not all have proven pernicious but many have. My own idea of the development of our tradition would take the form, in part, of repudiating big chunks of what we might call the Progressive Constitution, and restoring the old one.

But it is precisely because the Progressives were too incautious about democracy that I reproach their reforms. The Progressives forgot the wisdom of that alien Frenchman. A little Tocquevillian instinct, a touch of pessimism about unintended consequences, would have been solid counsel to them, and solid policy for the American people.

If the Tocquevillian American had one day sat down the Progressive American, and read him an impressive and instructive lecture on the community of moral intuitions, that social state that informs democracy, of the vital importance of inherited forms and rituals, of the intertwining of worship and public life -- why, I'd wager things would be better in this country.

But realistically, we're not much served by those "better worlds" to which Mark refers us. He imagines a Grand Paradise where Tocqueville is no longer quoted; I imagine one where he was heeded, whether read enough carefully and contextually or not. Either way, we're talking distant abstractions, what ifs that are out of our world.

In my judgment, the real world is one that fairly aches for restraints on majority will. Undiluted democracy is indeed dangerous, as the Progressives' follies (and many other follies from then to now) have demonstrated. The few exceptions like the referendum only go to the rule. Our tradition is now firmly in the hands of folks who carry the Progressives presuppositions in countless ways, on the Right and Left. Moreover, the actual "form of government" they introduced, the stamp of their work on our practical politics, is of course the New Deal and the Social Democracy it represents.

The main thing between you and me, Lydia, is that I have made my peace with Social Democracy while you have not. Fair?

Our tradition is now firmly in the hands of folks who carry the Progressives presuppositions in countless ways, on the Right and Left. Moreover, the actual "form of government" they introduced, the stamp of their work on our practical politics, is of course the New Deal and the Social Democracy it represents.

The main thing between you and me, Lydia, is that I have made my peace with Social Democracy while you have not. Fair?

But earlier you said,

My own idea of the development of our tradition would take the form, in part, of repudiating big chunks of what we might call the Progressive Constitution, and restoring the old one.

I find that really, really confusing. Don't these two statements seem to pull in opposite directions?

If you've "made your peace with" the New Deal, for example, then that would seem to mean, for example, that you accept (endorse? don't wish to reverse?) the great loosening of 10th amendment restrictions on federal power that the New Deal represented. But those restrictions are a very important part of the old constitution that we should want to restore, and all the more so if you view such restrictions as valuable restrictions on "rule by the many."

Of course I have not, and will not, make my peace with the overturning of federalism. It seems to me a highly unwise _centralization_ of power in America. And of course I will not make my peace with "social democracy" if by that you mean the massive "tradition" of the welfare state with which we are surrounded. If you think this is a result of wrongly unrestrained "rule by the many," I'm surprised that you would either.

Speaking for myself, I don't primarily see the Progressive changes in our society as manifestations of increased "rule by the many," whatever the Progressives themselves might have thought or said. Roe v. Wade and the various other oligarchical Supreme Court strikedowns of the more conservative will of the people as expressed in their laws are concrete instances to the contrary. This doesn't mean, either, that I think the will of the people is always right or good. I just think the chattering classes who end up as court justices have tended, in America, to be at the cutting edge of crazy avant garde thought and hence to be busy pushing the "will of the people" from behind by their thunderings from on high based on lies about the meaning of the Constitution.

In any event, I've assumed the wisdom of the founders throughout this discussion in their formation of a _form_ of government and have set out to defend the form of democracy they founded, not some extremely vague and open-ended concept called "the rule by the many."

I knew you jump on that.

You've excised part where I deliberately make the shift from analyzing what I want to what we're dealing with.

Right now, and for the foreseeable future, what I want has to pretty much be set aside. There is no plausible arrangement of current-day American politics that gives me what I want.

It seems to me that effective political action must take a different form than insisting on pie-in-the-sky "Roll back the New Deal" Goldwaterism. Effective political action entails, rather, something more like "getting aligned in coalitions arranged to oppose some fatal new innovation," in other words, the conservative position should be the position laid out in The Federalist, supply the defects of democracy by democratic means.

The idea of raising a governing majority to actually roll back the New Deal is quixotic fantasy. Even in the most fiscally conservative moment in recent history, the idea of simply removing all the social democratic infrastructure of the New Deal is not even being broached by GOP politicians. Not even Sen. Rand Paul proposes it.

Okay, so that's what you mean by "made my peace with." I don't see that that has anything to do with any disagreement between you and me concerning democracy, America, the tendencies of democracy, or anything of that kind. To the contrary: You and I both apparently _want_ the same thing as regards the lessening of government centralization in this country; we may to some degree differ purely pragmatically on how hard to insist on that. Such a pragmatic difference seems to have nothing to do with theoretical differences concerning what democracy "leads to."

I would also add that if you "make your peace with" the abandonment of the 10th amendment, enumerated powers, and limits on federal centralization, at least if you were to do so to the point of not using those principles in argument, you're going to have a darned hard time opposing a lot of fatal new innovations that we can be quite sure the left will dream up, with Obamacare being only the most recent.

Going back to something you said just a little earlier: In this very thread you have at one time passionately argued that the imposition of the will of the federal government on a state or region is _not_ democratic (because it is opposed to the rule of the people in that state or region) and that the abandonment of federalism and the strengthening of the power of the federal government _is_ "more democratic" than federalism (because it increases the extent of the "rule by the many"). This seems inconsistent. It seems inconsistent, in my opinion, because there really is no categorical sense in which federalism is "democratic" or "anti-democratic." It can be argued to be either, pretty much by precisely the arguments you have used at various times in this thread when it suited the purpose of saying negative things about democracy. Greater state independence and sovereignty (in America, where the states themselves are representatively governed) means greater effectiveness and rule of the "many" or the "majority" or "the people" when those terms are construed to apply within one smaller jurisdiction--namely, the individual state. Greater centralization and federal power means (in America, where the country as a whole is representatively governed) greater effectiveness of the rule of the "many" or the "majority" or "the people" when those terms are construed to apply within a much larger, containing jurisdiction--the country as a whole.

And that's about all that can be said. This shows pretty conclusively that there is no unequivocal and categorical sense in which greater federal power is "more" or "less" democratic than the system we had at the founding that allowed the states and the people of the states more independence.

The argument for federalism has to do with things like not concentrating too much power in one governmental unit, giving people greater ability to vote with their feet within the United States, and allowing a diversity of laws suited to the needs of different regions and circumstances. These types of arguments aren't intrinsically either pro- or anti- "rule by the people" or "rule by the many," to the extent that one can even make sense of such sweeping categories. In fact, the attempt to fit federalism into the categories of "pro-democracy" or "anti-democracy" seems to me to fail precisely because one is trying too hard to apply those categories.

But realistically, we're not much served by those "better worlds" to which Mark refers us. He imagines a Grand Paradise where Tocqueville is no longer quoted; I imagine one where he was heeded, whether read enough carefully and contextually or not. Either way, we're talking distant abstractions, what ifs that are out of our world.

Paul, I only use "better world" like anyone: "in a better world, abortion wouldn't be rampant." This use is not controversial. You've made a common expression sound nefarious and something it wasn't.

Tocqueville didn't introduce anything new. He gave an expression to the tensions in democracy that Americans always knew existed. In fact, the two major themes of DIA were suggested to him by an American. I gave my "Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville" back to the library this morning so I can't give the reference. As I've already said, my problem isn't with Tocqueville, but those who quote DIA carelessly, which is the norm.

What I'm also doing is conceding that the Progressives were operating based on a sincere desire to advance the extent to which "rule by the many" is consummated in American government and society. They identified aspects of the American tradition that hindered equality being realized and worked to remove them.

I confess I don't know enough about the Progressive Era, but I'm skeptical of dragooning this into the service of anti-democratic conservatism. I think that the Progressive Era was a catastrophe for the country, and most of what I dislike about the path the country is on comes from that era. It sounds like we have a similar distaste of it. If I could wave a wand and remove most progressive era reforms I'd do it. So we're on the same page on that. I can't rewrite what Lydia as already said so well, and I don't have the time anyway, but I'd just say that Progressivism undermined much of American democracy as it was supposed to be, and we're still trying to recover from it. I hope we will yet, and it is possible in at least a number of important ways, but we'll have to see in the next few years.

Democracy in the Ivorty Coast

It makes me think of our own problems with immigrants and the dangers of importing a "new people" (and then pandering to them politically).

Jeff, I'm suspicious of this account. What I do know about the situation leads me to doubt his characterization. In any case, there is no excuse for not giving citations, and not much reason to trust a source that doesn't provide some in this day and age of easy hyperlinking.

Lydia, I agree that federalism is an ambiguous concept within the constellation of democratic theories. For lots of liberals over the years, federalism has appeared as an antagonist of democracy. The question of what is the proper or most congenial scale for a democratic polity is an interesting one. How much local autonomy can be granted without risking a despotism of the national majority by local majorities, or a despotism borne of sectional strife? Interesting questions, and ones that we tested in fire.

That federalism is also one of the great accomplishments of the American tradition goes some way toward explaining my reluctance to acquiesce in the idea that democracy is an unalloyed good because America did it so well.

I would also add that if you "make your peace with" the abandonment of the 10th amendment, enumerated powers, and limits on federal centralization, at least if you were to do so to the point of not using those principles in argument, you're going to have a darned hard time opposing a lot of fatal new innovations that we can be quite sure the left will dream up

The process of democratic development I described did not suggest a complete "abandonment" of the Framers' principles. It suggested a partial effacement of them, and their substitution in places by purer democratic principles. The reform of the state of affairs will require some re-examination of our ideas about democracy.

And I do think that the "pragmatic" estimate of what sort of democracy we are dealing with does have some impact on our theoretical judgment of democracy's tendencies.

Consider this: if asked to sign a pledge that you will only support a party or politician who is committed to eventually rolling back, say FDIC, Medicare, Social Security, and the bulk of the welfare programs dealing with poverty (four major pillars of American Social Democracy), would you sign it? Would you, in other words, make opposition to Social Democracy a principle of your politics?

I suspect (correct me if I'm wrong) that you would, while I would not. Part of the reason I would not is my strong sense that these pillars command solid majority support; they are the authentic fruit of American democracy. All are susceptible of reforms that would improve them, but I cannot support a project to simply dismantle them, as the Ayn Rand-types seem to encourage.

That federalism is also one of the great accomplishments of the American tradition goes some way toward explaining my reluctance to acquiesce in the idea that democracy is an unalloyed good because America did it so well.

I wonder if the term "unalloyed good" is hyperbole. Surely there is no such a thing outside of pure principle, and in relating to practical matters there needs to be a measure of hypotheticals to do it.

Now you may say "yes, it was hyperbole so cool your jets," but you seem to want to paint those not on board with anti-democratic Conservatism as out of touch and idealistic so it makes me wonder. Anytime something is gained something is lost, and I don't know of anyone who doesn't think some important things are lost from past ages, whether due to political systems or not. But none of this means that democracy is inherently more corrupt or corrupting all considered. It isn't going to work to pronounce judgement by putting democracy under the microscope, while speaking in broad generalities of its competitors.

Consider this: if asked to sign a pledge that you will only support a party or politician who is committed to eventually rolling back, say FDIC, Medicare, Social Security, and the bulk of the welfare programs dealing with poverty (four major pillars of American Social Democracy), would you sign it? Would you, in other words, make opposition to Social Democracy a principle of your politics?

What people say isn't as important as what they do, and what they try to do isn't as important in how I vote as what I think they can actually do. In an election I'd never say never strictly speaking since voting involves relative comparisons. Though I wouldn't favor a candidate who professed to want to remove the social safety net, since I don't agree with this, I wouldn't have any trouble voting for a candidate who promises a multi-generational effort to "eventually" do any number of things because in democracies what happens now and what happens years from now are entirely different things in this context. I'd happily vote for a person if I thought they could "roll back" a bloated program I thought was causing harm and sleep like a baby knowing that future attempts promised of different politicians elected by different voters is nothing I need worry about unless I thought it likely a bad ideology would entrench and spread.

And it seems to me we shouldn't conflate a system of government (democracy) with a political ideology (social democracy) that may ride upon it.

Now you may say "yes, it was hyperbole so cool your jets," but you seem to want to paint those not on board with anti-democratic Conservatism as out of touch

And you want to paint me as an "anti-democratic conservative," despite the moderate course I've plotted here. If I'm so anti-democratic, how do you explain my saying that I have made my peace with Social Democracy?

we shouldn't conflate a system of government (democracy) with a political ideology (social democracy) that may ride upon it

Social Democracy is a form of government too. The modifier "social" admirably does its job, indicating that the principle of equality has been pushed out farther, into the social and economic realms. The democrat says that a man cannot be equal or free until his political citizenship is complete, is recourse to law unimpeded, his civic standing no less than his peers. The Social Democrat says that he is also not equal or free until his economic burden has been eased such that he is not forced to send his 10-year-old sons into the mines, or his daughters into the factories.

Now in my judgment the Social Democrat has sort of pulled a fast one here and smuggled in an unexamined premise. He presupposes that all material wants can be effectively administered by a big bloated welfare state. He seems to forget the very real possibility that the state will attempt to ease his wants -- and fail. That is, he cannot see the potential that even Social Democracy will not always prevent children having to work to eat. To redistribute wealth we must first have wealth, and so the source of the wealth of nations is indeed a topic of some importance.

I could go on and on with criticism of Social Democracy. It is a flawed system. But all of that criticism put together would not instill in me the kind of stridency and dogmatism this thread has seen.

New Deal-style Social Democracy is the natural issue of American democracy under pressure from Progressivism, war, modernity and globalization, along with other factors. So much of policy today still finds it spring in the Roosevelt era. Asking Americans to rise up and repudiate this tradition is folly of a high order. Reform it, yes. Repudiate, no.

Now, how the original American political tradition got derailed, as Voegelin would say, and set upon this wild new path, is a historical matter worth examining with care and dedication. How, if you will, the American Republic became the American Social Democracy, is a fascinating question indeed. My own view differs from you in that I see this derailment as having two primary authors: Capitalism and Socialism.

Remember that phrase from way upthread, Lydia? I mean the one by which I attempted to gesture toward the industrial conditions of Europe?

Social Democracy is a debased and enthralled version of the American political tradition. It is the foreseeable consequence of Socialism applied to the flaws of Capitalism. The desire for wealth and equality enthralled, and the plutocracy and the welfare state obligingly debased.

My own view differs from you in that I see this derailment as having two primary authors: Capitalism and Socialism.

Yes, my view does indeed differ from that, Paul.

I notice that in your question about signing a pledge, you seemed to consider only two possibilities: 1) One promises never to vote for (at least so I understood "support") any politician who won't promise to try to roll all these things back, 2) One considers, as you do, that it would be a _bad idea_ to try to dismantle these programs, because they are, on your view, the "authentic fruit of American democracy."

Now, the second of these just seems extremely strange to me. A policy may be a good idea or a bad idea. It may be an idea with some good aspects and some bad aspects. It may be workable in the short term but unworkable in the long term. It may have popular support or lack it. Many things one can say about a policy. And one can say, with resignation, "There's no point my supporting turning this back, because so many people in the country are on-board with it, so we might as well not even talk about it." But your language doesn't quite fall into any of these categories. It's more...lofty than that. It sounds a bit like the last one, but it also sounds like somehow this "authentic fruit" thing puts some sort of seal of _goodness_ on the policies, so that you "cannot support" rolling them back.

This raises the interesting question of what you would do if there were a politically realistic chance of, say, gradually phasing out Social Security. Would it then cease to be the "authentic fruit of American democracy"? Or perhaps you'd then support rolling it back because rolling it back would then be the "fruit of American democracy"? This all seems very strange, as though you are setting aside any opinion of your own on the wisdom or unwisdom, goodness or badness, of the policy.

It's a little ironic that Social Security and Medicare are looming on the horizon as potentially huge problems for the American economy in the not-so-distant future at the very moment that you seem to be declaring some sort of odd, open-ended allegiance to them on the strange grounds that they are the "authentic fruit of American democracy." Our entire country's economy could be in serious trouble within your and my lifetime because of the unsustainable Ponzi scheme of Social Security, so maybe we could, you know, _think_ about how we would _like_ to support a plan to get ourselves out of this mess. We may resignedly conclude that the whole thing has to come toppling down and that there's not a thing we can do about it, because the American people and their representatives won't listen, but that's hardly the same thing as saying in this solemn way that we "cannot support" any plan to phase it out because it is the "authentic fruit of democracy."

So, no, I have no intention of signing the pledge you mention. I guess that will come as a surprise to you. But nowhere and never have I declared that my economic views are non-negotiables when it comes to candidate selection. They aren't. But would I _like_ to see a candidate who told Americans some hard facts about these programs, both economic facts and civics facts? Yes, I might be very interested in such a candidate, depending on his other views. If only candidates with radical views on economic matters and the 10th amendment didn't seem to have creepy, 9/11 theorist followers whom they coddle, crazy views on foreign policy, and other such drawbacks.

That federalism is also one of the great accomplishments of the American tradition goes some way toward explaining my reluctance to acquiesce in the idea that democracy is an unalloyed good because America did it so well.

Nobody in this thread said that "rule by the many" (which is how you have now told us you define "democracy") is an unalloyed good. On the contrary, I have over and over and over again, more times than I care to go back and count, made a distinction between direct, Athenian democracy and American democracy as originally set up, and declared that I was defending the latter. It is _you_, Paul, who insist on discussing this gigantic notion of "democracy" including all its different possible forms and then telling us what is or isn't the "authentic fruit" of this gigantic concept.

In any event, since you just admitted that "federalism is an ambiguous concept within the constellation of democratic theories," it seems a little strange that you should _still_ insist that somehow America's having a federalist set-up in the first instance means that we shouldn't say positive things about democracy on the basis of America's initially good system and experience. You know, perhaps we could say positive things about _America's_ form of democracy, _with federalism_. How about that? It seems like still (still) you are insisting on holding at some level that the only "true" or "real" democracy is a gigantic, centralized, Social Democracy welfare state encompassing the largest possible jurisdiction (the world? the galaxy?)! So if anyone doesn't like that, such a person is really somehow not _really_ in favor of "democracy." That, of course, overlooks precisely the point for which I just argued--namely, that there isn't anything per se pro-democracy or anti-democracy about subsidiarity and federalism.

While I'm at it, I'll also add, Paul, that you seem to have been somewhat influenced yourself by the arguments you mention to the effect that a man is not "equal or free" unless he is in a particular economic state. Now, the reference to sending one's ten-year-old son into the mines seems to me in itself to show that you've accepted some kind of strange socialist rhetoric. I'm sorry to have to say that, but so it seems to me. Surely you are not under the impression that avoiding "sending one's sons into the mines" is what our welfare programs, etc., are all about. Indeed, your discussion throughout of _equality_--economic equality--or what the liberals would call "closing the gap between the rich and poor," belies this hyperbolic language as the real or main or sole goal of Social Democrats.

So let's re-word this: "A man is not free or equal unless he has what 2011 Social Democrats think he needs to have, and has it even if he doesn't work."

Well, um, no. And, as you say rightly, the Social Democrat has his own highly questionable ideas about the economically sensible, viable, or best means of achieving even the ends that he seeks. Indeed. Quite right.

But none of this Social Democrat theory concerning minimum income and economic systems _follows_ in any logical way, shape, or form from notions about _who votes_ or even about "equality before the law."

The association between one and the other is _pure rhetoric_. It is not logic. We conservatives, of all people, should not be mesmerized by it or taken in by it. We should give no quarter to it. We should not treat it as reasonable nor even, particularly, understandable, at least not for people smart enough to know better.

~~I'd like some data to back up your claim that "so many industrial capitalists were involved in bankrolling the Progressive movement"~~

Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie are perfect examples. All three supported various aspects of Progressivism (although not always the same ones) that conservatives would find suspect. And there were of course many lesser lights. The fact is that most of these guys saw no foundational disagreement between belief in corporate capitalism and cultural progressivism. That's because there is none. That progressivism manifested itself differently in those days doesn't take away from that fact.

When you baptize "choice" in economic terms it is impossible to prevent that baptism's effects from overrunning into other areas of life. You cannot tell people that they have "the liberty" to make as much money as they want and consume as much as they want, without them eventually beginning to think that this "liberty" should extend into all areas of life. Liberty, set free from its moral and religious rationales, becomes an untethered ideal. The point of liberty thus becomes choice itself.

Choice, understood in this way, does indeed devour itself. But this self-devouring does not limit itself to any one particular realm. The cretin twins of "Have it your way" and "It's all about me" do not restrict their travels to the whorehouse and the abortion clinic. They are spotted regularly at the bank and the mall as well.

The fact is that most of these guys saw no foundational disagreement between belief in corporate capitalism and cultural progressivism. That's because there is none.

Sigh. From which it does not follow, as you think it does, Rob, that there is a _foundational connection_ between corporate capitalism and cultural progressivism. People make money. People decide how to spend their money and what cultural norms they support. All your talk about "telling people that they can make as much money as they want" and how this somehow leads them to think that killing children is also permissible or whatever else it is you think they will automatically support is...a non sequitur. Which is putting it nicely.

More argument by vague association. "See, _choice_, *get it*, *get it*?"

I'm beginning to think that pseudo-argument by vague association is a disease of certain sectors of the American Right. Perhaps they picked it up from the American Left. I'm not sure.

Paul, I disagree that the following is in any sense a principled move in terms of American civics:

The process of democratic development I described did not suggest a complete "abandonment" of the Framers' principles. It suggested a partial effacement of them, and their substitution in places by purer democratic principles.

Recall that you said this in response to my statement that

if you "make your peace with" the abandonment of the 10th amendment, enumerated powers, and limits on federal centralization, at least if you were to do so to the point of not using those principles in argument, you're going to have a darned hard time opposing a lot of fatal new innovations that we can be quite sure the left will dream up.

I stand by that. I think it's obvious. The "process of democratic development" that involved, by your own account, the institution of our present Social Security system most certainly _does_ involve an abandonment of the Framers' principle of *in principle limited* federal government. And that's a very important principle. There is no excuse whatsoever in the Constitution for the federal government to set up the Social Security system. The commerce clause was the merest legal fig-leaf, laughable on its face. The Social Security system was put into place because the people who wanted it thought it "so very important." That is definitely an abandonment of the notion of enumerated federal powers. From there on we're just haggling about the price. In other words, from there on, everything is just a policy debate. Is this or that policy a good idea? Is it "really, really important"? And so forth. The idea that there is a bright line in the very constituting set-up of our country between the limited powers that the federal government legally has and those it doesn't have has been abandoned.

If you "make your peace with" that abandonment, then when the federal government simply passes, say, single-payer healthcare for every American, you will only be able to make policy arguments against it ("This won't work well"). One of the strongest and most principled arguments--that in the very nature of our country this is not properly a power of the federal government *at all* will not be available to you.

~~From which it does not follow, as you think it does, Rob, that there is a _foundational connection_ between corporate capitalism and cultural progressivism~~

Only inasmuch as they spring from the same root -- a notion of "freedom" cut off from its classical/Christian moral foundations.

~~More argument by vague association. "See, _choice_, *get it*, *get it*?"~~

There is no "vague association." Choice is choice. When raised to the level of a deity it will prove itself to be demonic, no matter in what sphere it operates. When there are no moral bounds on liberty it becomes license, even in economics.

I'm beginning to think that the blind spot on the mainstream Right regarding this is self-induced.

And you want to paint me as an "anti-democratic conservative," despite the moderate course I've plotted here. If I'm so anti-democratic, how do you explain my saying that I have made my peace with Social Democracy?

Paul, anti-democratic conservatism isn't a party. I think it is fair to say that you have some strong inclinations towards anti-democratic conservatism, and that is all I took myself to be saying. I'm guessing you wouldn't dispute this, but I could be wrong.

New Deal-style Social Democracy is the natural issue of American democracy under pressure from Progressivism, war, modernity and globalization, along with other factors.

There are a number of things that naturally issue from Progressivism that are very bad, but that all of it proceeds naturally from American democracy I don't accept.

Judging from the history of New England and other examples, I do think it fair to say that wealth has a naturally liberalizing effect all things being equal. This is not an American phenomenon, but that was one of the more powerful drivers to head West into the Ohio Valley and beyond for the have-nots. Thorsten Veblen made some trenchant observations in supplemental note IV (on American culture) to chapter VI of "Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution." It is well worth a read.

But that is a far, far more modest claim than yours, and of course we knew from the beginning that it would all fall apart if the independent character of the people changed. But like Lydia, I think that there have been, are, and will always be strong and tyrannical top-down attempts to force on them what they didn't wish in hopes that it would change them over time and blocking popular attempts at reform. See Obamocare. How all this proceeds naturally from American democracy I don't see. It seems to me evidence that it doesn't.

Choice is choice. When raised to the level of a deity it will prove itself to be demonic, no matter in what sphere it operates. When there are no moral bounds on liberty it becomes license, even in economics.

Rob, it's apparently your position that, "The government won't stop you from making what Rob thinks is too much money" somehow means or equals "Choice is a deity." I think that's nonsense. The following argument is lousy: "Capitalism gives people lots more choices in areas like food, cars, and housing. Some people make lots of money selling this stuff. The deep, metaphysical meaning of this phenomenon is that choice--any choice--is good in and of itself and that people should be free to do whatever they want."

So now the dichotomy is as follows: either I pronounce that Social Security is unconstitutional, or I've abandoned Founding principles in argument?

To me that is just dogmatism. Social Security was propounded by a President elected on a platform of enacting it (and things like it), and passed overwhelmingly by the legislative authority of the Nation. The Constitution does not forbid such legislation. It is essentially silent on such matters. But the Constitution does confer on Congress exclusive power of raising revenue and preponderant power of spending it. One of the declared purposes of the Constitution is general welfare. Americans in the 1930s (when a considerable portion of the problem of poverty concerned the elderly) by large majorities judged this legislation a worthwhile effort in promoting general welfare.

In a word, the only means of removing Social Security would be precisely anti-democratic ones. My reading of the Constitution, and the traditional built up around it, affirms that a legislative majority in Congress backed by sustained and active popular opinion, is basically supreme in our system. Neither of the other branches can stand up to this. The primary constitutional means by which to thwart legislative majorities is the coalition of opposition, as outlined in The Federalist. The infrastructure of federalism, small-state privilege, etc., encourage and succor those oppositional coalitions; but once they are surmounted, the deal is done.

Think about, Lydia: by your lights it would seem that Marbury v. Madison was an unconstitutional ruling. Judicial review of congressional legislation is not provided for in the Constitution. The Marshall Court basically invented it.

Perhaps what it comes down to is that you and I have differing views of what the American political tradition is. If that's true, your criticisms have obvious merit; the merit of a honest disagreement. But I do object to allegation that mine is the anti-democratic position here. My position is that a legislative supermajority is supreme in our form of government. Mere transient majorities are insufficient, and a lot of wise infrastructure exists to prevent their usurpation. But once these hurdles are cleared, the fruits of that supermajority's efforts are the authentic issue of American democracy.

~~Rob, it's apparently your position that, "The government won't stop you from making what Rob thinks is too much money" somehow means or equals "Choice is a deity." I think that's nonsense.~~

So do I. Of course, I never said it, or anything like it, so I have no problem whatsoever calling it so.

"The following argument is lousy"

Indeed it is. And it's not my argument, which would be more along this line: "Modernity promotes a species of liberty based on human autonomy, over against the classical/Christian tradition which grounds human freedom in the truth of the moral law. When liberty is severed from truth in this manner it inevitably turns negative and has a tendency to become license. The economic sphere is no more immune to this negative turn than any other sphere of human activity."


My reading of the Constitution, and the traditional built up around it, affirms that a legislative majority in Congress backed by sustained and active popular opinion, is basically supreme in our system.

What?? So to pass anything? From the outset? You know, anything? No eating broccoli on Tuesdays, all children must be educated by the state, whatever? At the federal level? So the 10th amendment means nothing, basically, and never did?

I'm sorry, that's...wild. I had no idea that you always denied the whole concept of enumerated powers in any shape or form and thought that from the outset the federal Congress was empowered to do whatever it decided to do to "promote the general welfare." Wow. That's really wow. I never knew anybody who was a conservative before who had that sweeping a view of the original powers, given by the Constitution, of the United States government.

Marbury v. Madison is a very interesting issue, and to my mind a lot of the interest turns around the fact that the power in question was a power _of_ the Supreme Court itself. One possible interpretation is that a given branch must be able to decide whether some action demanded of itself is or is not constitutional so as to govern its own actions by the constitution (as its members have sworn), but that this does not require a _general_ power of judicial review. In any event, if I recall correctly, Jefferson thought Marbury a disaster.

But there is if anything more constitutional excuse for the concept of judicial review (for example, the reference to all cases in law and equity) than for the federal congress to be "supreme" and hence empowered to enact any law whatsoever on any subject whatsoever, to take unto itself any power whatsoever, which quodlibetal power is _expressly_ forbidden by the 10th amendment.

What's amazing about this, Paul, is that right at this very moment there are lawsuits against Obamacare on the basis of the last remaining tiny shreds and vestiges of the doctrine of enumerated powers--the argument being over whether the commerce clause empowers Congress to force people to engage in commerce by purchasing health insurance. On your interpretation, all of that is utterly pointless, and always has been from the beginning of our country, since there was no need to invoke the commerce clause or anything else. Congress has no need to cite any more specific constitutional authority for its acts than the phrase "promote the general welfare" in the _preamble_, no less, and from there on it can do anything whatsoever. Not even all of our modern, 2011 jurists would agree with _that_ entirely open-ended a notion of unenumerated powers.

Well, Rob, no, you said this (emphasis added):

When you baptize "choice" in economic terms it is impossible to prevent that baptism's effects from overrunning into other areas of life. You cannot tell people that they have "the liberty" to make as much money as they want and consume as much as they want, without them eventually beginning to think that this "liberty" should extend into all areas of life.

Which really does say that if you "allow" people to make as much money as they want--namely, more money that you think in some ideal world or sense they "ought" to be "allowed" to make--and "consume" as much as they want--in other words, you think they should be made or somehow required to be more ascetical across the board--they will inevitably come to believe that this liberty should "extend into all areas of life," that is, that they should be able to do whatever they want even in areas where there are clear moral problems which, presumably, I would grant, such as fornication, abortion, etc.

Which sounds basically like what I said.

Tell me how it can be stopped. How can a majority so potent as to overpower the checks on democracy that exist in our Constitutional framework, be stopped? Where in the Constitution, as originally promulgated, do we find effective check on the Legislative power, when said power is dominant in Congress and backed by sustained majority will?

The Bill of Rights offers "parchment barriers" against majority will, barriers about which Madison and Hamilton are generally dismissive. How effective these barriers have been may be judged by the status in American law of (a) the first word of the First Amendment and (b) the Tenth Amendment.

It doesn't work that way. To revere the Constitution a people must know what reverence is. For these doctrines to hold it requires a people whose capacity for self-government includes holding them in the face of opposition. The character of the people, what Tocqueville calls the "social state," is prior to the written constitution.

But I do object to allegation that mine is the anti-democratic position here.

Paul, your position on what the U.S. government's set-up originally was is, in my opinion, neither pro- nor anti-democratic. That's an issue of facts about the law and the meaning of the constitution.

Your position throughout this thread has been in many ways anti-democratic because you have implied that we ought to be "pessimistic" about democracy on the grounds of its alleged deep connections both to slavery and to socialism. Now here at the end you are saying that precisely because of these connections, and presumably because you are an American, you have "made your peace with" our American version of socialism, because it is an "authentic fruit" of American democracy. (Given this surprise twist, one can't help wondering whether you would have made your peace with slavery had it endured and had you become similarly convinced that it was the "authentic fruit of American democracy.")

But for the most part you have used that argument as an argument for seeing the negative or bad side of democracy. You seem to have a very odd love-hate relationship with this "authentic fruit." On the one hand, you have told us all along about pessimism, socialism, and how we conservatives need to admit these consequences of democracy, which you clearly intended as a criticism of democracy, or at least intended your fellow conservatives to regard as a criticism. On the other hand, you now appear to have developed a strange posture not merely of resignation but even of _positive feeling_, a sort of sense of rest and satisfaction, toward our country's present socialist manifestations on the grounds of their alleged "authentically democratic" affadavits.

To me this is all strange beyond measure, but I'm beginning to get a picture of it, and I don't think I'm misrepresenting it. In any event, let's not confuse our present disagreement over how our country was founded with our other disagreements over what democracy somehow inevitably "leads to" and over whether we should be "pessimistic" about democracy, including American democracy.

On your interpretation, all of that is utterly pointless, and always has been from the beginning of our country

It's hard for me to think of a more uncharitable rendering of what I have said.

I've said that persuasion is "utterly pointless"? Where do you get that? Where do you get the idea that I think, say, lawsuits against Obamacare are idle gestures with no substance? Haven't I written at length about how the American political tradition works to encourage the oppositional majority and generally thwart enthusiastic transient majority? You just blow by, with minimal acknowledgment, all the comments I've made about what it actually takes to gain and sustain a legislative supermajority. You think it's so simple a project that it could be used to order people to eat broccoli on Tuesdays.

C'mon, you gotta put these comment in context.

one can't help wondering whether you would have made your peace with slavery had it endured and had you become similarly convinced that it was the "authentic fruit of American democracy."

Wow.

When the thread ends up in speculation as to whether my principles lead me, perforce, to favor slavery, I think it's time I bow out.

"Modernity promotes a species of liberty based on human autonomy, over against the classical/Christian tradition which grounds human freedom in the truth of the moral law. When liberty is severed from truth in this manner it inevitably turns negative and has a tendency to become license. The economic sphere is no more immune to this negative turn than any other sphere of human activity."

Another toilsome theory to justify an attitude. More cowbell.

Where do you get that?

Paul, I get it from your outright statement that since a majority favored Social Security, that was it, it was constitutional. Your comments above sounded almost as though you thought I was making up the notion of enumerated powers or the positions that from an originalist perspective SS is without excuse, as though you couldn't imagine why I would think that. This is hardly _new_, Paul. And, yes, if you say that _in our system_ a legislative majority (backed up by popular opinion, which I gather it would have to be so as not to be swiftly reversed) _is supreme_, it's rather difficult to see what the _principled_ limits on this in terms of federal power are supposed to be. Perhaps only things that are specifically _forbidden_ to the Congress elsewhere, but no other general limit on powers as ultra vires.

You must _know_ that all of this is not just something new that I made up. The whole history of the New Deal is a history of a previously unprecedented expansion of the powers of the federal Congress and of the very notion of how hard Congress had to try to justify its passing some legislation. And the court didn't at first side with Roosevelt. Originalists like myself--and like many conservatives--are therefore _of course_ going to consider that the expansive powers of the federal congress, including those that gave us social security, were not original to our system at the founding.

What we do about that practically is a different question. But the point from a con-law perspective is that if you say that it's an intrinsic part of our system that the Congress is "supreme" in the way that you have said and that _for that reason_ Social Security was automatically constitutional (and base this simply on the "general welfare" clause, as you have just done), then, yes, the entire discussion of whether or not something is permitted by the commerce clause becomes pointless. This is a matter of one's whole approach to con-law. Mine is an originalist one. Yours, based on your comments above, just appears definitely not to be. Yet you have tried to tell me throughout what is an "authentic fruit" of the *form of government the framers founded*, which is what I have been defending.

Surely you see the difficulty here. If you want to imply that I'm some kind of bizarre extremist for saying that SS is unconstitutional (from an originalist perspective), then you're going to have problems with quite a lot of other things. Social Security was quite an expansion of federal powers, and the debate over whether something is good policy is a different debate from the debate over whether something is ultra vires for Congress. Your exceedingly expansive views on the latter question, just expressed, would indeed render a great many of _those_ debates quite pointless.

This is really just a matter of the logic of the positions. Getting angry doesn't change matters, much less help them.

Also, Paul, the whole reference to a supermajority is puzzling. It isn't what you originally said, but even waiving that, it isn't anywhere in the constitution. A supermajority is required to overturn a presidential veto, but if the President and Congress are agreed, the issue doesn't arise. And from an originalist perspective, even if the President vetoes and the Congress does muster a supermajority to overturn the veto, this is irrelevant to the question of whether the law enacted is ultra vires. How could it be relevant? Whether it is beyond the powers granted by the Constitution to the Congress is a matter of the content of the law in question and the content of the Constitution, not a matter of the number of Congressmen (or for that matter of the voters) who favor the law.

Again, this is all the basic logic of an originalist approach to the Constitution. To hold that a supermajority would make things _within_ the constitutionally granted powers of the Congress which would otherwise be _outside_ of those powers is an utterly strange position with no connection to a logical approach to con-law. For that matter, as far as I know it isn't even the _liberal_ approach to con-law, which generally operates instead by denying originalism tout court in favor of the living constitution theory.

As far as the slavery thing, Paul, which also seems to have angered you, consider: It's a very poor argument for any sort of _positive stance_ towards some policy X to say, “X is the authentic fruit of American democracy.” As far as I can see, it's in principle possible that that could be true of some quite evil policy. Nor do you merely appear to mean by your phrase “make your peace with” that you do not see any practical way at the moment to change X. No, you have said that it would be “folly” and that you “cannot support” any attempt to change the New Deal policies, and your whole context and use of the phrase “make my peace with” definitely appears to go beyond the mere resignation of, “I would change this in a heartbeat if I could, but I can't see any way to do so right now.” So “make my peace with” appears to have some sort of positive connotations beyond that resignation.

Indeed, if one really thought a policy _very bad_, one would work to change it and work to find ways to work to change it even in what seemed like a hopeless situation. This is what Wilberforce did regarding the slave trade, for example. This is what pro-lifers do today concerning abortion, despite the apparently entrenched Roe v. Wade. No one who thought a policy _really bad_ would say, “I have made my peace with X,” and his peers who thought X very bad would disagree strongly with him if he did say that.

Now, I'm not saying that Social Security is on a par with slavery. I am simply saying that you have taken a very odd position as this thread has gone on. You have made a strange sudden move from using the alleged progression to democratic socialism as an argument _against_ democracy to using it as an argument for “making one's peace with” democratic socialism. I'm not saying this is formally inconsistent, but it is indeed very odd. And if one really thinks the policies in question _quite bad_, then this is bound to be disturbing. It isn't unnatural for the question to occur to me: If you can come to take this strangely positive stance towards one bad policy because you believe it to be the “authentic fruit of American democracy”--which is a terrible argument regarding policy--why, in principle, should this exceedingly poor argument not work regarding other bad policies had history gone differently?

And remember, _you_ are the one who earlier tried quite vigorously to connect democracy with slavery and, in the anti-democracy part of the thread, to tar American democracy with some connection to slavery. The question might not have occurred to me had you not done so.

"Another toilsome theory to justify an attitude."

Followed by another half-assed attempt at psychoanalysis. Would you please inform me as to what attitude I'm justifying? It should prove entertaining, plus I'd just like to know, ya know? Kind of for future reference.

"Which sounds basically like what I said."

Wrong. Nowhere did I say or imply that people should be "made" or "required" to limit their acquisition of wealth or their consumption. I certainly believe that people, Christians especially, should learn that the American capitalist societal emphasis on getting and spending is wrongheaded and often anti-Christian, but that's another issue.

Forced asceticism isn't asceticism at all, it's legalism. But American capitalism, being Protestant in origin, is unable to distinguish between the two. Hence, calls for self-limitation or austerity or a simpler life fall on deaf ears, and the twin idiots "Have it your way" and "It's all about me" reign supreme, with the unflinching support of so-called conservatives (except, of course, when it comes to sex.)

You cannot call forth the demon of choice then whine and moan when he decides not to stay in the little economic corral you've prepared for him. That's one of the problem with demons -- they tend not to follow the rules.

Very well, Rob, since you've chosen to take your stance on a purely moral condemnation of "making too much money," let's try it this way. Please show clearly how it follows from,

"It is not immoral for Joe to make more than n dollars"

that

"Liberty should extend into all areas of Joe's life--e.g., into his choices regarding whom to sleep with."

Notice that this is supposedly about economics. If you stipulate that you are talking about Joe's making more than n dollars by doing something that you and I would agree is immoral--say, running a prostitution ring--then that makes the whole thing uninteresting. Your position seems to be that, however innocent in itself the means by which Joe makes more than n dollars, it is the simple fact of telling Joe that doing so is not immoral that somehow teaches him or tells him that this liberty "should extend into all areas of life."

And you don't seem to think that Joe would be unreasonable to draw this inference, once he accepts the premise that it is not immoral for him to make more than n dollars.

So you should show how the conclusion follows.

This is just the comment thread that won't die!

I don't have much to add at the moment to the fine debate going on, although I'm kind of fascinated by the interesting constitutional question that Paul and Lydia have stumbled into. Paul, I have to admit that I personally haven't given much thought to whether or not Social Security is constitutional (I'm not even sure how bad it is as public policy, which will probably surprise those who know me as a die-hard free-market type, but if tweaked properly, the program can be saved), but I think Lydia's broader point is a good one. While it is true the Constitution says nothing about judicial review, there had to be a process to deal with a popular law passed by a Congress that was unconstitutional. I mean, both you and Lydia agree that the American system of representative constitutional democracy is not Athenian mob rule. Therefore, you are just wrong to say a "legislative supermajority is supreme in our form of government". To take an example, if Congress decided to pass a law (that was very popular for some reason) to tax the exports of products from Utah (maybe the country gets tired of Mormons), this would directly contradict one of the limits on Congress laid out in Section 9. So what happens when Congress and the President sign such an unconstitutional bill? One would hope that Utah sues the federal government and the law is struck down by the federal courts and the rest of the country respects that decision. This process is what it means to live under a Constitution and not a “legislative supermajority”.

Jeff, I would _guess_, though Paul hasn't said so, that he would say that if something is expressly and in specific detail forbidden to Congress (e.g., establishing a state church) by the Constitution, then he would agree that it is unconstitutional. Presumably this would apply to your example.

Where the doctrine of enumerated powers comes in is in the space between those specific things forbidden to Congress and those powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. The 10th amendment provides that powers not granted to Congress by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people--in other words, they are not possessed by Congress. If we have lived under a system in which, from the outset, no such grant of powers is required--or, which comes to the same thing, in which the highly general phrase "general welfare" in the preamble is sufficient by itself to render constitutional all manner of legislation which Congress regards as needed for the general welfare of the country, then there is no reason even for arguments about, say, the commerce clause to take place. The 10th amendment's reservation of powers not granted is meaningless, and Congress can constitutionally pass all legislation not forbidden to it. This is the opposite of the whole notion of enumerated powers, which has not only been a staple of conservative thought on constitutional law but which is even now given a "hat tip" by liberal jurists in their implausible attempts to squeeze things into the commerce clause or the power to tax or what-have-you. But all those arguments of constitutional law are simply unnecessary on the view which Paul has stated.

Nor does the introduction of the notion of a supermajority have any real relevance. I know of no jurist, liberal or conservative, who has argued that some area or type of legislation is ultra vires (beyond the power) for Congress if Congress has a simple majority in favor of some piece of legislation of that type but magically comes to fall within Congress's proper sphere of legislative action if Congress has a supermajority in its favor. Such a view is wholly illogical, and if Paul has a citation to an opinion in which that view is argued, I should like to see the legal argument.

Would you please inform me as to what attitude I'm justifying? It should prove entertaining, plus I'd just like to know, ya know? Kind of for future reference.

Well, you seem to be flypaper for every corruption narrative that comes down the pike. The nation (or world as it develops) went corrupt during the Civil War, no wait . . . the Revolution as RP Warren has it, no . . . the Enlightenment, no . . . some Protestant something or other, no . . . insert-any-supposed-global-historical-turning-point-here. In any given debate you can always pull out a trump card that is a level higher and beyond reach in a public debate.

Every nation or group has a creation myth (which is not to say untrue,) but some seem to need a corruption myth, or a mix of many. It's more of a pose than a view. You talk about the world as if you aren't really a participant, but some alienated spirit who rises above it all.

Not sure that was entertaining, but you asked.

Mark, which part of my thesis as stated above do you object to? The part which states that the idea of liberty severed from the moral law becomes perverse, or the idea that the resultant perversion applies to economics?

"So you should show how the conclusion follows"

My contention does not deal so much with specific individuals but with the climate of a consumerist culture as a whole. Some people will be more resistant to materialism than others, obviously. But it seems quite clear to me that the trend of American society has been moving steadily in a consumerist/materialist direction since at least the 1920s, and that that mentality is increasingly difficult to resist. The entire culture has succumbed to the "have it your way" ideal, and it seems quite wrongheaded to me to suppose that some areas of life are immune to that ideal, or that there is no crossover of the ideal from one area of culture to another.

Every nation or group has a creation myth (which is not to say untrue,) but some seem to need a corruption myth, or a mix of many. It's more of a pose than a view. You talk about the world as if you aren't really a participant, but some alienated spirit who rises above it all.

You talk as if you don't believe in the fall from Eden, Mark.

Sorry, that was a shiny red apple that I couldn't resist.

In other words, Rob, telling Joe that it's not immoral for him to make more than n dollars _doesn't_ actually mean or amount to telling him that he should have liberty to do whatever he wants in other areas of life. You actually seem to be admitting this. Maybe this means that we should reconsider the question of whether it's actually immoral for Joe to make, by some innocent means, more than n dollars.

You talk as if you don't believe in the fall from Eden, Mark.
No, I talk as if I DO believe it. ;-)
Mark, which part of my thesis as stated above do you object to? The part which states that the idea of liberty severed from the moral law becomes perverse, or the idea that the resultant perversion applies to economics?

Other than the fact that liberty is not merely or chiefly an idea, the problem for me is not disagreement with such a vague and general statement. I think something very close to this would make a good Sunday school lesson for children, and no doubt has. A good warning for those who aren't aware of such things. My problem is that you are basing conclusions that don't follow from these statements.

"I think something very close to this would make a good Sunday school lesson for children"

Yes, along with attendant commentary by such juvenile thinkers as Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, Flannery O'Connor, Christopher Lasch, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Marion Montgomery and Wendell Berry, all of whom in some way or another have written about this unlearned lesson being hugely problematic for late modernity.

"In other words, Rob, telling Joe that it's not immoral for him to make more than n dollars _doesn't_ actually mean or amount to telling him that he should have liberty to do whatever he wants in other areas of life. You actually seem to be admitting this."

No, what I'm saying is that when the notion of freedom is untethered from its moral base in one area of a culture, it is difficult if not impossible to prevent this sentiment from spreading to other areas. If a culture is created in which "have it your way" is the operative fiscal principle, it is foolish to assume that this principle will somehow limit itself to economics, and not spread to other areas of the society.

As I said above, choice does indeed devour itself, yet you seem to think that economics is somehow immune to this self-devouring. This is a common phenomenon in modern conservatism: a healthy suspicion of Enlightenment rationalism except when it comes to economics. At root, all I'm saying is that conservatives should be just as suspicious of its influence in economics as they tend to be in other matters.

Rob, when I talk about choice devouring itself, I'm talking about things that are wrong from the outset. I don't understand why you don't understand that that makes a difference. For example, abortion is evil to begin with. An interesting (and as I've often stressed, logically unnecessary) phenomenon is the fact that this one evil thing--killing the child--sometimes is also accompanied by another evil thing--forcing the mother, for example, to have the child killed--yet liberals who support choice in the murder of the child try to deny or downplay the occurrence of the second evil, the forcing of the mother. But it all starts with something evil in itself. And the same for assisted suicide and other things in which I use the phrase.

Making a lot of money is not evil in itself. It just isn't. Yet you consistently try to apply my trope to something that isn't evil by saying that if we tell a person that it's okay for him to make all that money, he'll believe he should be able to "have it his way" in all these other areas where his actions would be uncontroversially evil.

Now, either it is or it isn't immoral for Joe to make more than n dollars. If it isn't immoral, I'm not going to lie to him and tell him that it is immoral, just to "teach him a lesson" or something like that.

So is it or isn't it immoral? And if it isn't, are we supposed to pretend that it is in order to create an ascetical society?

But Lydia, you can't limit choice like that. The 'choice' regarding abortion reverts to the 'choice' regarding sexual intercourse, which is not a choice about something wrong "from the outset." It is a choice one makes w/r/t to the temptation of lust. If one has a faulty or perverse understanding of freedom, there is a greater tendency to make the wrong choice.

If you apply this to money, the temptation is, of course, to greed. Greed is somewhat harder to pin down than lust because it doesn't have specific act(s) which manifest it. It is harder in that sense to ask "how much money is too much?" than it is to ask (in the case of the unmarried person) "how much sex is too much?"

Yet according to the ancients and the Church fathers, it is entirely possible to make, and thus to want, too much money. Being an ascetical as opposed to a legal matter, it is impossible to issue cut-and-dried dicta w/r/t amounts and such. But the ancients agree that avarice starts in having a desire for more than one needs.

Thus, making a lot of money is sinful because the desire which prompts (or drives) one to make a lot of money is sinful: it is the sin of avarice.

So you actually are going to tell Joe that it is wrong for him to make more than n dollars. Well, I'm afraid I just disagree. And that's really where our disagreement starts--it's because I apply my analysis only to things that really are wrong, and I don't agree that Joe's making more than n dollars really is wrong.

A child may of course be aborted even if he was conceived in a sexual act that was moral. That does happen. It's _more_ likely that a child conceived in an immoral sexual act will be the target of an abortion, but it can happen the other way, too. And when I talk about choice devouring itself, I start with the abortion. I always start talking about the phenomenon with an act which really is wrong.

"So you actually are going to tell Joe that it is wrong for him to make more than n dollars."

No, for two reasons. One is that needs, incomes, etc., vary widely from place to place and circumstance to circumstance. Secondly, and more importantly, it is in the nature of the ascetical approach to life that such things are not legislated from the outside, but from inside, from the heart, as it were. The "simple life" thus can be taught, but not mandated. It may in fact be very wrong for Joe to make more than n dollars, but it is not my job to tell him so as an individual, since I'm not the Holy Spirit.

This does not mean, however, that individuals are prohibited from making a case against greed and avarice in general. Indeed one would hope that pastors would do so from the pulpit from time to time. The Church Fathers certainly did.

Yet according to the ancients and the Church fathers, it is entirely possible to make, and thus to want, too much money.

This strikes me as a ridiculous example of the post hoc fallacy. It completely excludes the possibility that someone has made a lot of money because they have worked hard, been responsible and even been blessed by God with abundance.

That's why I said it was a possibility. It's not necessarily true in every case. The complaint is against those who'd argue that it's impossible to make "too much money" in the sense of it being morally wrong. The ancients and the Fathers decidedly disagree.

Arguably, the real sin is not in the acquisition of the wealth, but the process. Anything you do, even your own survival, is sinful if done with an evil heart. The difference between a poor man who greedily acquires a loaf of bread and a rich man who rapes a company is one of kind, not difference, since it's the men's hearts which condemn them.

** one of degree, not kind

Yes, but the classic/Christian idea is that one cannot seek to acquire wealth and simultaneously have a good heart. The desire for such acquisition is itself sinful.

An unskilled worker who goes to school to learn a trade to improve his lot in life is seeking to acquire wealth in his own right. It's just a matter of degree.

I don't think that desiring to improve one's lot in life and seeking wealth are necessarily the same thing. One can certainly seek to improve one's lot without falling into avarice. The issue isn't so much about those who have a legitimate need for more, but about those who don't know when to say "enough."

Re: the matter of "choice," this essay by Anthony Esolen is well worth reading:

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-08-042-f

Yes, along with attendant commentary by such juvenile thinkers as Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, Flannery O'Connor, Christopher Lasch, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Marion Montgomery and Wendell Berry, all of whom in some way or another have written about this unlearned lesson being hugely problematic for late modernity.

Rob, you missed the point. I said it was "a good warning" in any case. As I said, the real problem is that you are basing conclusions on such truisms that don't follow.

Step2 actually stumbled onto what I was hinting at. There is one corruption myth --the true one of Christianity. Everything that is bad or undesirable in this fallen world can't be traced back to its bad source. It doesn't work that way. Some very good things have bad outcomes, and that is the problem with your reasoning about all these corruption narratives. That this is true we know because of the original corruption in the Fall. Even good things eventually have bad outcomes I'm sorry to inform you.

And how much sense does it make to go around decrying "Whig history," while simultaneously peddling these corruption narratives? You equate "Whig history" in the limited terms of attacking progress thesis of some type, but advancing dubious regression narratives (anti-Whig history let's say) without an argument is just as much a problem for the reasons I've mentioned. If Whig history is wrong, does anti-whig history get a pass? It shouldn't. But that gives it away. It isn't Whig history that bothers you, but theories of social progress of any sort. Theories of anti-progress of all sorts are your game. It's the old anti-bourgeois thesis that we all know and love. Henry James, the received version of Tocqueville in the academy, and on and on. None of this is new, and I don't see why claiming you see such corruption and regression behind every tree shouldn't be seen as part of the corruption you want to condemn.

More on this later, Mark, when I have some time, but in the interim I'll just say that I have only one "corruption narrative" related to these things, and that what you're seeing as multiple narratives are in fact threads of the same larger one: men have become indifferent to God, and we are suffering because of it.

Actually, the heck with it. I'd much rather hear your theory that all "declinist" thinking is really anti-bourgeoisism, or whatever it is you think. Can you explain your quote,

"Theories of anti-progress of all sorts are your game. It's the old anti-bourgeois thesis that we all know and love,"

in a hundred words or two? Because I for one am not getting it.

I'd recomment reading "The Political Education of Henry Adams," by Brooks Simpson. Or this_article isn't a bad place to start. Nothing is new under the sun.

In turn, I recommend you read Weaver's 'Ideas Have Consequences' and Richard Reinsch's 'Whittaker Chambers: The Spirit of a Counterrevolutionary.' The former explains the philosophical roots of modernity's problems, the latter describes how these errors have played themselves out in the 20th century.

Although Chambers is more sanguine about both capitalism and practical politics than I am, he at least sees the inherent tension between capitalism and conservatism, and I find that his "pessimism" closely resembles my own.

I've read Weaver, though not the one on Chambers yet. I know all about modernity's problems. That's the easy part. The more difficult thing is to understand the pathologies of the reactions to it. I wonder if you've ever found a pessimism you didn't like.

The irony of the bourgeoisophobes is that it used to be the elites like the Europeans, Henry James, and the faculty lounge crowd who despised the middle-class. Now many middle-class (often Christian) have adopted it as an anti-democratic Conservatism, fashioning themselves as elites in doing so. Appreciating the problems of the modern world, which are quite real, is a good thing. But that doesn't happen in adopting what is in fact a facile pose as an explanation of what is wrong with modernity.

By the way, as a fan of "The Legacy of the CW," you might be interested in _this_. I'm going to do it.

The piece by the fatuous faux-conservative Brooks has some gaping holes, of which I will mention only two.

First, he seems to think that all bourgeoisphobes are declinists. Okay so far -- he may be right or wrong on that, but it's not important. For the sake of argument let's assume he is correct. His faulty logic reverses this, however: "All bourgeoisphobes are declinists, therefore all declinists are bourgeoisphobes." That is patently ridiculous. One need only point to those "declinists" who lean towards populism of some sort, whether of the left or right. I myself have said on this site numerous times that it is in fact the middle class that tends to get hosed under the current political/economic system, and not a few conservatives of my 'front porch' type would be in agreement.

Likewise, some of us are often accused of making a "Golden Age" out of the 1950s -- Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie & Harriet and all. Now it seems to me that if we were really bourgeiosphobes, the 50's would be not a golden age, but an absolute dark age, wherein vapid middle-class values ran rampant. Which is it? Can't have it both ways, son.

Second, I find it interesting that he mentions no American conservatives, other than a passing reference to Robert Bork's book Slouching Toward Gomorrah. What does Brooks do with Kirk or Chambers or Weaver? Is their "declinist" conservatism bourgeoisphobic? One gets the feeling that if Brooks started applying his standards to pre-Reagan conservatives he'd pretty much have to write off most of U.S. conservative history (which is what the Weekly Standard crowd does anyways, but that's another issue.)

The reason for this is quite obvious: Brooks is no conservative. He's a pro-market liberal. Or as a friend of mine describes the type, a liberal who wants to keep his money. In fact, the whole piece reads vaguely like a sort of "Ayn Rand lite," and as such makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

"I wonder if you've ever found a pessimism you didn't like."

Heh. Eric Miller on C. Lasch: "For those devoted to the dream of progress, [his] voice may sound like a nag. But for those whose eyes take in a less cheery scene, it is a voice of sanity. And hope."

It's the hope I'm after.

You haven't interacted with the article. The characteristic of bourgeoisophobes is a highly negative appraisal of the middle class, hence the title. The dirty "commercial classes" as Tocqueville called them. That's you and me. That is the other main characteristic. Commercialism. The jobs the middle class depend on.

I knew you'd complain that the article wasn't written by a real Conservative. Problem is, neither are you. And do you think Robert Penn Warren was? He was a Liberal. Kinda bizarre you complain that no Conservative books are cited, since bourgeoisophobes almost invariably are Liberals.

The fact is that Chambers shared few of the certainties that American conservatives hold. If you think he is a Conservative in the sense shown in your statement that Brooks is not, you are mistaken.

So good luck with the strategy of judging the politics of an author as the first step in evaluating what he says. On that basis I shouldn't listen to you.

Sorry, Mark, but you're making no sense. I know that "bourgeoisophobia" is a characteristic highly critical of the middle class. My point is that there are many "declinists," who are not bourgeoisophobic at all. Therefore it is inaccurate to link bourgeoisophobia with declinism in the way that Brooks does.

How much Chambers have you read? Do you really think that he and Brooks are anything like the same type of conservative?

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