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Quotations about Liberty and Power
Tocqueville on the “New Despotism” (1837) For volume 2 of Democracy in America (1840) Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) drew up several drafts of his thoughts on the nature of what he called the “new despotism” which he predicted would gradually emerge and turn the nation into “a flock of timid and hardworking animals”. This draft is quoted at length in James Schleifer’s book on Tocqueville:
Thus it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rarer, restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties. Equality has prepared men for all this, predisposing them to endure it and often even regard it as beneficial.
Having thus taken each citizen in turn in its powerful grasp and shaped men to its will, government then extends its embrace to include the whole of society. It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd.
See full quote and previous quotations about liberty. Read the full quote in context here. [More works by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859) and on 19th Century French Liberalism] |
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Images
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Pieter Brueghel, Taxation, and Christmas
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Pieter Brueghel the Elder,
"The Numeration (Census) of the People of Bethlehem"
(1566)
[See a larger
version of this image 6.5 MB JPG 2439 px]
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Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569) was a Flemish painter famous
for his landscapes and depictions of peasant life. In this painting
he takes Luke's account of the birth of Jesus in the town of Bethlehem
and transposes it to mid-16th century Netherlands. The Reformation
had taken root in the Netherlands which at that time was ruled by
Catholic Spain under the Bourbon monarch Philip II. In addition
to religious turmoil and persecution, the Flemish people suffered
under heavy taxation imposed by Philip II in order to fight wars
against the Ottoman Turks for control of the Mediterranean. In this
context it is not surprising that Brueghel would find the biblical
story of Joseph and Mary, forced by the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus
to return to their ancestral city in order to be taxed, rather compelling.
In the left foreground we see a cluster of ordinary people lined
up to have their names checked off a ledger and then forced to hand
over their taxes to an imperial official. The rest of the painting
is taken up with scenes of ordinary people at work and play in the
middle of winter. The Dutch Revolt against Spanish imperial control
broke out in 1568 shortly after the work was painted. [More]
[See other works on the Protestant
Reformation]
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[See our collection of paired
Quotations and Images about Liberty & Power]
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Recent Additions to the Library ↑
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January additions:
[Illuminated page for the month of January from Les Très
Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1416)].
[January: the month of aristocratic gift giving and feasting. See a larger
image and a description
of its contents]
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December additions:
- Book: Washington, Writings, vols. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
- Book: Washington, Writings, vols. 8 & 9
- Liberty Matters: Selected
Quotations from Bastiat’s Collected Works, vol. 1 (2011)
- Book: Washington, Writings, vols. 8 & 9
- Liberty Matters: Selected
Quotations from Bastiat’s Collected Works, vol. 1 (2011)
- Book: Washington, Writings,
vol. 7 (1778-79)
- Book: Political Writings
of William Leggett (1840), vol. 2
- Liberty Matters: Quotes on Liberty and Power (2004-2011)
- Quote: Leggett
on the tendency of the government to become “the universal dispenser
of good and evil” (1834)
- Book: Political Writings
of William Leggett (1840), vol. 1
- Quote: Socrates as
the “gadfly” of the state (4thC BC)
- Book: Washington, Writings,
vol. 6 (1777-78)
[Illuminated page for the month of December from Les Très Riches
Heures du Duc de Berry (1416)].
[See larger
image]
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