Aristotle & De Tocqueville: The Problem of Equality in Democracy

In reading Aristotle’s Politics this semester, I have been intrigued by his detailed analysis of the concepts of equality and democracy.  These concepts are of such value to Americans and have become more salient issues to me after reading Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America this past summer.  In comparing their writings on equality and democracy, I’m beginning to think that discussions on equality and democracy in America have become worse than shallow.  they have become undefined.

Just what kind of democracy does America have?  And what role does equality play in that democracy?

Not only can we find answers in the two books I mentioned above, but in seeking those answers, we are ushered into a very nuanced debate.

Aristotle and De Tocqueville both agree that equality in a political society can have its downsides and can be problematic to a democracy.  Where the the two of them differ is in their belief that democratic political institutions will be the natural check against the problems.  De Tocqueville, analyzing the American democracy, seems to believe that it will; but Aristotle argues that a pure democracy is a deviant form of a representative government, which he distinguishes by the term polity.

Equality, a two-edged sword.

De Tocqueville easily deduced from his journey in America that equality was the greatest political value:

The social condition of the American is eminently democratic…[and] the political consequences of such a social condition as this are easily deducible.  It is impossible to believe that equality will not eventually find its way into the political world, as it does everywhere else.  To conceive of men remaining forever unequal upon a single point, yet equal on all others, is impossible; they must come in the end to be equal upon all.

The outcome of such a pursuit of equality could be, in De Tocqueville’s eyes, one of two:

There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality that incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored.  This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and recuses men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.

Equality is thus not a good unto itself, but a good that rests upon something greater, and this is where one must understand Aristotle in order to grasp De Tocqueville.

Equality as God, democracy’s greatest temptation.

Aristotle understood that “happiness” – the pursuit and development of virtue as being the goal of any political society, and thus the end to which equality must be merely a means.

In fact, were equality in all points the end of a political society, Aristotle fears the bad effects De Tocqueville articulates:

Factional conflict is everywhere the result of inequality, at any rate where there is no proportion among those who are unequal; in general it is equality they seek when they engage in factional conflict. – Book 5, Ch. 1.

I think we can infer a corollary here:

The pursuit of radical equality as the end goal of democracy creates factional conflicts.

Equality as a god creates a cruel master, whereas equality as a servant creates a virtuous people.  That seems to be the point here.

Equality taken too far, in Aristotle’s mind created a tyranny of the majority that would only offend other groups within the polity that also could make a claim to political influence and power by virtue of their wealth, or virtue.

The equality-democracy tension:  Too much of good thing…..

When comparing the analysis of De Tocqueville and Aristotle, the thing that stands out to me the most is Aristotle’s nuance.

De Tocqueville understood equality and democracy to be somewhat singular, monochromatic concepts, however, Aristotle understood there to be up to five different types of democracy that addressed the problem of equality in the political sphere in different ways, some better than others, but all as particular responses to a given polity’s character (the differences between American and French democracy would not surprise Aristotle in the least, though they did seem to surprise De Tocqueville).

The differences between these two eminent philosophers on the nature of equality and democracy are intriguing to me because I often find the definitions of the these two concepts to be quite one dimensional in the minds of most people.

It’s too bad I can’t write my research paper on the subject this semester.  However, I have decided to essentially explore the same subject – equality and democracy – as it is treated by Aristotle and John Locke.  In many ways, De Tocqueville is merely observing in 1830s America the outworking of many of Locke’s philosophical concepts.

Both De Tocqueville and Aristotle may have disagreed on the definition of democracy, but they certainly agreed on the effects of a radical democracy that seeks radical equality:

Class conflict and destabilization.

The question is,

“Do social conflicts in America today indicate such a worship of equality?”

There certainly are such strains of thought as evidenced in the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it certainly doesn’t represent the majority of Americans, claims of being the 99% aside.

Arguments surrounding income inequality and marriage equality get more to the heart of the matter in that they are socially acceptable positions and concerns that have as their bedrock premise fundamental equality.

This, I believe, demonstrates the continued relevance of Aristotle and De Tocqueville’s writings in our ongoing democratic evolution.

I unfortunately don’t have the time in this post to jump into addressing these issues (future posts, perhaps?), but maybe you’d be willing to chime in your two cents in the comments. 🙂