Tocqueville

(Jean Gabin)

You'll wonder what this fellow is doing here, a man whose memory is fading and dissolving with time, while reality systematically and thoroughly demolishes his much-acclaimed theories.

Were it not for the fact that he periodically receives homage from distinguished know-it-alls, eminent faculties, age-old institutions and refined areopagi, not to mention being taught in the prestigious academies that spawn the elites who govern us... it wouldn't be worth wasting time on Alexis-Henri-Charles Clérel, Count of Tocqueville, born in Paris in 1805 and dead in Cannes in 1859.

The guy is said to be a political philosopher and a forerunner of sociology, which — with apologies to my sociologist friends — is the undeniable prefiguration of a first-rate charlatan, a beneficiary    of Brandolini's Law — or the bullshit asymmetry principle — which establishes, irrefutably, that the amount of energy needed to refute nonsense is an order of magnitude greater than that needed to produce it.

So far there's no reason to declare war on the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institut de France, 23 Quai de Conti, 75270 Paris 06, that great organizer, before the Almighty, of the shine and glitter of certain nonentities like Alexis.

But — unfortunately — having attained the rank of magistrate in 1827, Tocqueville obtained a mission from the French Ministry of Justice three years later to go study the Yankee penitentiary system. This sinecure allowed him to discover the United States and write his magnum opus, a panegyric to his outlandish ideas titled Democracy in America.

The book has been described as an analysis of the democratic system, its virtues, its risks and its dynamics.

Before they had even managed to close their mouths — which admiration had opened wide — those who would thereafter be his peers elected him a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences at the tender age of just 33. You might point out that at that same age Jesus Christ kicked the bucket to "show his love for us at the perfect age of life" and ascended to heaven, but Alexis went even further: at 36 he was elected a member of the French Academy — hats off, take a bow.

Tocqueville's genius becomes evident when he states that democracy is not just equality of rights. It also involves equality of opportunity — social status is no longer hereditary — and equality of living conditions through the reduction of income differences between the extreme categories.

One need only examine France's current socioeconomic reality to see just how gifted Tocqueville was at divination, premonition, and prophecy:

(Source: Le Monde, November 20, 2025).

As for equality of rights, former presidents, ministers, and prominent politicians are usually handed suspended sentences and don't go to prison, since the justice system gifts them an electronic bracelet allowing them to go about their august business at home, and/or wherever they please, not to mention granting them interviews on TV, radio, and the press in general.

The height of equality before the law — French version — was provided by Nicolas Sarkozy, convicted three times, among other things, for criminal conspiracy, corruption, and witness tampering, who spent 21 days in prison, accompanied day and night by two bodyguards, receiving courtesy visits every day, including from the Minister of Justice himself.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, as they call it... Isn't the democracy Tocqueville described just lovely?

As for the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville does not mention even once the genocide of the original inhabitants — that is, the massacre of 40 million human beings, at the very least — which in those years had not yet ended. Redskins? Connais pas...

Tocqueville writes in his book:

Aside from calling what he saw "America," thereby stripping an entire continent of its rightful name, Alexis de Tocqueville saw no Muskogee (Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Alibamu, Apalachee, Hitchiti), no Cherokee, Catawba, Waccamaw, Sioux, Caddo, or other related peoples such as the Houma, Natchez, Tunica, Ofo, Chitimacha, Biloxi, Chakchiuma, Tohome, Mobile, Chatot, Ais, Timucua, Calusa, Tekesta, Yamasee, Cusabo, or Tacobega.

Nor did he see any African slaves... even though a few years later — supposedly — slavery would be one of the causes of the Civil War, or War of Secession, which caused hundreds of thousands of casualties, not to mention the massive destruction of certain states. The reality was more complex, and today we know that Abraham Lincoln was not the benefactor of Humanity that official History makes him out to be. But that will be the subject of another piece devoted to describing Yankee mythology.

The truth is that our refined observer, Alexis de Tocqueville, described as a "political philosopher," a "classic of sociology," and other such niceties by Philippe Raynaud, professor emeritus of Political Science at the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas, looked at the United States through the wrong end of the microscope.

His followers point out that Alexis de Tocqueville held that the sociopolitical progress of his era was fundamentally rooted in the idea of equality. And that his core philosophy praised equality of conditions in a society that — in his view — could be achieved far more easily thanks to a liberal democratic system.

In that system, ordinary citizens — like Elon Musk — can and do negotiate trillion-dollar pay packages while destroying the jobs of public-sector workers. And meanwhile 40 million Yankee retirees live in RVs (mobile homes) because they can't afford rent.