"A collateral subject on which also I derived great benefit from the study of Tocqueville, was the fundamental question of centralization. The powerful philosophic analysis which he applied to American and to French experience, led him to attach the utmost importance to the performance of as much of the collective business of society, as can safely be so performed, by the people themselves, without any intervention of the executive government, either to supersede their agency, or to dictate the manner of its exercise. He viewed this practical political activity of the individual citizen, not only as one of the most effectual means of training the social feelings and practical intelligence of the people, so important in themselves and so indispensable to good government, but also as the specific counteractive to some of the characteristic infirmities of democracy, and a necessary protection against its degenerating into the only despotism of which, in the modern world, there is real danger—the absolute rule of the head of the executive over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals but all slaves."
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Academics from FrancePhilosophers from FranceHistorians from FranceCultural criticsSociologists from France
Original Language: English
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Sources
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1873), pp. 192-193
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville
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Alexis de Tocqueville
1805 – 1859
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