held in common, the light of intelligence spreads, and the capacities of all classes are equally cultivated; the State becomes democratic, and the empire of democracy is slowly and peaceably introduced into the institutions and the manners of the nation. […] Equality of conditions turns servants and masters into new beings, and places them in new relative positions”. It is no longer the same individuals and, above all, the same families that make up the two social classes.
Each social class has a different view of its positions: subordination and domination are no longer suffered and are all the better accepted as every individual, as we have just said, can, if they give themself the means, access any social status. Indeed, the democratic “social state” includes in its very nature a social mobility that is limitless in principle, whereas such a possibility is unlikely in aristocratic society governed by hereditary differences.
This evolution is normal, for there is no reason to think that servants form a separate people. They are the equals of their masters. They can, moreover, become, in their turn and at any time, masters. De Tocqueville believes that servants and masters are like officers and soldiers: apart from the army, which imposes a hierarchy, they are all citizens with no specific customs or morals, especially since there is no hierarchy in their ranks. If some have the right to command and others are forced to obey and serve, it is only by virtue of an agreement of their wills, in the form of a freely established contract that sets out the conditions of command and obedience and from which it is almost impossible for them to deviate. Moreover, this contract is limited in time and can be terminated. However, when he speaks of the labor contract, Weber is careful to emphasize that the existence of a formally free agreement between the employer and the workers does not in any way exclude a “relationship of domination“ that is manifested in work orders and directives.
While they remain equal as people and as citizens, they become inferior to one another by the effect of this contract, which is the determining element in the situation of each one who, by this very fact, commits to it: the master finds in it the origin of their power and the servant the only cause of their obedience. Indeed, there are still inequalities, but those that remain are better accepted, because at least in theory, one can take the place of the other. De Tocqueville (2010) then asserts that the members of homo democraticus benefit from statutory equality, as “men are born and remain free and equal in law. Social distinctions can only be based on common utility”.
Moreover, equality is progressive, because as it is applied at the level of the law and as morals and public opinion become convinced of its relevance, it encourages citizens to see and live as equals. “The spirit of equality that characterizes democracy allows citizens to see themselves as equal, or at least as similar, regardless of the real inequalities of their situation. They internalize equality as a norm of which the democratic unconscious makes an essential value!”
De Tocqueville took this opportunity to explain the difference between the democratic regime and the socialist regime. On the one hand, “Democracy extends the sphere of personal independence; socialism confines it. Democracy values each man at his highest; socialism makes of each man an agent, an instrument, a number”. On the other hand, with reference to the word “equality”: “Democracy aims at equality in liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in servitude”4.
1.1.4. The economic consequences of democracy
De Tocqueville insists on the many economic consequences that democracy brings about by leading to the subjective progression of equality of conditions, which leads to the emergence of a middle class for which material well-being appears fundamental: democratic society is at the origin of the entrepreneurial spirit, the desire for wealth replacing the desire for glory. Moreover, the search for equality is self-feeding, because “the first and liveliest of the passions that equality gives rise to is the love of that same equality”. A race for equality never ceases to manifest itself, so as to possess more and more. A feeling of frustration very quickly appears, explained by the fact that each individual compares themself to someone who benefits from a situation just above their own. However, since equality is never total, frustration becomes general and perpetual. Indeed, “men will never establish any equality with which they can be contented. Whatever efforts a people may make, they will never succeed in reducing all the conditions of society to a perfect level; and even if they unhappily attained that absolute and complete depression, the inequality of minds would still remain, which, coming directly from the hand of God, will forever escape the laws of man” (de Tocqueville 2010).
The result has been a significant reduction in the role of both the upper and lower classes and a standardization of lifestyles and standards of living for the entire population: “I am aware that amongst a great democratic people there will always be some members of the community in great poverty, and others in great opulence; but the poor, instead of forming the immense majority of the nation, as is always the case in aristocratic communities, are comparatively few in number, and the laws do not bind them together by the ties of irremediable and hereditary penury”.
However, the number of very wealthy people can only decrease, mainly because property wealth is much less important. As a result, we find a “[…] multitude of men almost alike, who, without being exactly either rich or poor, are possessed of sufficient property to desire the maintenance of order, yet not enough to excite envy”. The greater equality that spreads then makes the situation of the poorest even more unbearable and leads to movements that demand ever greater equality, since humans are never satisfied with their lot.
In his historical research, de Tocqueville compares people who have remained at a primitive stage, under the control of a government that oppresses them in great misery but “who have serene expressions and can feign a cheerful mood”, and people who are much freer and more cultured (taking the example of the United States), benefiting from much more favorable conditions that should normally make them happy, but who appear “serious and almost sad even in their pleasures”. This difference can be explained by the fact that “the former do not think of the evils they endure, while the latter constantly think of the goods they do not have”.
Therefore, if democracy appears in de Tocqueville’s work as an inevitable evolution of society, it is not without danger, which can drift towards a demagogic plebiscitary society. Indeed, “democracy encourages a taste for physical gratification: this taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter only; and materialism, in turn, hurries them back with mad impatience to these same delights: such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven around”. The fact remains that democracy makes it possible for disadvantaged men to benefit from the means to reduce inequalities, essentially thanks to the existence of countervailing powers. However, we must be aware that there will never be an equalization of fortunes, simply a reduction of the most important inequalities.
In fact, if the idea of equality progresses in people’s minds, the reality is quite different and will probably always be so. De Tocqueville emphasized this several times when he saw first-hand the evils of pauperism during his visits to the first English factories. He then expressed two contradictory feelings. First, his optimism: if there is indeed a real inequality of conditions, in their imagination, people consider that the gaps between wealth and poverty are small and that command and obedience do not create great differences between them: “In their inmost convictions the master and the servant no longer perceive any deep-seated difference between them, and they neither hope nor fear to meet with any such at any time. They are therefore neither subject to disdain nor to anger, and they discern in each other neither humility nor pride”. However, second, his pessimism: in an aristocratic society, everything (wealth, education, rights) brings master and servant in opposition, while time eventually brings them together according to the memories they have in common, yet in a democratic society, these two categories of people always remain strangers to each other. Thus, he recognizes that although master and servant are much more likely to live side by side in democratic societies
