Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

all individuals are considered as equal and independent. However, as
Tocqueville observes, this apparent “individualization” of society does
not mean anarchy for Democratic society. On the contrary, a societal
power inevitably rises out of the atomic conditions of individuals. In
the place of the King or the Lord, “the people” as a whole claims the
supremacy. Individuals are powerless and nameless in this abstract
mass of “the people.” Regarding this, Tocqueville remarks: “what I
most reproach in Democratic government, as it has been organized in
the United States, is not, as many people in Europe claim, its weakness,
but on the contrary, its irresistible force.” (2000, 241)
Indeed, as some commentators have pointed out (Bendix 1964;
Aron 1965) the transition from aristocratic and Democratic society in
Tocqueville could be considered as a transition of different types of
authority. While the first indicates the domination by a power based
upon inequality of conditions, the latter is conditioned by equality
among individuals. The critical difference between the two kinds of
power, then, is: the first is usually checked by various kinds of powers
and constrained by long-standing customs and religion; whereas in
the Democratic society, power tends to be extreme and unstoppable, as
it only faces weak individuals and finds its new name in “the people.”
Tocqueville calls this extremeness of Democratic power “Democratic
despotism.”
As Tocqueville analyzes, despotism in Democratic society would
be a totally new kind of despotism. Different from despotism in ancient
times, it can no longer be grasped in the “arbitrariness” of power.
Power in Democracy usually has a law; only the law finds no limits in
regulating peoples’ lives. It tries to eliminate voluntary initiatives and
individuality among people and to make all subjects uniform. In this
way, the new despotism is absolutely more formidable than any form of
despotism that we know. Tocqueville depicts the state of “Democratic
despotism” as follows:
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ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE’S
NOTION OF POLITICAL
FREEDOM
Demin Duan
I want to imagine with what new features despotism could be produced in
the world: I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve
on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures
with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn and apart, is like
a stranger to the destiny of all the others: his children and his particular