On the political task of construing social equality: an approach to the ideas of Tocqueville

Abstract

The remarkable words we find in the introduction of Democracy in America induces the reader to the hope that social equality will arrive by itself, independent of men’s will. However, it seems to us that this introduction should not be read independently from the text that comes just before, neither of other Tocqueville’s books which make us understand: in first place, that there is a binding between social conditions and politics; and, in second place, that this binding implies mutual determination. In this sense, it is very illustrative the analysis by Tocqueville of the industrialization process in North-America and the rural exodus accompanying the industrialization in England and Ireland at beginning of the 19th. In both cases, the author observes that the new industrial system produces, apart of material goods, two inalterably opposed classes in the social and political scene. Based on this analysis, Tocqueville denounces those hard relations holding between the social and political extents. Therefore, in the symposium about Alexis de Tocqueville’s ideas nowadays, which press us to think our time using his ideas, our purpose is to analyze the tension lying under the reciprocal determination between equality of social conditions and political freedom. Next, we envisage a discussion over the issue of political commitments (for state institutions and for citizenship action) in order to construct social conditions warranting freedom and equality as a common right for all citizens.