Tocqueville, Democracy and Social Reform

317 Pages·2003·1.145 MB·English

by  Michael Drolet (auth.)

Tocqueville, Democracy and Social Reform
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Tocqueville, Democracy
and Social Reform
Michael Drolet
Department of History
Royal Holloway, University of London
© Michael Drolet 2003
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-1-4039-1567-2
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this publication
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accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2003 by
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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
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ISBN 978-1-349-51235-5 ISBN 978-0-230-50964-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230509641
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managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Drolet,Michael,1962–
Tocqueville,democracy,and social reform/by Michael Drolet.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Tocqueville,Alexis de,1805–1859. 2. United States – Politics and
government. 3. United States – Social conditions. 4. Democracy – United
States. I. Title.
JK216.T7193D766 2003
320.973–dc21
2003048063
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
To my father and Catherine
and in memory of my mother
You have accomplished a great achievement: you have changed the face of
political philosophy.
John Stuart Mill to Alexis de Tocqueville, 11 May 1840
Contents
List of Abbreviations x
Introduction 1
Part I Society, Economy and Democracy
1 The American Journey and Tocqueville’s Intellectual Awakening 19
2 Embracing Liberal Political Economy and then Rejecting it:
Tocqueville’s Reading of Say and Malthus 36
3 Equality, Liberty and the Problem of Self-Interest: Democracy
in America (1835) 54
4 Legitimism and Political Economy: The Influence of
Villeneuve-Bargemont 95
Part II Democracy and Social Reform
5 Tocqueville and Beaumont on Prison Reform 115
6 The Investigations into the Causes of Poverty and the
Ways to Remedy it 135
7 The Investigations into Abandoned Children 161
Part III Democracy and Revolution
8 Democracy and the Threats to Liberty: Democracy
in America (1840) 177
9 Administrative Centralisation and the Threats to Liberty:
The Composition of The Ancien Régime and the Revolution 202
Conclusion 231
Notes 238
Bibliography 282
Index 302
vii
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the many friends and institutions for helping me to write
this book. My first debt is to David McLellan who, as my doctoral supervi-
sor many years ago, set me to work on Tocqueville. His inspiration, guid-
ance and generosity of spirit I can never adequately repay. I owe special
thanks to François Houle, André Vachet, Douglas Moggach and Koula Mellos
for introducing me to the study of the history of political thought. The late
Jack Lively answered the many questions I had on Tocqueville, as has Larry
Siedentop from whom I have learned much. Gregory Claeys helped me a
great deal in the early stages of this project and his encouragement was
invaluable. For comments on various chapters I wish to thank John Burrow,
Lyndal Roper, Michèle Riot-Sarcy, Nick Stargardt, Cheryl Welch, Donald
Winch and Richard Whatmore. I have benefited from conversations with
Istvan Hont, Joanna Innes, Lucien Jaume, Colin Jones, Pierre Manent,
Françoise Mélonio, Mark Philp, Michael Quinn, John Robertson and
Georgios Varouxakis.
Pamela Pilbeam, Justin Champion and William Thomas read large
portions of the manuscript. Their exacting questions and constructive
comments helped me improve this text considerably and their enthusiasm
for this project proved uplifting at difficult junctures. Deborah Thomas
helped me improve my style at a crucial stage of revision.
An earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared as ‘Democracy and Political
Economy: Tocqueville’s Thoughts on J.-B. Say and T.R. Malthus’ in History
of European Ideas, 29, 2, Spring 2003. I thank Elsevier Science for their
permission to reproduce this material.
The staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale and Library of Congress did a great
deal to make my visits both productive and pleasant. The staff of the British
Library have been wonderful in every respect. I am particularly grateful to
Nina Evans for all the help she gave me.
Many thanks to Oren Ben Dor, Marie-Hélène Baneth-Jakob, Richard Bett,
Pierre Boyer, Alison Brown, Jimmy Burns, Jeremy Cater, Richard Cockett,
Janet Coleman, Pene Corefield, Vince Geoghegan, Geraldine Henchy,
Andrew Gow, Mary Hickman, Patrick Hill, John Hope Mason, Margaret
Humphrey, Michael Levin, Scott Lewis, Richard Jay, Fionnula Jay-O’Boyle,
Gerd Jakob, Harvey Mansfield, Debby Murphy, Alan Neil, Richard Noble,
Francis Robinson, Tony Stockwell and José Luis Valdés-Ugalde for advice and
encouragement.
viii
Acknowledgements ix
Thanks to Luciana O’Flaherty for being such a superb editor and to Daniel
Bunyard and my copy-editor Keith Povey for shepherding this book through
production.
My greatest debts are to my family and to Rosalind to whom I owe more
than I can say.
MICHAEL DROLET