De Tocqueville on democratic despotism

     I wish to imagine under what new features despotism might appear in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of men, all alike and equal, turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls.  Each of them, living apart, is almost unaware of the destiny of all the rest.  His children and personal friends are for him the whole of the human race; as for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he stands alongside them but does not see them; he touches them without feeling them; he exists only in himself and for himself; if he still retains his family circle, at any rate he may be said to have lost his country.

     Above these men stands an immense and protective power which alone is responsible for looking after their enjoyments and watching over their destiny.[1]

De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, II (1840).

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[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, tr. Gerald E. Bevan (London: Penguin, 2003) p. 805. For further details see Volume II, Part 4, chapter 6: “What sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear”.