“Americans are so enamored of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” (Alexis de Tocqueville)
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political philosopher who visited the United States in the 1830s with a view to discovering why the American experiment in republican democracy was becoming so successful. When the United States became independent (in effect, in 1783 after the Revolutionary War), and set up a republic, there was a lot of mocking, scoffing, and laughing in Europe. “What do those dumb Americans think they are doing? They’ll never be successful.” You see, the British had tried republicanism in the 1650s after they executed their king, and it had been a miserable failure in less than 10 years. Then, the French dismembered their king in the 1790s and established a “republic” with the same catastrophic results. What made the Americans think they could succeed where the more (politically) advanced English and French had failed?
Well, by the 1830s, it DID appear to be working in the United States and de Tocqueville wanted to find out why. He investigated and traveled and wrote the two-volume “Democracy in America,” which has become a classic. He had a lot of good things to say, and the quote at the beginning of this article is one of the more intriguing.
I find the quote interesting, especially since it was written in the first half of the 19th century. Americans have always believed in an equality of sorts—“all men are created equal,” endowed by their Creator with certain natural rights, “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.” But that equality had a strict definition. In early America, it was “equality of opportunity” (except for slaves, of course), not “equality of outcomes.” Did de Tocqueville have the vision to perceive what would happen in future America?
It has long been an axiom that, if people are free, they will not be equal, and if they are equal, they will not be free. We all have different talents, abilities, personalities, ambitions, intelligence levels, etc. etc., and they create great differences of results. My bank account will never match Elon Musk’s. I’ll never be able to throw a baseball like Nolan Ryan could, or quarterback a football team like Tom Brady. The only way Elon’s and my bank accounts will ever be equal is if his money is forcibly taken from him and given to me. That’s not freedom of opportunity, that is freedom of outcome, and the only way this “equality” can be attained is by force—unless he voluntarily gave me his money, which he hasn’t yet informed me he intends to do. If Elon is left “free,” his bank roll and mine will never be “equal.” I just don’t have his money-making abilities, though maybe I have some talent he does not have.
America started out with the ideal of freedom of opportunity which, they understood and accepted, would lead to inequality of outcomes. But de Tocqueville indicated that, in his opinion, Americans have such a great love of equality “they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” Many Americans do not—and never have—believed that, of course, but...DEI? Isn’t this exactly what DEI is? “Let’s make sure that all races, genders, and sexual preferences have equal outcomes.” This is an outcomes-based, results approach, not a merit-based, freedom approach, and DEI has been roundly criticized for that very reason. But it is a cardinal principle of the current Democratic Party, who would rather have us all “equal in slavery” than “unequal in freedom.” It is one of the greatest battles being fought in America in our age.
Lyndon B. Johnson perhaps put the Democratic Party on the road to DEI with the following statement he made in a speech at Howard University in 1965: “We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.” “Equality as a result.” This became the revolution that has, in many ways, torn America apart in the last two generations. Johnson himself was the man who signed into law the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 which gave all Americans equality before the law; ten years prior, the Supreme Court had declared school segregation unconstitutional, though it persisted for many years afterwards.
But notice Johnson’s words: we do not just seek “legal equality”—that’s equality of opportunity. Everybody equal before the law, the same right to pursue their own happiness in accordance with the laws of God. It took America nearly two centuries to get to “legal equality,” but we finally did. It isn’t practiced perfectly, and it never will be by imperfect human beings. But that IS the law in America today.
However, Johnson said that’s not good enough. We seek “equality of result.” Ok, Elon, give me a call and I’ll tell you my bank account number and you can start shoveling it in...
People who are dependent upon government for their sustenance or upward movement in society are slaves to government. That’s part of what de Tocqueville is talking about. Minorities and women are protected by the same laws today as all Americans are and thus have the same freedom of opportunity as everyone else. And millions of them have seized their opportunities and made great successes of their lives. And kudos to them.
But that doesn’t buy votes for the Democratic Party, which was the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and now DEI. And because many Americans would rather be equal in slavery than take the opportunities they now have...well, that’s why today’s Democratic Party exists. It’s about power and buying votes.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about it almost two centuries ago. It’s called “history.” We don’t know much.
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