Volume 2, Part 4: Chapter 1-8 Summary and Analysis

The citizens of the United States have a tendency to believe that anarchy is lurking at every corner and would immediately replace their democratic government, should the latter fail at maintaining law and order. Alexis de Tocqueville maintains that anarchy should in fact, be the least of their concern; the threat of a despotic government is much more real than its anarchic counterpart. Too much emphasis on equality leads to servitude, which can easily turn the government into a tyrannical power. The problem of equality of conditions is that too much of it leads individuals to lose their relative importance in their environment. The individual's rights and freedom get lost in the crowd.

The threat of a despotic government is made even greater in democratic societies, because the power of a government ran by the...