Student Activism and MLA: The Importance of Status and Function in Society

Karen E. Linkletter, Ph.D.

PUBLISHED:

January 4, 2022

How do we find individual freedom, dignity, status and function in a society dominated by institutions that, to many, don’t seem to function effectively?

…it suddenly dawned on me that many of the young Americans now in college and graduate school are searching for an ethic based on personal (if not spiritual) values, rather than on social utility or community mores – what one might call an Ecumenical Ethic. The old ideologies and slogans leave these young adults cold…But there is a passionate groping for personal commitment to a philosophy of life. Above all, a new inner-directedness is all the rage in this group. Peter Drucker, “The Romantic Generation,” Harper’s Magazine, May 1966.


In doing research for a project, I revisited an article Drucker wrote about college students in the 1960s. Titled “The Romantic Generation,” this piece is Drucker’s musing about what was then referred to as “the generation gap.” Why were young people in the 1960s so different from college students in the 1950s, who were much less rebellious? I wanted to share some of Drucker’s insights from this article because many commentators today remark that college students in this era are increasingly rebellious and contentious. References to “wokeness” and “cancel culture” pepper commentaries, as voices argue that college students are intolerant of dissenting opinions and downright hostile toward freedom of speech. Do Drucker’s observations of young adults in the 1960s shed any light on the debates over discourse and student activism?


At the time of Drucker’s article, students were concerned with a number of social justice issues, including the civil rights movement and students’ rights. At the University of California, Berkeley, the Free Speech movement during the 1964-1965 academic year involved a student-led protest against a ban on on-campus political speech and activities. Fueled by the civil rights movement and later protests against the Viet Nam War, the Free Speech movement represented students’ rebellion against 1950s-era anti-Communist restrictions on First Amendment rights of young people. Universities and colleges were believed to be in loco parentis, or “in the place of a parent” with the power to limit young people’s rights for their own safety. Women were subject to curfews, and there were other significant restrictions on students’ private lives. The Free Speech movement at Berkeley was the death knell for in loco parentis on most college campuses, where students are now treated as adults.


But it was the civil rights movement that motivated students throughout the United States to engage in activism, often in ways that endangered their own lives. The Freedom Riders were groups of college students who protested segregation in the South. Students from Northern universities traveled to the Deep South in the summer of 1961 to work with activists from Southern colleges and universities to desegregate public transportation. White students would sit in areas on buses designated for black people, and black students would integrate into white seats. The events were nationally televised. When buses were burned and students beaten in places like Birmingham, Alabama, the whole world watched; in fact, the Soviet Union gleefully used television images of violent reactions to non-violent protests to denigrate capitalism. Then there were the Freedom Schools organized in 1964, the first one of which was in Mississippi. These free schools were designed to educate Southern blacks on their own history and organize them to achieve social, economic, and political equality. Drucker comments on this in his article:

The young people are much closer in their views on civil rights to the abolitionists of a century ago than they are to yesterday’s liberals. The oppression of the Negro is to them a sin rather than a wrong. “We Shall Overcome” has the ring of a gospel hymn rather than that of a New Republic editorial. This explains in large part the tremendous impact the civil rights movement has had on the mood, vision, and worldview of the campus generation. In addition, civil rights has offered scope for individual initiative and effectiveness, something our society otherwise does not readily grant to men or women in their early twenties. There are students, white and coloured, who have gone South to teach in the Freedom Schools. There are the white college girls up North who in considerable numbers venture into the meanest Negro ghettos of the big cities to tutor or counsel, often entirely on their own.

What caught my attention most about this part of Drucker’s discussion is his comment that the civil rights movement gave young people “scope for individual initiative and effectiveness” – In other words, status and function. Drucker rarely wrote about issues of race, gender, or social justice. But when he did, it was always in the context of his larger philosophy of a functioning society of institutions – the very philosophy that drives Management as a Liberal Art. Elsewhere in this article, Drucker sounds a bit like a cranky older person, complaining about the sentimentality of college students and reminiscing about his days as part of his own “romantic generation.” But his point is important: young people need to feel that they have a voice, a place, status and function. If they do not, they will turn on the very institutions that support them (universities and colleges). When Drucker comments that the students of his era are searching for “personal commitment to a philosophy of life” and are “inner-directed,” he is not being cheeky or critical. He is echoing his own young self who found meaning in the writings of the philosopher Kierkegaard. How can young people be part of a functioning society of institutions? Especially when those institutions seem to alienate those who are “inner-directed,” driven by values and morals rather than by the kudos and rewards offered by the outside world? Drucker’s own crisis revolved around the failure of every institution to stave off National Socialism. How could a young man have faith in society, or find meaning as an individual, when hope was seemingly lost? For, Drucker, Kierkegaard’s existentialism was the answer.


Young people in the 1960s faced a similar existential crisis, driven not by Nazis but by a sense of society’s moral failure. Despite the promises of freedom and equality embodied in America’s founding documents, the country still embraced segregation and racial intolerance. The Viet Nam war was evidence of Eisenhower’s “Military-Industrial complex,” a set of powerful institutions that seemed to pull the levers of society. A growing environmental awareness, spawned by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring and its revelations about the dangers of DDT, showed young people that industrialization was poisoning the planet. As students in this era looked at the world around them, they saw not just political issues to discuss, but moral failings – as Drucker says, “sin.”


Today’s young people see, in many ways, a moral failure of society in epic proportions. Students are very engaged on social issues. A recent study by BestColleges shows that over 70 percent of today’s students are motivated by social justice issues and are acting on those impulses. Topics that most concern students include racial justice, climate change, gun control, and gender equality. The murder of George Floyd sparked a widespread movement against police violence against Black Americans. Anti-Asian hate crime rose 73 percent in 2020. On November 30th, 2021, a 15-year-old student opened fire on his fellow classmates and teachers with a gun his parents had bought him for Christmas, wounding seven and killing four. As I write this, it is the ninth anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, where a 20-year-old shot 26 people, including 20 children. Gymnasts abused by Larry Nassar, team doctor for the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team, reached a $380 million settlement with U.S. Olympic organizations. Climate change has been linked to a number of extreme events in recent months (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/climate/climate-change-wildfire-risk.html, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/21/weather/hurricane-henri-climate-change/index.html). So, yes, the ills of society weigh heavily on young people, and some generations seem to feel this weight more than others.


Drucker concludes his essay with some food for thought:

But a society of big organizations also raises in new and acute form the question of the person. What is his relationship to these new leviathans which are at one and the same time his servants and his master, his opportunity and his restraint, his tool and his environment? How can the individual maintain his integrity and privacy in such a society? Is individual freedom necessarily limited to whatever small air space will be left between the towering organizational skyscrapers? In such a society of big organizations, the need becomes more urgent for new answers to the old questions: “Who am I?” “What am I?” “What should I be?” …For once today’s young-adult fashions may foretell the concerns, and refigure the intellectual landscape, of tomorrow.


I keep coming back to Drucker’s remarks about students needing function and status, and how, in a society of big organizations, the questions about individual meaning loom large. For here, Drucker is telling us that students may be signaling views that others in society share. As a social ecologist, Drucker is looking at student activism as a possible “change that has already happened.” Is society as a whole moving towards more concern for the role that the “new leviathans” play? In other words, how could everyone, not just students, find status and function as large organizations played an increasingly important role in society? If institutions control every aspect of my life, where is the room for individual freedom? Is the “small air space” outside of institutions? Or can we find status and function within organizations (which is key to Management as a Liberal Art)?


I can see how this desire for “integrity,” “privacy” and “individual freedom” play a role in today’s student activism. The Parkland, Florida shootings in 2018 catapulted high school students to the forefront of gun control advocacy. Despair over the killing of George Floyd and many other black men at the hands of police officers sparked the Black Lives Matter protests that were particularly visible in the summer of 2020. Teenagers and young adults are some of the most prominent activists fighting to avert climate change. As was the case in the 1960s, young people point to previous generations’ failure and abdication of responsibility for solving these problems. And, as was the case in the 1960s, the tactics that young people use to protest are not always welcomed by larger society. Southerners viewed the Freedom Riders of 1961 as troublemakers, not moral activists. Attempts to curtail inflammatory presenters on college campuses and protestors shouting down speakers at events in today’s climate look like limitations on freedom of speech. When viewed through the lens of Management as a Liberal Art and social ecology, however, we can see how student activism is perhaps a symptom of a larger problem: how do we find individual freedom, dignity, status and function in a society dominated by institutions that, to many, don’t seem to function effectively? Management as a Liberal Art can help us answer these big questions.

Alexis de Tocqueville and The Future of Democracy: Part II

By Karen Linkletter Ph.D. • June 21, 2025
In Part I of this series, I gave a brief overview of Alexis de Tocqueville’s background and project of evaluating American Democracy in the early 19 th century. In this new installment, I’d like to share de Tocqueville’s observations about the nature of equality in America and how what he saw might help us understand some of the challenges democracies face today. When de Tocqueville visited America in 1830-1831, the young nation was in the process of redefining equality both in social and political terms. As I noted earlier, the election of Andrew Jackson as president coincided with the expansion of suffrage to not just propertied white males, but to virtually all free white men. This was because as time passed from the founding of the nation in 1789, large property holdings were broken up and passed onto heirs (something de Tocqueville himself noted). In the younger frontier states, and even in the original colonies, governance required broader participation of the electorate. When the founders crafted the United States’ Constitution, they did not envision a democracy that involved a citizenry of the majority (and certainly not women or people of color). While de Tocqueville has much to say about the political conditions in America, it is his commentary on the social ramifications of this changing nature of equality that is most fascinating (and, perhaps, particularly instructive for us today). As wealth was distributed from the few to the many, the concept of a wealthy propertied class began to fade away. This development was exacerbated by the growth in early industry in the East (notably textile manufacturing) which fueled a rising middle class in the cities. As de Tocqueville notes, the early landed gentry families had all but disappeared as their children became doctors, merchants, and lawyers, “commingled with the general mass.” As a result, he comments, Americans embraced a “middling standard” with respect to education and social station. We continue to see echoes of this as most Americans today would claim to be “middle class” even though it is statistically impossible for everyone to be in the “middle.” Throughout his Democracy in America, de Tocqueville argues that the democratic obsession with equality has dramatic social and cultural consequences. What de Tocqueville refers to as “equality of condition” is not actual equality, but the belief in its primacy as an organizing principle for society. The concept of a meritocracy, where one rises or falls by one’s own efforts rather than by virtue of birth status or family heritage, was increasingly part of American culture by the 1830s; the concept of the “self-made man” was enshrined in popular culture from Benjamin Franklin’s work through the Horatio Alger stories of the 19 th century. De Tocqueville observed that this insistence on self-making, on individual achievement, rips at the social fabric of relationships and interconnectedness. Individualism leads a person to “sever himself from the mass of his fellows” and leave “society at large to itself” (98). As one can no longer distinguish oneself in society by position or family status, one must now achieve individual success or power in order to ‘be someone’. This is a byproduct of equality of condition, because as de Tocqueville argues, no person really wants to be the same as everyone else. Deep down, no one truly desires absolute equality on a social level. The question is: how does someone achieve, in Drucker’s terms, status and function if the old order of aristocracy and class structure is swept away? That was one of the primary questions that De Tocqueville pondered as he studied the emerging American Democracy of the early 1800s. One of the manifestations of the desire for status and function in a society obsessed with equality of conditions is an increasing focus on material success. De Tocqueville was fascinated by the “restlessness” with which Americans lived in such prosperity. This is one of my favorite passages from Democracy in America: In the United States a man builds a house in which to spend his old age, and he sells it before the roof is on; he plants a garden and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing; he brings a field into tillage and leaves other men to gather the crops; he embraces a profession and gives it up; he settles in a place, which he soon afterwards leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure, he instantly plunges into the vortex of politics; and if at the end of a year of unremitting labor he finds he has a few days’ vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days to shake off his happiness. Death at length overtakes him, but it is before he is weary of his bootless chase of that complete felicity which forever escapes him. De Tocqueville describes what we have, in various periods of time, called “keeping up with the Joneses” or “keeping pace” – the desire to match or supersede others’ social status and lifestyles. When the old systems of class stratification disappear, economic success often becomes a marker of achievement in democratic societies. This leads to not just consumerism, but also the “disquietude” that De Tocqueville noticed. Nothing is ever good enough, because one is always measuring oneself against the prosperity of neighbors, co-workers, and associates. Time is short, and “anxiety, fear, and regret” occupy the mind as we worry about what we are missing out on and what we haven’t achieved. As we think about current modern democratic societies, we can see how this obsession with equality of condition and its associated pressures on the need for status and function have only become more exaggerated. De Tocqueville’s work paved the way for Drucker’s argument against an “Economic Man”: a promise of equality based on either a capitalist or socialist system. Socioeconomic equality is not only impossible; it runs against human nature. Furthermore, Drucker’s theory of a knowledge society, a society based on education and knowledge as capital, makes this even more complicated. The more educated people not only make more money, but they also wield more influence politically and socially. Drucker saw this as early as the 1950s, but it is more obvious today. Now, democratic societies face the perception of an elite ruling class in government, academia, business, and other institutions. The “us” vs. “them” mentality pits this elite class against “the middle” – the average person who feels neglected and missing out, “weary of his bootless chase.” Because we have embraced equality as a passion, democracies are perceived as failures in their ability to uphold the promise of economic and social equality for all. The result is a global rise in populism, a rage against the elite establishment, and a desire to tear down institutions. We have seen this play out in political developments in Poland, Italy, Germany, and the United States. What is the solution to this predicament? Should we not pursue equality? Drucker made the case that free societies needed to provide avenues for status and function for all of its members, which meant that economic success and educational achievement could not be the only avenues for being part of society. If a portion of society sees itself as outcasts, as unable to ‘be someone’ or contribute meaningfully, they will perceive that democratic institutions have failed them. The only way for democratic societies to function is to uphold some faith in equality of condition for all. Once the belief in fundamental principles is lost, there is little glue to hold societies together. The key is how we define “equality”; as Drucker and de Tocqueville showed us, promises of economic equality are destined for failure. But democratic societies can afford all of its members human dignity and a sense of purpose. In the next installment, I’ll provide some of de Tocqueville’s suggestions for strengthening democratic institutions. Sources Tocqueville, A.D. and Reeve, H. (1835). Democracy in America. London: Saunders and Otley, to 1840.

El Emprendedor, El Emprendimiento, y La Innovación

By Byron Ramirez Ph.D. • June 11, 2025
Cada mañana, Isabel abría su pequeño taller antes del amanecer, aunque nadie aseguraba que llegaría un cliente. No heredó fortuna, solo poseía una idea: reinventar la forma de vestir a su comunidad. Mientras otros dormían, ella soñaba despierta, hilando futuro entre telas. Así comenzó su historia como emprendedora. El emprendedor está motivado por la posibilidad de que sus productos y servicios puedan agregar valor a la sociedad. Pero también está consciente de que, para operar de manera sostenible, necesita generar ganancias. Los emprendedores tienden a reevaluar constantemente sus productos o servicios, mientras examinan el mercado en el que compiten y la forma en que producen y distribuyen sus ofertas. Ellos entienden que, para sobrevivir la intensa rivalidad y competencia que enfrentan, deben encontrar formas de innovar continuamente. La necesidad de competir de manera efectiva conduce a que los emprendedores apuesten por la innovación, ya que esta también facilita la creación de valor. Este es el proceso denominado "destrucción creativa". Joseph Schumpeter acuñó este término para describir el proceso de cambio desordenado, donde las ideas, productos, empresas e industrias enteras son desplazadas por nuevas innovaciones. Schumpeter sostuvo que la principal contribución de los emprendedores a la sociedad es abogar por el cambio y la disrupción, y al hacerlo, ayudan a avanzar a la sociedad. Schumpeter estableció conceptualmente al "emprendedor como innovador", siendo el emprendedor una figura clave en el impulso del desarrollo económico. Schumpeter argumentó que la innovación es un factor crítico del cambio económico. Indicó que el cambio económico gira en torno a la innovación, las actividades emprendedoras y el poder del mercado. Schumpeter afirmó que el poder del mercado originado en la innovación podría proporcionar mejores resultados que la competencia de precios y la ‘mano invisible’. Además, sugirió que la innovación a menudo crea monopolios temporales, permitiendo ganancias anómalas que pronto serían disputadas por imitadores y rivales. Explicó que estos monopolios temporales eran necesarios para proporcionar el incentivo requerido para que otras empresas desarrollaran nuevos productos y procesos. Por consiguiente, el emprendedor introduce cosas nuevas, procesos y perspicacia empresarial con el propósito de transformar innovaciones en bienes económicos. Y el emprendedor está dispuesto a asumir el riesgo asociado con introducir el cambio. Las actividades innovadoras de los emprendedores alimentan un proceso de ‘destrucción creativa’ al causar disturbios constantes en un sistema económico en equilibrio, creando así oportunidades para generar ingresos y beneficios. Por lo tanto, el emprendimiento interrumpe el flujo estacionario del sistema económico y de esta manera inicia y sostiene el proceso de desarrollo económico. Al ajustarse a un nuevo equilibrio, se generan otras innovaciones y más emprendedores entran al sistema económico, introduciendo nuevos productos y servicios, fomentando así el progreso. De manera similar, las empresas emprendedoras participan en la destrucción creativa y así logran captar una parte del mercado al reemplazar empresas que han fracasado en producir productos y servicios valiosos. El proceso de destrucción creativa incentiva a las empresas a desarrollar nuevos productos, servicios y procesos; de lo contrario, no sobrevivirán a largo plazo. El emprendimiento abarca la entrada al mercado de nuevas empresas, pero también respalda el desarrollo de actividades innovadoras en empresas existentes que les permiten crear valor continuo. En este sentido, la innovación puede caracterizarse como el desarrollo de un nuevo producto, servicio o proceso a medida que la empresa emprende nuevas combinaciones de los factores de producción. La innovación es un proceso complejo y dinámico que requiere compromiso, recursos e inversión. Muchas veces, las empresas modifican su modelo de negocio existente, reorganizando la forma en que desarrollan un producto o la manera en que entregan nuevas funcionalidades o servicios a sus clientes. Las modificaciones a un proceso organizacional existente, a un modelo de negocio existente, o incluso a un método de prestación de servicios, son todos ejemplos de cómo se aprovecha la innovación para buscar una mayor efectividad. La innovación puede caracterizarse como el desarrollo de un nuevo proceso o producto (o servicio) que satisface nuevos requerimientos y/o necesidades del mercado existentes. Drucker nos dice: “La innovación debe centrarse en una necesidad específica que satisface, en un resultado final específico que produce.” (Drucker, 1985). La innovación permite que productos, procesos, servicios, tecnologías e ideas más eficaces estén disponibles para los mercados y la sociedad. Como resultado, la innovación es utilizada por la empresa como un medio para satisfacer las necesidades de los consumidores; como una herramienta para competir con otras empresas en un mercado existente; y como un instrumento para ingresar a un nuevo mercado. Por lo tanto, la innovación incrementa conceptualmente la probabilidad de que la empresa logre eficiencia económica a corto plazo, y puede permitirle establecer una posición más competitiva a largo plazo. No obstante, la empresa se enfrenta a limitaciones internas (por ejemplo, el costo de insumos) y limitaciones externas (por ejemplo, la competencia en el mercado) que hacen que sea difícil subsistir. Además, los rendimientos marginales decrecientes influyen en la capacidad de producción de la empresa. La innovación puede considerarse esencial para el éxito de las empresas y para la supervivencia económica a largo plazo. Según algunos académicos, la innovación puede ayudar a mejorar la supervivencia a largo plazo de una empresa, ya que puede mejorar su oferta de línea de productos/servicios al tiempo que le permite establecer una ventaja competitiva sobre otras empresas (Antonelli, 2003; Lundvall, 2007; Porter, 1990; Schumpeter, 1936; Teece y Pisano, 1994). Vale la pena señalar que la empresa que elige innovar lo hace basándose principalmente en la información que tiene sobre las preferencias, deseos y necesidades de los consumidores en su mercado. En otras palabras, la empresa innova porque reconoce la oportunidad y el valor de satisfacer las necesidades y deseos de los consumidores a corto plazo y ve la inversión en innovación como un medio para también posicionarse eficazmente a largo plazo. Drucker nos recuerda: “La innovación sistemática y con propósito comienza con el análisis de las oportunidades” (Drucker, 1985). Y dado que la empresa enfrenta competencia, la innovación se convierte en una vía a través de la cual la empresa puede diferenciar sus productos o servicios. La innovación es la materialización exitosa de una idea útil, donde la idea es comercializada. La innovación también permite a la empresa reconfigurar sus recursos de manera más eficiente, y por lo tanto le permite aumentar su productividad, con la implicación de que esto puede ayudar a aumentar sus ganancias. La innovación ha ayudado a construir empresas y a hacer crecer y desarrollar industrias. Por ejemplo, hace apenas dos décadas, las empresas tenían dificultades para gestionar la gran cantidad de información y datos relacionados con sus interacciones continuas con los clientes. Desde 1999, Salesforce ha revolucionado la forma en que las organizaciones hacen seguimiento de las interacciones con los clientes y gestionan sus datos de ventas. Desde su fundación, Salesforce ha desarrollado múltiples versiones de sus productos, dando lugar a un sofisticado software empresarial basado en la nube que respalda la gestión de relaciones con los clientes (CRM). Las soluciones innovadoras de Salesforce incluyen la automatización de fuerza de ventas, servicio y soporte al cliente, automatización de marketing y comercio digital. Salesforce ha permitido a grandes organizaciones automatizar sus procesos de ventas y marketing y volverse cada vez más eficientes, al tiempo que se convierten en gestores eficaces de los datos e información de los clientes. La innovación no es un proceso lineal. Por el contrario, es un proceso altamente iterativo de reconsiderar muchos factores internos técnicos y operativos, y factores externos, con una interpretación en constante flujo de cómo la empresa podría continuar desarrollando y ofreciendo productos y servicios. La empresa en la que se fomenta la innovación debe apoyar las diversas iteraciones, interacciones y transacciones necesarias para respaldar los esfuerzos de innovación. El emprendedor, que no le teme a la incertidumbre ni al riesgo, es capaz de gestionar este proceso dinámico.  La innovación que aborda una necesidad o deseo del mercado aporta valor a la sociedad. Sin embargo, la innovación requiere que las empresas analicen sistemáticamente las oportunidades que se presentan. Por lo tanto, el emprendedor y la empresa emprendedora deben desarrollar la capacidad de observar y percibir las necesidades cambiantes de las personas. El emprendedor debe entonces centrarse en ofrecer una solución que satisfaga un conjunto específico de necesidades o deseos. Esto implica que la innovación debe ser manejada con propósito. Y también requiere que el emprendedor no solo sea disciplinado, sino que esté dispuesto a invertir en la adquisición de conocimiento que pueda aplicarse productivamente. Tanto el emprendedor como la empresa emprendedora deben reevaluar continuamente sus productos y servicios, analizar el mercado en el que compiten y reconsiderar la forma en que producen y distribuyen sus productos y servicios. Al adoptar la innovación, abogarán por el cambio y la disrupción, y ayudarán a avanzar a la sociedad. Referencias Antonelli, C. (2003). The economics of innovation, new technologies and structural change: studies in global competition series. New York, NY: Routledge. Drucker, P. (1985). Innovation and entrepreneurship: practice and principles. New York, NY: Harper Business. Lundvall, B. Å. (2007). National innovation systems—analytical concept and development tool. Industry and innovation, 14(1), 95-119. Porter, M. E. (1990). The Competitive advantage of nations: creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc. Schumpeter, J.A. (1936). The Theory of Economic Development, Second Edition. Cambridge: Harvard University press. Teece, D., & Pisano, G. (1994). The dynamic capabilities of firms: an introduction. Industrial and corporate change, 3(3), 537-556.

Alexis de Tocqueville and The Future of Democracy: Part I

By Karen Linkletter Ph.D. • May 13, 2025
In today’s political environment, particularly in the United States, there is much discussion about the future of democracy. Globally, traditional democratic forms of government are being called into question. Is democracy no longer effective in its ability to represent “the people”? Have democratic governments been hijacked by elite, moneyed interests? Are our institutions no longer effective and in need of some kind of reset or reinvention? The increasing appeal of authoritarian regimes, driven by populist anger, has been the subject of the work of many political scientists and observers (Silver and Fetterolf, 2024, Praet, 2024, Rhodes, 2022). Nearly 200 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) sought to understand the essence of democracy. His motivations and observations can perhaps be instructive to us today as we wrestle with the nature of democracy in the modern era. Alexis de Tocqueville was a member of the French aristocracy in the era immediately following the French Revolution. The revolution, which began in 1789, featured the rejection of the monarchy through violent spectacle, including public beheadings via the newly developed guillotine. Alexis’s father was part of the French government and was briefly imprisoned during the Reign of Terror. Nevertheless, he was sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. In fact, many members of the aristocracy in de Tocqueville’s France understood the motivations behind the revolution and sought to ensure that subsequent governments addressed the extreme economic disparities that were exposed by the violent events of the Reign of Terror. Alexis was educated in the aristocratic tradition, studying political philosophy and theory, history, and law. He was well-versed in the Enlightenment philosophy that influenced the framers of the American Constitution, particularly Montesquieu. Montesquieu argued for separation of powers in governance, which derived from his belief in the human capacity not only for greatness, but also for corruption. This tension between virtue and vice, which Montesquieu saw as a universal condition of humankind throughout time, required guardrails to slow down or inhibit abuse of power. Following the establishment of the French Consulate in 1799, Napoleon rose to lead the French Empire in 1804. After his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo, France restored the monarchy to Charles X. However, this was a constitutional monarchy rather than one based on the rights of heredity. In 1830, France overthrew King Charles X of the House of Bourbon, growing critical of his broken promises for economic relief from taxation to pay off the debt of the Napoleonic Wars. Charles was replaced by his cousin, Louis Philippe, of the House of Orleans. Louis Philippe sought to reform the monarchy, recognizing freedoms such as voting rights. Referred to as the “Citizen King”, he would be one of the last kings to represent France. In essence, France was beginning to understand the inevitable: the past world of a hereditary monarch claiming absolute authority was over, and the constitutional monarchy seemingly could not deliver on the promises of egalitarianism made in 1789. But what would the new form of governance look like? This was not clear. Even though the country had a reformist government, constitutional monarchy still retained elite status/class distinctions to maintain social order.  Alexis de Tocqueville was 25 when Louis Philippe was installed as the Citizen King in the July Revolution of 1830. Believing that democracy would inevitably come to France, de Tocqueville wanted to study that form of government. What did it look like? How could it be a stable form of government? Because the United States of America was the earliest experiment in democracy, de Tocqueville petitioned the king to travel to America to study that country. In particular, de Tocqueville convinced the king to let him study the American penitentiary movement. One of the areas of reform pursued in France was prison reform (prisons in France were notoriously horrible). At the time, America was in the middle of its own reform movement, including the penitentiary system of prison reform. The concept of a penitentiary was brand new. The idea behind it was that, instead of rotting in prison forever, you would be reformed and released back into society if you were truly sorry, or penitent for, your crimes. De Tocqueville visited America in 1831-1832. In addition to prison reform, he witnessed many remarkable developments in American democracy. It was President Andrew Jackson’s first term, which involved substantial political upheaval in America. Jackson was the first President elected “of the people.” He was not a Virginian or New England “blue blood,” like all the presidents before him had been. Jackson was from the frontier, and had built his name on a military career, most notably in the War of 1812 at the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson’s election coincided with the expansion of suffrage to most white males regardless of their property ownership. Jackson was understandably a controversial President; his election gave birth to the Whig party as a political alternative. His fight against the Bank of the U.S. placed him at odds with a rapidly developing commercial middle class. During de Tocqueville’s visit, Americans were participating in a growing reform culture. Abolition, or anti-slavery, was building steam in the nation. William Lloyd Garrison published his first issue of The Liberator, an important abolitionist newspaper that de Tocqueville read. There were religious revivals, known as the Second Great Awakening, and urban reform movements targeting prostitution, temperance, and of course, prison reform, the purported reason for de Tocqueville’s visit. The discovery of gold on Cherokee land in Georgia in 1828 snowballed into the event eventually known as the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral lands. Jackson’s 1830 Indian Removal Act made such events legal, and de Tocqueville personally witnessed the removal of the Chocktaw tribe. On a lighter note, this was also a time of incredible technological development. Railroad development and land speculation was beginning, McCormick had just patented his reaper, and de Tocqueville saw the newly opened Erie Canal. While de Tocqueville studied the nature of America’s young democracy nearly 200 years ago, we can leverage his observations with our own experience of facing a changing world where the nature of democracy is being questioned globally. The move towards increasing authoritarianism and populist movements calls into question whether democracy is government by the people or by the elite. Can de Tocqueville’s observations help us assess how we might keep democracies intact or make them more effective? In our next installment, I’ll look at de Tocqueville’s specific observations regarding democracy – particularly those related to the nature of equality. Sources Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de (1949). The spirit of the laws. New York: Hafner Pub. Co. Praet, J. (2024). Bringing authoritarianism into the limelight: the implications for populist radical right ideology. Journal of Political Ideologies, 1-23. Rhodes, B. (2022). After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We’ve Made. Random House. Silver, L. and Fetterolf, J. (2024). Who likes authoritarianism, and how do they want to change their government? Pew Research Center, February 28. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/28/who-likes-authoritarianism-and-how-do-they-want-to-change-their-government/ Tocqueville, A.D. and Reeve, H. (1835). Democracy in America. London: Saunders and Otley, to 1840.
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