Acton Institute Powerblog

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Search results for "Tocqueville"
May 30, 2019

Tocqueville and Novak at the Heritage Foundation

This week, I gave a public lecture at the Heritage Foundation as part of its speakers’ series on the theme “Free Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice.” At a time in which many Americans, at least according to opinion polls, say that they are attracted to socialism, I thought it would be helpful to consider what two observers of socialism, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville and the American theologian Michael Novak, had to say about this subject. Continue Reading...
October 17, 2018

Alexis de Tocqueville, socialism, and the American Way

Tocqueville determined that the one defining factor in the United States was equality of condition, says John Wilsey in this week’s Acton Commentary. Tocqueville noticed that Americans apparently had the singular ability to prevent equality of conditions from yielding democratic despotism. Continue Reading...
June 27, 2017

Neamtu: Choose the ‘Soros infantry’ or Tocqueville’s vision

George Soros is synonymous with a well-funded, highly partisan brand of “philanthropy,” which begs the question: Why are U.S. taxpayers underwriting it? During the Obama administration, USAID granted Soros’ Foundation Open Society-Macedonia (FOSM) and its counterparts $4.8 million, earmarking an additional $9.5 million through 2021. Continue Reading...
June 09, 2017

What did Alexis de Tocqueville actually think?

Samuel Gregg, research director at the Acton Institute, recently published a review on the new translation of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848 and Its Aftermath in which Tocqueville, the “quintessential man of theory,” gets dirty about the politics of the French Revolution. Continue Reading...
March 15, 2017

‘Instruction by which we may profit’: A guide to reading Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’ (Part 1)

When Alexis de Tocqueville authored Democracy in America, a two-volume treatment of America, he wrote it “to find there instruction by which we ourselves may profit.” By “we,” Tocqueville was referring to his fellow Frenchmen, but although he may have written those words in 1835, we as Americans of the 21st century also have plenty to profit from Tocqueville’s wisdom, if we’ll but receive it. Continue Reading...
January 22, 2017

Samuel Gregg on Tocqueville and democracy’s fall in America

‘Democracy in America’ by Alexis de Tocqueville is a 19th century book that serves as a guide to explain how the American political system has evolved into its current state. In this book, Tocqueville describes what he noticed about American democracy when he traveled through the country in 1831.   Continue Reading...