Tocqueville: France Learned Democracy from America Actually

In 1831, a young Frenchman boarded a ship bound for the United States. And no — it wasn’t a romantic adventure.

France was once again shaken by revolution, the political situation was unstable, and as the son of a noble family, the young man could no longer expect a secure future. Leaving the country seemed safer than staying.

So he boarded a ship under the official mission of “studying the American prison system,” but in reality, it was closer to a semi-forced exile.

Once in America, Tocqueville discovered something astonishing: the township. Local residents gathered directly to vote, decide how their taxes would be used, and even elect their own police. It was, in his words, a school of citizenship.

Tocqueville sensed a fundamentally bottom-up structure that stood in stark contrast to France’s top-down approach.

France did have local administrative units as well — the communes. But all real authority belonged to the central government. Personnel decisions, economic matters, and all important powers were concentrated in Paris. Rural residents were essentially taxpayers, not citizens. They were governed, not governing.

In fact, America may have been more fortunate precisely because it was a “latecomer.” Consider one example.

In 1863, Britain opened the world’s first subway in London. But today, Londoners are far from satisfied with it. Much of the original system from the 1860s is still in use. Narrow tunnels, non-standard tracks, overcrowded trains — all the “entry costs” of being first remain intact. And fixing or replacing them is extremely difficult.

Korea, by contrast, opened its first subway line in 1974 — a full century later. But that delay meant Korea didn’t have to pay those early “entry costs.” With more advanced engineering, Korea could design a modern system from the beginning: wider tunnels, screen doors, automated trains, Wi-Fi. It started the latest — and ended up with one of the best subway systems in the world.

America was similar. It did not inherit Europe’s rigid aristocratic structures — the ones too entrenched to reform. Europe had gone through feudalism, absolute monarchy, revolutions, and restorations, all soaked in blood. But America never had an absolute monarchy to overthrow. It simply installed the “latest version” of governance.

Still, Tocqueville did not praise American democracy unconditionally. He issued a warning — one that feels almost prophetic today.

When equality becomes excessive, people begin to look more and more alike. Distinct language, distinct thought, and distinct ways of life start to disappear.

French is infamous for its difficulty even today. In aristocratic France, different social classes had their own registers, their own styles, their own intellectual traditions. Diversity in class produced diversity in expression.

America did not have that. If everyone begins to speak and think like a standardized middle class, Tocqueville argued, the result is not necessarily good — especially if those thoughts focus only on short-term personal gain.

Tocqueville’s democracy ultimately assumes the existence of “great citizens.” Citizens who take responsibility, cooperate, and participate in politics on their own initiative. Citizens who defend the public good even when it does not benefit them personally. But in reality, how many such people exist? I believe there isn’t even one.

Logic has a concept called the principle of explosion. With a single contradictory premise, any conclusion can be derived within that system. If I were Superman, running 100 meters in a second wouldn’t be strange at all. Similarly, if citizens were virtuous and great, democracy would obviously work. There’s nothing wrong with the statement itself. The problem is that such citizens do not actually exist.

Still, if we assume — against all evidence — that they exist, then everything becomes possible. Belief in that possibility becomes a kind of hope.

Tocqueville also captured something else: the difference between equality and freedom. Why did France become so obsessed with equality? Because France, at the time, was defined by absolute poverty.

The nobles lived in luxury, while the common people starved. In such a society, understanding the world through “equality” was emotionally and intellectually easier. Even if everyone was starving, at least they were starving equally.

Balancing the inequality between nobles and commoners became the simplest frame for explaining reality.

America was different. It had land, opportunity, and victory. It faced no powerful neighbors. Absolute poverty was far less severe.

Americans had the luxury of asking, “How can we live more freely?”

So France read the world through equality, while America read it through freedom. This leaves us with a question.

Freedom and equality — Were these values given to us by the structure of the world we were born into? Or are they universal principles we should have cherished from the beginning?