Most people who are aware of de Tocqueville know of him
solely by his writings on his journeys in the United States. There are two
other writings worth reading, one on his journeys through Ireland and the forced
slavery imposed upon the Catholics by the Crown, and just as important his
understanding of the French Revolution.
Unlike many others who wrote upon the
French Revolution, one sees in de Tocqueville the same sense of “at handedness”
(to use a Heidegger term) to pull together the collection of events and
circumstances that led to the explosion which became the French Revolution. de
Tocqueville is in sharp contrast to the intellectual depth of Israel, he does
not bring forth the deep rooted philosophical elements emanating from the
Enlightenment, but he details the day to day injustices done by the Government
to the people at large. Wealth, the extreme wealth in France for some in
pre-Revolution times is not even an issue. It fundamentally is the oppressive
control of Paris, the seat of Government on all.
Piketty is almost the anti-de Tocqueville. Whereas de
Tocqueville deals with the amalgam of small facts of daily life, the burdens
placed upon the people under the presence of the Government, not just the King.
de Tocqueville brings to his vision a proximity with the people, not the
position of an academic hidden behind a wall of suppositions and beliefs.
Let me address a few key point in the order in which he
presents them and they in a sense build the argument will shall make regarding
Piketty. One should recall that de Tocqueville wrote his observations of
America in 1835 and the reflections on the French Revolution in 1856, after the
1848 revolution again in France. Thus his observations of American reflect
those of his youth and those here on the Revolution those just before he died.
Let us start with an observation of France before the
Revolution in 1789.
“It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century…that
for the first time the right to work …came to be regarded as a “privilege” purchasable
from the King.” (p 103)
The above details one of the major issues. Such rights, as
that of choosing one’s profession, were no longer left to the individual but
ascribed as a privilege purchased from the Crown. The Government could dictate,
mandate, isolate, individuals based upon its determination of what in its mind
and preference it saw and the desired outcome. The individual, no matter what
they did, had little if any choice in what they did. The second key point is
that it was purchasable. One could always find an entity of the Crown, the
Government, to seek out and through a payment obtain what was sought. Thus one
may ask if such is the case today in the United States? To a degree, yes. One
can seek out the correct lobbyist, who has the correct Congress person, who can
promote the desired legislation. The environs of Washington are now akin to a
setting of camp followers, all seeking to provide “favors” for payment.
Individualism was not an unknown construct to de
Tocqueville. He, to an extent, observed and coined the phrase as something most
American. Yet as he explains below, individualism is not solely applicable to
that lone person, it is seen even in France, as the ability and even desire of
persons to seek satisfaction in the small, not just in the large.
“That word “individualism” which we have coined for our
own requirements was unknown to our ancestors for the good reason that in their
days every individual necessarily belonged to a group and no one could regard
himself as an isolated unit. Nevertheless each of the thousands of small groups
of which the French nation was then composed took thought for itself alone; in
fact there was so to speak a group individualism which prepared men’s minds for
the through-paced individualism which nowadays we are familiar.” (p 96)
The most telling observation of de Tocqueville was the
control over everything by Paris, by the Crown and its agents. All in France
was measured, recorded, managed, and controlled via the Crow and its agents
from Paris. The English had London but London did not do what Paris managed to
do. Lyons was as controlled by Paris as was Bayeux, as was Annecy, as was Reims.
“Owing to this system of centralized information and
controlling everything from Paris, a most elaborate machinery had to be set up
for coping with the flood of documents that poured in from all sides and even
so the delays of the administration were notorious…Not until the century’s end when
the literary methods we associate with Rousseau and Diderot had begun to make
good and affected the spoken language, did the rather maudlin sensibility
affected by these authors creep into the style of our administration and even
our businesses. Formerly so stiff and desiccated, our official style became unctuous…”
(pp 62-63)
His second comment above is quite piercing, namely it is a
backhanded swipe at Rousseau and Diderot, the Enclyclopedists. Unctuous indeed
was the style, and maudlin was the sense.
Then as stated below is the style of the revolution. He does
not take to compare it to America, but to examine it as an act of academic
investigation, leaving the details as exercises for the student.
“When we closely study the French Revolution we find that
it was conducted in precisely the same spirit as that which gave rise to so
many books expounding theories of government in the abstract. Our revolutionaries
had the same fondness for broad generalizations, cut-and-dried legislative
systems, and a pedantic symmetry; the same contempt for hard facts; the same
taste for reshaping institutions on novel, ingenious, original lines; the same
desire to reconstruct the entire constitution according to the rules of logic
and preconceived system instead of trying to rectify its faulty parts.” (p 147)
The telling point above is the contempt for hard facts. The
French academic all too often enjoys the mental gymnastics, devoid of the facts
that the Scot would bring. The French Enlightenment and the Scottish
Enlightenment were revolutions in thought that were at the same time
contradictions. Ideas devoid of facts versus Facts embodying ideas. The
contrast is Rousseau versus Smith. The issue of rectifying faults is the key
refrain. The current best example is the ACA in the United States. Instead of
rectifying the faults, most of which were well known, the body politic reshaped
reality. The result may very well be the same as that of the intellects in the Revolution.
“I have sometimes asked Americans whom I chanced to meet
in their own country or in Europe whether in their opinion religion contributes
to the stability of the State and the maintenance of law and order. They always
answered, without a moment’s hesitation, that a civilized community, especially
one that enjoys the benefits of freedom, cannot exist without religion. In
fact, an American sees in religion the surest guarantee of the stability of the
State and the safety of individuals. This much is evident even to those least
versed in political science.” p (153)
Now de Tocqueville takes on the Economists, a new type of character
whose entry in the eighteenth century foreshadowed this trade’s power over many
of our current debates.
“Towards the middle of the eighteenth century a group of
writer known as the …”Economists” who made the problems of public
administration their special study, came to the scene. Thought the Economists
figure less prominently than our philosophers in histories of the period and
perhaps did less then they towards bringing about the Revolution, I am inclined
to think it is from their writings that we learn most of its true character…Their
chief targets of attack were those institutions which the Revolution was
destined to sweep away forever…” (p 158)
Finally we examine his examination of the ruling passions of
the French. He states:
“Readers of this book who have followed carefully my
description of the eighteenth century France will have noticed the steady
growth amongst the people of two ruling passions…One of these, the more deeply
rooted and long-standing was the intense, indomitable hatred of inequality….The
other ruling passion, more recent and less deeply rooted, was a desire to live
not only on an equal footing but also as free men.” (pp 207-208)
The two passions were the drivers of the people; the hatred
of inequality and the desire to be free. France looks at Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity. Yet when one examines Equality one sees not equality of opportunity
but the inequality of a class based society as the concern, as the desire of
the people. The inequality was that certain people had privileges perforce of
who they or their ancestors were. They were not equal before the law; there was
rampant inequality, many getting to the head of the line while many were left
behind.
Equality in America is the equality of individualism, that
all people are equal before the law, that there is no privilege, that each
individual can do with their talents as much as any other and that success is
predicated on how well those talents are valued in the market. To the American
in de Tocqueville’s period, the Government in America empowered the individual,
while to the Frenchman at the time of the French Revolution the Government
established mass areas of inequality. Americans cherished equality whereas the
French detested inequality. This I believe is a core element in the economic
politics of Piketty.
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