Tocqueville v Mill (Part One)

I wrote a class essay comparing two of liberal theory's earliest adherents, Tocqueville and J.S. Mill. I thought that I would share it here. One of the things I find most fascinating about the authors is that so many of their arguments are continued today: the relationship between liberty and equality, for instance, or the role of women in society. Reading the old authors gives context, and a reference point to better understand today's debates.

This is the first of two parts of this essay:

French historian Alexis de Tocqueville and British philosopher John Stuart Mill are both important authors in the history of liberalism and individual freedom. Tocqueville’s post French-revolutionary Democracy in America examined the successes and failures of 19th century America, with an eye towards the democratization of Western Europe. Mill’s On Liberty, published 25 years later, is considered a founding document of liberal thinking. Together, the two writers propose powerful arguments for personal liberty and democratic government – but from different perspectives. With different backgrounds and different political realities, it is not surprising that Tocqueville and Mill have different views on many issues; what is surprising is the number of striking similarities they do have.

Tocqueville was born a French aristocrat, in a time where the nobility had far more access to education and political power than the lower classes. This perspective permeated his writing, though he ended up supporting the republican movement that diminished the power of the aristocratic class.

“If one encounters less brilliance [in a Democratic state] than in the bosom of an aristocracy,” Tocqueville writes in the beginning of Democracy, “one also finds less misery; pleasures will be less extreme and well-being more general; the sciences less grand and ignorance rarer; feelings less energetic and habits milder; one will notice there more vices and fewer crimes.” (Tocqueville, 9)

Mill takes a note from Tocqueville’s writings, and he also explores the effects – positive and negative – that democracy has upon society. However, though Mill is equally well educated (and perhaps even more academic), he was decidedly middle-class (his father, James Mill, was a well-known liberalist author, but certainly not a noble). J.S. Mill’s upbringing means he identifies more with the common citizen than Tocqueville does. While both authors - in their own way - extol the virtues of the democratic middle class, Mill takes a more inclusionist tone. This can be seen from the beginning of On Liberty, where Mill’s language is more reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence than Tocqueville’s reflective work.

“From this liberty of each individual,” Mill writes, “follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived. No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.” (Mill, 16)

Still, despite their distinct perspectives, Tocqueville and Mill often see eye to eye in a general sense. Both authors support individual freedoms, democratic government and suffrage. And each senses societal problems ignored or engendered by democracy, though the two remain broadly supportive of democratic ideals. For Tocqueville these concerns merely form part of his extended critique of American democracy, but Mill focuses his attentions upon these perceived problems.

"Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable,” Mill writes. “Europe is, in my judgment, wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last important work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation.” (Mill, 72)