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[Influence of Democratic Government on the Use of Tax Revenues] - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, vol. 2 [1835]

Edition used:

Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition of De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Eduardo Nolla, translated from the French by James T. Schleifer. A Bilingual French-English editions, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010). Vol. 2.

Part of: Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, 4 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


[Influence of Democratic Government on the Use of Tax Revenues]

[The partisans of democracy claim that the government of democracy is more economical than any other, and I think they are mistaken. If they said, instead, that, of all governments, democratic government is the one that generally makes best use of tax revenues, they would put themselves, I believe, on their true ground.

I spoke above about the squanderings of democracy {bread and spectacles the Romans of the decline would say}, but such excesses are rare and are ordinarily found during the centuries when enlightenment is weak and corruption very great. If the government of democracy levies more considerable sums on society than another government, it generally uses public monies for objects of a more certain and more extensive utility and uses them to relieve more real needs.e Incontestably, democracies have never built the palace of Versailles, nor based the political world on money as the aristocracy of England has done.f

Apart from its direct influence on the object of public expenditures, the government of democracy exercises still another influence, no less great, on how they are handled. Democratic institutions tend to make habits simpler and to remove, if not the taste for luxury and ostentation, the usual appendage to the inequality of fortunes, at least the possibility of indulging in that taste. As a result of this general spirit of the nation, expenditures are made on more modest and more economical plans.g

In all that precedes I have kept to subjects as a whole and not to details. I happened to notice many times in America that public expenditures were not applied to the most useful objects or that they were made without economy; but it appeared to me that these were particular cases and that they should be blamed much less on a natural tendency of the government of democracy than on the poor choice of its agents. For, of all masters, the people are assuredly the worst served.]h

[e. ] In the margin, under a paper glued into place: “≠It uses it for schools, for roads, for measures of order and health.≠”

[f. ] To the side:

≠Democracy shows itself parsimonious toward its agents.

This is due to two causes.

The first is that the poor man, who then makes the law, measures by his own scale the needs of those who serve him. What appears to be a modest sum to a rich man, appears to be a prodigious sum to him who has nothing; and he feels that a public official [v: the Governor of the state], with his puny salary, should still be happy and excite envy. The second is that since those who institute the salaries are very numerous under the dominion of democracy, they have very little chance to get them.

This parsimony of democracy for the principal ones among its agents gives an illusion about its economical inclinations. But if it limits itself to giving public officials what is needed to live, it spends enormous sums to relieve the needs {to establish free schools} or to facilitate the pleasures of the people {to aid the poor}. It is a better use of the tax revenue, but not an economy. In general, democracy gives little to those who govern and a great deal to the governed, against aristocratic governments where the money .-.-.-.- above all the class that .-.-.-.- public affairs.≠

[g. ] In the margin, under a paper glued into place: “Perhaps put at the end of the chapter, the chapter on mores placed above.”

[h. ] Hervé de Tocqueville:

I do not believe this idea developed enough. This last division of the chapter presents a great imperfection in my eyes. The good faith of the author leads him to admit that several facts in America contradict his theory. In several of the preceding divisions, facts, unstated, did not support the theory. Here, in certain respects, they are opposed to it. Alexis has too much wisdom not to sense that by operating thus, he gives a wide scope to criticism. Overall, he has changed his way of writing, and I regret it. In the first volume, facts led naturally to theory that seemed a natural consequence. Here theory precedes facts, and sometimes does without them; that is dangerous. The reader willingly submits to the author’s opinion when it seems to be a deduction, so to speak, from facts, because then the author does not seem to want to impose his opinion. It would be otherwise if it preceded facts and, above all, if facts were lacking to support it. Then the intelligence of the author exercises over that of the reader a sway to which the latter does not always adapt and against which he sometimes takes a strong stand. I acknowledge with great pleasure that this last chapter is very well written and that it contains new and ingenious insights. But this merit does not compensate for the disadvantage of the absence of facts to support the theory.

In my opinion, every time Alexis is led to develop general insights, he must hasten to connect them to America. Without that, his work would lose its unity of composition, which is a major disadvantage in works of the mind. The reader glimpses in this case two aims without being able to set exactly the limits of each of the things that relate to each other; and a kind of confusion arises in his mind that forces him to a tedious effort that displeases him.

I have conscientiously examined if the paragraphs on aristocracy are necessary to establish a useful parallel between it and democracy. I am convinced of the opposite. Not only are they unnecessary, but they come as irrelevant, because aristocracy is in no way within the author’s subject. There is no point, without a pressing need, in turning the upper classes against him. Alexis has been carried away by his natural frankness and also by a generous sentiment, that of knowing how to put himself above the prejudices of his class. All that he says was appropriate when the aristocracy was powerful. At present, I believe that one must abstain from doing it. I do not need to expand on the reasons.

To the side, written by Alexis, according to the copyist: “and that it (three illegible words) it would not have (illegible word) at State expense to buy the younger branches of certain families as the English aristocracy did” (YTC, CIIIb, 2, pp. 17-19).

Édouard de Tocqueville:

General observation. This entire chapter needs, in my opinion, to be altered. Economic questions are not treated in it with enough assurance; there are several propositions that can be questioned. Certain thoughts are inadequately developed. All in all, I do not find this chapter at the same level as the preceding ones. The author here does not seem to be as perfectly in control of his subject (YTC, CIIIb, 2, p. 10).