Tocqueville on Republican Politics and the Tyranny of Small Communities

Political Readings of Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville has been taken up within many perspectives: Religious Conservative, Libertarian near Anarcho-Capitalist, Neo-Conservative, Communitarian Left-Liberalism, Any other definition of Liberalism that might exist, Post-Marxist Democratic Theory, and no doubt a few positions I’ve overlooked. Despite this wide ranging appeal, some Marxists and near Marxists take him as the enemy. His support for, and involvement in the French colonisation of Algeria, and his assumption that Islam is culturally, intellectually and morally inferior to Christianity. are always emphasied by that tendency whoa re rather quieter about the racist and colonialist assumptions that can be found in Marx and other leftists of the time. Foucault’s Society Must be Defended provides an account of how left-wing and democratic thought originate in an idea of a kind of ‘race war’ with a ‘foreign’ elite.

Universalism and Competition between Nations
The support for colonialism has been regarded favourably by some Neo-Cons as a committment to universalising liberal-democratic ideas, though surely at its best Neo-Conservativism shows more respect for all religions and the right of all nations to self-government, even if with the assistance of US intervention. There is evidently an element of Islamophobia round the fringes of Neo-Conservatism. The Marxists and Neo-Cons are rather too keen to drag support for European colonialism in the 19th Century into another context. Tocqueville’s views on international relations were a mix of Realism and idealism. He was a Realist in the sense that he believed that nations conflict around questions of national pride and it is right to support the pride of your own nation. This itself refers to the element of this thought which emphasises the role of pride and the search for superiority in the human imagination, itself rooted in in his reading of Rousseau and Pascal. He was an idealist in the sense he believed that national policy should be directed to moral universalist goals like abolishing slavery, and he was certainly never at all attracted to the idea that any race is inferior or superior to any other. This post is principally concerned with his views on democratic theory and we will progress to that theme.

Tyranny of the Majority
The main concern here is to contest the assumption from a variety of directions that Tocqueville was for localism against the central state. We need to look at what he meant by the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Beofre we even consider Tıcqueville’s view of the ‘tyranny of the majority’, we have to deal with the widespread belief that John Stuart Mill coined that phrase. Mill used th phrase in On Liberty, but took it from Tocqueville, who he had met. Their relationship ended awkwardly, but Tocqueville certainly made an impact on Mill, who thought it worth writing long reviews on both parts of Democracy in America. Tocqueville used the phrase ‘tyranny of the majority’ in the Democracy to refer to local spirit in small town America. Though Tocqueville has enormous respect for the spirit of self-government in small town America, he also had deep concerns about the way that public opinion imposes conformity and crushes individuality in local communities. He thought a strong central state was necessary in order to balance that small town spirit. The inhabitants of the small towns needed to be able to appeal to a federal centre to resist the conformity of small towns. It is important to note that Tocqueville though public opinion could be just as dangerous to liberty as the state. That was the basis of his concern that democracy might lead to the worst kind of tyranny if a government resting on public opinion imposed the majority view in an authoritarian manner. Tocqueville should not, therefore, be invoked in support of the view that local participation in politics or the moral spirit of small communities, is the basis of liberty. This places Tocqueville closer to the more statist aspects of the Federalist Papers, than to the Jeffersonian belief in the absolute value of local community autonomy

Law and Conserving Liberty
Conservatism, in the sense of defending law against the tyranny of the majority, was best upheld by a new aristocracy, of the legal profession, which is necessarily committed to defending law and to its administration in a hierarchical structure headed by the central state. For Tocqueville the aristocracy was important in limiting monarchical power in the pre-democratic world. His
father was deeply connected with the ‘ultra-monarchist’ current in French politics. This is a misleading label in the sense that this current was for the aristocracy and against strong central monarchical power. Again for a good diagnosis, see Foucault, Society Must be Defended. Tocqueville caused great resentment in his family by adopting liberal constitutional democracy, which in the French context meant accepting the strong sovereignty of the National Assembly. Nevertheless, the concerns of the ultra-monarchists are in some way present in Tocqueville’s political thought.

Tocqueville and Republicanism: Politics and Human Spirit
Two points here: Tocqueville provides an alternative to recent Republican theory; Tocqueville cannot be associated with anti-political forms of Libertarianism and archaeo-conservatism. This is also present in the Marxist and anarcho-communist wish to abolish the state. These currents tend to find politics degenerate compared with the emergence of decisions from the ‘natural’ authority present in established communities. Tocqueville’s thought is Republican. He
thought politics was a part of the spirit of human communities and is necessary to liberty. He recognised that it rests on pride, envy, egotism and ambition, within himself and all who participate in politics, but considered competitive politics as the best way of using those tendencies in human character.

Tocqueville and Republicanism: An alternative to Current Republican Theory
The very welcome revival of Republican theory in Phillip Pettit and others, is largely a social democratic theory which places social and economic equality at the centre. Tocqueville recognised the need for state sponsored welfare, but was a lot more cautious about state action to promote equality, he thought the state has a role in preventing destitution not in redistributing property. Tocqueville provides an example of Republican participation as and end of human character, based on moderate welfarism and deep respect for property rights as the foundation of liberty and property, and the necessary basis for the independence of all from the state. Current Republicanism is very close to Communitarianism in assuming moral grounds for collective limitation of individualism, while adding more interest in politics as a part of human life. Tocqueville provides an alternative to the economic egalitarianism and to the moralistic view of politic as an instrument for moral goals.

Foucault and the Body; or Why Foucault is not a Post-Modern Social Constructionist

I’m following up the last post on Derrida and Nietzsche with a briefer post on Foucault. As I emphasised in the last post, neither Foucault nor Derrida can be reduced to a cliché of ‘Post-Modern’ social constructionism which excludes the body as natural object.

Like Derrida, Foucault never sailed under the flag of ‘Post-Modernism’, or post-ism of any kind. They are rather different cases, and though Derrida was Foucault’s student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, they appear to have had a long term falling out. This seems to have been more on Foucault’s side than Derrida’s. Despite Foucault’s expemplary qualities as thinker and libertarian social activist (future posts will return to the topic of Foucault and Libertarianism), he does seem to have been more prickly than Derrida. The prickliness seems to go all the way back to Derrida’s 1963 paper, ‘Cogito and Madness’ (collected in Writing and Difference), which is a critical but appreciative discussion of Foucault’s Madness and Civilisation.

The stereotypical view of Foucault circulated by his ‘Analytical’ philosophical critics and his ‘Post-Modern’ fans (more typically to be found in humanities and social science departments other than philosophy) is that he was a relativist who denied the existence of truth or objective, knowledge, and that he had a related assumption according to which reality only exists as a discursive social construction serving power interests of some kind. Something similar to that ‘Post-Modern’ interpretation of Foucault is also widespread in interpretation of Thomas Kuhn, a leaidng figure in Philosophy of Science in the Analytic tradition. Again very different cases, but there is no more reason to think of Foucault as a Post-Modernist than there is to think of Kuhn in that way.

There are many issues to be explored in future, but just one for today. Just a remark that one of Foucault’s most widely read books, Discipline and Punish, does refer to the discourses of power/knowledge, but it also refers to discourse as what affects the body. There is something pre-discursive in Foucault, the body. There is no ‘body’ or ‘nature’ we can identify from outside discourse for Foucault, but physicality and natural forces are there. His view of power/knowledge is just as much an attempt to think of social relations in terms of natural forces, as a discourse centred theory. The body is experienced in social and discursive contexts, but is not eliminated as a body. It is the body where there is resistance to power.

Political Notebook. Saturday 20th January 2007. Leading Adocate of Privatisation Backs Moves towards EU Energy Policy

Dieter Helm, veteran of the Privatisation of the British Energy Industry and Major Academic in the Field Argues for EU Energy Policy

A major expert on privatisation at Oxford University, Dieter Helm (described to me by a business friend as a privatisation guru), has recently posted a website article favouring EU moves towards an energy policy. Much confirmation that British Eurosceptic national-conservatives posing as Classical Liberals or Libertarians are contradicting themselves. It is the EU which provides the political and legal framework for continent wide competition, and opening up world markets.

South Park. The Latest Episode: ‘Smug Alert’, South Park Libertarianism and Childishly Subjective Conservatives

One of the best current TV shows is the animation South Park created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who based the central characters Stan and Kyle on themselves. The show features elementary school kids who deal with many dilemmas in bizarre story lines which often push to the limits of the offensive, but always make good morally reasoned points about families, small town life, religion, politics, friendship and many other things.

The most recent episode (the most recent one broadcast in Turkey) is ‘Smug Alert’. Kyle’s father starts diving a ‘hybrid’ car that switches between petrol and electric propulsion, and is more environmentally friendly than a car which just runs on petrol. Kyle’s father embarrasses Kyle and annoys everyone in the town with his smug attitude which leads him to ‘ticket’ less environmental cars than his own. Seeking people as pure as himself, Kyle’s father takes the family to San Francisco, portrayed as a nightmare place of self-satisfied hippies, lacking in real life. Back in South Park, Kyle’s best friend Stan tries to get Kyle back by converting everyone to driving hybrid cars in a 60s protest style song. However, disaster strikes when it turns out that like San Francisco, South Park is producing a cloud of ‘smug’. What’s worse George Clooney’s Oscar acceptance speech has produced a virulent cloud of smug which keeps repeating phrases like ‘Hollywood is ahead of the curve on social issues’. If the Clooney ‘smug’ cloud hits the other ones destruction will rain down. Meanwhile Stan and Kyle’s ambiguous friend Cartman, who is anti-Semitic, selfish, and sadistic, misses ripping on Kyle’s Jewishness. His solution is to enter San Francisco in what looks like a very old fashioned deep sea diving suit he wears to avoid hippy contamination, and pulls Kyle’s family out before San Francisco is destroyed. The pay off is that Kyle tells the town’s people that hybrids might save the world, but that smugness is bad.

The Politics of South Park
Like many episodes of South Park, ‘Smug Alert’ attacks left-wing self-satisfied political correctness. The episode title really sums up that theme of the series as a whole. However, it also emphasises that environmental concerns are well founded and that individuals should take responsibility for protecting the environment. The emphasis on individual responsibility might be considered to oppose left-liberal big government, but it could also be opposed to conservative social disciplinarianism.

Let’s look at what the makers say about politics in a recent interview in Reason Magazine.

Reason: A few years ago, Matt, you said, “I hate conservatives, but I really f…..g hate liberals.” Who do you hate more these days?

Stone: That’s a tough question. Obviously, South Park has a lot of politics in it, but ultimately we want to make a funny show and a good show. We try not to be, “All right, here’s the point we want to make.” But things like California’s smoking ban and Rob Reiner animate both of us. When we did that Rob Reiner episode [2003’s “Butt Out”], to us it was just common sense. Rob Reiner was just a great target.

That’s when a lot of people started calling us conservative: “How could you possibly rip on Rob Reiner? You must be conservative.”

Parker: A big key to us is that we both grew up in Colorado in the ’80s, and we wanted to be punk rockers. When you were a teenager in Colorado, the way to be a punk rocker was to rip on Reagan and Bush and what they were doing and talk about how everyone in Colorado’s a redneck with a gun and all this stuff. Then we went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and everyone there agreed with us. And we were like, “Well, that’s not cool, everyone agrees with us.” And then you get to Los Angeles. The only way you can be a punk in Los Angeles is go to a big party and go, “You can say what you want about George Bush, but you’ve got to admit, he’s pretty smart.” People are like, “What the fuck did he just say? Get him out of here!”
….

The show is saying that there is a middle ground, that most of us actually live in this middle ground, and that all you extremists are the ones who have the microphones because you’re the most interesting to listen to, but actually this group isn’t evil, that group isn’t evil, and there’s something to be worked out here.

The interview, which is with a Libertarian magazine emphasises two things politically: Centrism and Libertarianism as opposed to Conservativism and (Left) Liberalism. This seem clear enough and is born out by the general tone of the series which tends to be for small government in the economy, and freedom in the social sphere. Conservative Republicanism is targeted with regard to stem cell research, religion and anti-gay attitudes. An episode about immigrants from the future mocks anti-immigrant attitudes which come from a left wing wish to keep up wages and a right wing dislike of people who come from the future. Mel Gibson is mocked as a ‘complete douche’ and his film The Passion is represented as anti-semitic. An episode, which refers to a fictionalised version of Walmart, mocks the Walmart equivalent as tuırning customers into shopping obsessives and mocks the town people who keep trying to destroy it but then flock back to it, or a new version of it. Though Stone and Trey seem generally sympathetic to the free enterprise spirit, in this instance they clearly parody consumerism and suggest that companies work by subordinating individuals who work for a remorseless inhuman process.

Despite the above, Conservatives and ‘Libertarian’ Conservatives try to claim the show as their own. Rather oddly, despite clear criticisms of Conservatism in conversation and in the series, there is a book called South Park Conservatives which assumes what the title says, the series belongs to Conservatives. The absurdity of this is made clear in an Amazon.Com review (‘All Humor is Conservative’) posted by the editor of a magazine which had published essays by the author Brian C. Anderson. The review is based on the truly pathetic position that SP is Conservative because there is a lot of humor direct at left-liberals. Humour directed at Conservatives is ignored. Significantly, the post argues that the private media companies in the US are largely left wing and that SP is part of a counter movement which all encompasses The Passion. That would be Gibson’s The Passion which is condemned in one episode of SP as ant-semitic, and as the rantings of a violent maniac.

This is a good example of the kind of contradiction, and outright nonsense right wingers get into when they appropriate Libertarianism. A more subtle but still distotring version can be found on Lew.Rockwell.com which is closely associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. The Institute claims to be Libertarian, but it stretches this to included self styled ‘PaleoConservatives who are nostalgics for the Slave owning Confederacy which fought Lincoln in the Civil War. Quite apart from all that, two articles posted on Lee.Rockwell.com make tendentious claims. The Politics of South Park by Michael Cust only refers to right wing targets on the show, and overlooks the strong advocacy of gay rights, embedded in all the mocking of political correctness and guilt grievance politics. The Invisible Gnomes by Paul Cantor is more balanced, but still tries to define the show as more conservative than liberal, and assumes that the show only has good things to say about big corporations. Cust gets his history of Libertarianism completely muddled. He argues that it starts with Adam Smith and is carried on by Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Mises and Murray Rothbard. Smith was taken by Hayek as the starting point, though this kind of reading of Smith has been widely contested, in the blog Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy, along with books by Jerry Evensky, Samuel Fleischacker, and others. What is even more serious is the failure to recognised that Hayek placed Smith on pedestal (possibly ignoring him most of the time), Mises gave him credit but wrote little about him, and Rothbard condemns Smith as the precursor of Marxism, looking for roots to Libertarianism in 16th Century Jesuit Natural Law thinkers. Despite his role as Mises heir, Rothbard differed strongly from Mises in following natural law ethics, and in his condemnation of Smith. Silly Cust. Or as the South Park kids might say, Cust sucks *ss.

Sadly Cantor and Cust in their conservative version of Libertarianism, don’t get SP, because they think it must be Libertarianism of the anti-left kind, and just think that all Libertarianism is like that. Like the characters in the show, they are childish but with less reason.

The Quiet Revolution in the Liberal Democrats

Will Nick Clegg lead the British Liberal Democrats to a revival of the Classical Liberalism of Gladstone and Asquith?

British Liberals and Liberal Democrats: An Ageing Parody of the Party
The Liberal Democrats, and the predecessor Liberal Party, (the name Liberal Party name is now used by a very small left-Green-decentralist-communitarian party whose founders decline to join a merger between the old Liberal Party and the centrist Social Democratic Party, founded by Labour Party defectors) have often been dismissed as an irrelevance full of well meaning activists lacking a plausible program for government, and as having no hope of government, which suits the eccentricity of activists interested in activism as an end in itself. Generally, the activist are associated with well meaning if utopian leftism of a libertarian kind, while leaders are associated with vacuous centrism, only concerned with splitting the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservatives. This is parodic but it has some elements of truth in it, however, the elements of truth are lessening in a way which has yet to be picked up in the collective wisdom of public opinion, even in its supposedly expert vanguard of political journalists. It reflects the way the party evolved from the 1950s onward, in an upward swing after a long decline dating from the split between H.H. Asquith and David Lloyd George, succeeding Prime Ministers during World War One, which very nearly lead to the death of the party in the immediate post World War Two period. A mixture of parliamentary centrism, containing an element of Classical Liberalism, combined with localist activism, containing a strong element of left-libertarians at the core, served the party well to survive and then prosper as the definite third force in British politics.

The Change
The Liberal-Liberal Democrat party was changed twice over by the Conservative Party. First Margaret Thatcher revived free-market economics, combined with social conservatism. A clear place was created for those combining free-market economic liberalism and anti-conformist cultural and social liberalism. Second, the flight of Conservative voters after Black Wednesday in 1992 (collapse of government attempts to maintain the value of sterling in relation to other currencies) undermined the Conservative reputation for economic competence, and led to high interest rates to maintain the credibility of sterling and to create a new anti-inflationary pressure, also modified the activist base of the Liberal Democrats.

Paddy Ashdown’s rather confrontational attempts to create a more ‘Classical Liberal’ party, though he never used that phrase, largely failed. Charles Kennedy tried but gave up very quickly in the face of pressure, before his career completely collapsed amidst concerns about alcohol abuse. Nevertheless, during Kennedy’s leadership, Centre Forum, a legally non-party liberal foundation close to the Liberal Democrats in practice, was established and has leant towards Classical Liberalism. Employees are already making their way into key Liberal Democrat positions. Also a key book appeared, The Orange Book, which collected essays emphasising a market based form of liberalism, with reference to new strategies on crime and reforming the European Union.

A rather exaggerated notion of the book as Thatcherite, socially disciplinarian and Euro-Sceptic (a euphemism for anti-European Union attitudes in British politics) got round the press. This appears to have been at least partly the result of briefings by Mark Oaten, who was briefly the apparent standard bearer for Classical Liberal style policies before his political career crashed in even more abrupt fashion than Kennedy’s, during a particularly farcical run for the party leadership supported only by the famously eccentric MP Lembit Opik. Oaten’s undignified collapse allowed it to become clearer that the real leading figures in the revived Classical Liberal wing are David Laws, Christopher Huhne and Nick Clegg. Getting past Oaten’s briefings of Fleet Street, the Orange Book, is a more moderate shift than had been assumed. Left-wing MP Steve Webb contributed, criminal policy suggestions were very much about rehabilitation rather than harshness, EU reform was suggested in the context of the strengthening of European integration.

During the leadership contest to succeed Kennedy, only Huhne stood out of the three Classical Liberals and shifted leftwards pushing the previous standard bearer of the left, Simon Hughes, into last place. Laws has faded into the background, though he is still a very credible figure, and the next leadership election looks like a head to head between Huhne and Clegg. The left simply has no up and coming leaders. Presumably its roots in local activism and self-consciously anti-establishment protest culture, which prefers opposition to the compromises of government, has left it a poor training ground for leaders and policy advisers.

The current leader, Ming Campbell is clearly only a transitional leader before the showdown on the long term future of the party. As a self-identified centre-left politician with a strongly consensual middle of the road style, he is not the most obvious person to continue the push towards Classical Liberalism, but he has done more than Ashdown or Kennedy in that direction, at least partly reflecting the understated influence of his deputy Vince Cable, the old Don of the Classical Liberal current . A form of post office privatisation has become party policy and promises to increase income taxes on the rich have been replaced by policies on indirect environmental taxes. There are no plans to increase public spending; policies to minimise economic regulation, abolish the Department of Trade and Industry, and restrict the total of local and national taxes paid by any individual remain in place.

The Future for the Liberal Democrats
The parody which began this blog entry is still dragged out by political commentators, in a positive way by left wing commentators who wish for a force to the left of Blair, and in a negative way by right wing commentators. Pro-Conservative columnists are particularly patronising and dismissive with regard to a party which is not rooted in recent government power. One thing which distinguishes Conservative and Lib Dem free marketeers is their relation to traditions of power and assumptions about automatic entitlement to power. Ming Campbell’s lack of dominating charisma, and David Cameron’s really rather modest revival of the Conservatives, have reinforced a tradition of dismissiveness. There is also some recognition, that the Lib Dems are shifting towards a mixture of Classical Liberalism and a greater focus on what it means to have the responsibilities of power. More on this below.

Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism in the Liberal Democrats
I’ve used the term ‘Classical Liberal’ above without definition. Like every political label, it is used in many different contexts to refer to many different views. That does not mean that we should settle for complete ambiguity. I take it that Classical Liberalism is distinct from Libertarianism (though it is compatible with many Soft Libertarian positions) and Conservatism (though it is compatible with many Liberal-Conservative positions), and is no closer to those two positions than it is to the most liberal forms of centrist Social Democracy.

A big problem here is that ‘Classical Liberalism’ has been kidnapped not just by Conservatives, but by really right-wing national-social-cultural conservatives. These people have also kidnapped Libertarianism. While I’m not laying claim to Libertarianism, it’s important to note that Libertarianism has a core distinct from right-wing Conservatism. I intend to investigate these issues in detail in later blogs, and that will also involve discussion of Classical Republicanism. For now, I will simply offer a position.

Classical Liberalism is in favour of a limited state but does not regard the state as a purely negative phenomenon.
Classical Liberalism aims for a free-market economy but regards the state not just as a legislator for property rights, but also as a provider of public services and a social minimum.
Classical Liberalism is a reformist progressive position which recognises that the state should push against social conservatism in the pursuit of freedom, and establishing the conditions for freedom.
Classical Liberalism recognises ‘negative freedoms’ from state interference and ‘positive freedoms’ of active participation in society; and self-improvement through culture and education which are necessary conditions for freedom.
Classical Liberalism values diversity of opinions, defends the right to peaceful expression of extreme and unpopular views, while seeking a common discourse of public and community interest.

While the changes in the Lib Dems have not led to anyone claiming to be a Conservative, self-declared Libertarians are becoming more evident. The best way to follow this is to regularly check the LibDem Blogs aggregate. While I’m not in full agreement with these capitalist Libertarians, I welcome this as a counter to the more socialist Libertarians (though they don’t usually use this label, Radical or Radical Liberal are more normal) in the party. However, some are flirting with the more bizarre Libertarians outside the party, who can be followed through the Libertarian Alliance Blog. Many Libertarian Alliance members are disturbingly prone to the view that anything ant-communist and anti-socialist is Libertarian, and that can extend to an intolerance anything non-western, non-Christian and other manifestations of extreme Conservatism.

Liberal Democrats in the News
The intention is to deal with this as frequently as news items emerge which offer a serious analysis of the changing spirit of the Lib Dems, that is in its shift towards a consistently Classical Liberal position.

On January 8th, Times columnist Tim Hames mixed humour about the private life of Lembit Opik, with a discussion of the shift in the Lib Dems towards limits on central government spending in a more disciplined economic framework.
An article in the Financial Times on the 9th January emphasised the key role the Lib Dems, particularly the science spokesman Evan Harris, have played in opposition to government proposals to ban stem cell laboratory experiments which combine human tissue with animal tissue.
An item on the BBC News website on the 12th January, referring to a English National Ballet dancer who belongs to an extreme right anti-immigrant anti Muslim party, pointed out that the Liberal Democrats defend her right to hold views with which they vehemently disagree.

Liberal Thinking: Popular Errors

Recently I’ve noticed some well established errors or one sided views of major liberal thinkers repeated around the Blogosphere and online news sources.

1. John Stuart Mill is the prophet of current Capitalist Libertarianism
Mill is condemned by at least two of the heroes of current Capitalist Libertarianism: Ludwig von Mises condemned him for allowing Utilitarian considerations to override Libertarian rights; Friedrich Hayek condemned him for referring to ‘social justice’.
A popular minor error is to refer to Hayek as Von Hayek. Hayek himself dropped the aristocratic ‘Von‘. The Austiran government withdrew recognition for all aristocratic governments after WWII.

This reflects a widespread failure to realise that Libertarianism, certainly that of Hayek and Mises, rests on Natural Right theory which is totally rejected by Utilitarianism since Bentham and by Bentham’s antecedent David Hume. Natural Right/Natural Law theory assumes that we have rights before, and independently, of the rights established by any system of laws. Natural Right theory presumes that the natural rights of individuals cannot be denied or weakened for any reason. Utilitarianism rejects Natural Rights and therefore much Libertarian thought, because it is based on the principle of maximising the happiness of the greatest number, not on ant conception of inalienable natural individual rights.

2. Alexis de Tocqueville was the Cheer Leader of American Democracy.
In his classic commentary on Mid-Nineteenth Century Democracy in America, Tocqueville saw much to welcome in democracy. His view of American democracy in particular, and of democracy in general, also contained many anxieties and criticisms. One thing that needs to be understood is that for Tocqueville, democracy does not primarily refer to representative institutions, it refers to equality. Tocqueville put liberty at the foundation of his own thought, he regarded the old European aristocracies and monarchies as having at least an equal claim with the American democracy to be base don liberty. The threats to liberty that Tocqueville saw in democracy include mediocrity of culture, in which everyone has some culture but exceptional cultural achievements disappear; the tyranny of the majority (a phrase Mill borrowed from Tocqueville) in which the power of public opinion, particularly in small towns, has an oppressive moral force greater than the physical repressions employed by an absolute monarchy. This shows that the view of Tocqueville as celebrator of small town America to be mistaken. It also shows that he cannot be associated with Libertarian views of liberty as purely negative. Negative liberty is freedom from physical constraint as opposed to positive liberty, which the right to something: social welfare, culture, citizenship are examples. Tocqueville certainly took the last two very seriously. This clearly shows that the ‘Classical Liberal’ tradition cannot be equated with a purely negative view of liberty.