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'''Equality of Condition''' In his book … '''Equality of Condition''' In his book "Democracy in America", Alexis de Tocqueville's first words are:
"Among the new objects that attracted my attention . . in the United States, none struck my eye more vividly than the equality of conditions. I discovered without difficulty the enormous influence that this primary fact exerts on the course of society; it gives a certain direction to public spirit, a certain turn to the laws, new maxims to those who govern, and particular habits to the governed. . . . it creates opinions, gives birth to sentiments, suggests usages, and modifies everything it does not produce. . . . .
"Then I brought my thinking back to our hemisphere, and . . . distinguished something in it analogous to the spectacle the New World offered me. I saw the equality of conditions that, without having reached its extreme limits as it had in the United States, was approaching them more each day; and the same democracy reigning in American societies appeared to me to be advancing rapidly toward power in Europe. . . .
"A great democratic revolution is taking place among us: all see it, but all do not judge it in the same manner. Some . . . still hope to be able to stop it; whereas others judge it irresistible because to them it seems the most continuous, the oldest, and the most permanent fact known in history."
What insight!ent fact known in history."
What insight! +
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