John Stuart Mill: ’De Tocqueville On Democracy In America [ii] 1840’.

IN: ’John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XVIII - Essays on Politics and
Society Part I . Excerpts
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=233&chapter=16544&layouthhtml&Itemid=27

The evil is not in the preponderance of a democratic class, but of any class. The defects which M. de
Tocqueville points out in the American, and which we see in the modern English mind, are the ordinary ones
of a commercial class. The portion of society which is predominant in America, and that which is attaining
predominance here, the American Many, and our middle class, agree in being commercial classes. The one
country is affording a complete, and the other a progressive exemplification, that whenever any variety of
human nature becomes preponderant in a community, it imposes upon all the rest of society its own type;
forcing all, either to submit to it or to imitate it.
[…]
The spirit of commerce and industry is one of the greatest instruments not only of civilization in the
narrowest, but of improvement and culture in the widest sense: to it, or to its consequences, we owe nearly
all that advantageously distinguishes the present period from the Middle Ages. So long as other coordinate
elements of improvement existed beside it, doing what it left undone, and keeping its exclusive tendencies in
equipoise by an opposite order of sentiments, principles of action, and modes of thought—so long the
benefits which it conferred on humanity were unqualified. But example and theory alike justify the
expectation, that with its complete preponderance would commence an era either of stationariness or of
decline.
If to avert this consummation it were necessary that the class which wields the strongest power in society
should be prevented from exercising its strength, or that those who are powerful enough to overthrow the
government should not claim a paramount control over it, the case of civilized nations would be almost
hopeless. But human affairs are not entirely governed by mechanical laws, nor men’s characters wholly and
irrevocably formed by their situation in life. Economical and social changes, though among the greatest, are
not the only forces which shape the course of our species; ideas are not always the mere signs and effects of
social circumstances, they are themselves a power in history. Let the idea take hold of the more generous
and cultivated minds, that the most serious danger to the future prospects of mankind is in the unbalanced
influence of the commercial spirit—let the wiser and better-hearted politicians and public teachers look upon
it as their most pressing duty, to protect and strengthen whatever, in the heart of man or in his outward life,
can form a salutary check to the exclusive tendencies of that spirit—and we should not only have individual
testimonies against it, in all the forms of genius, from those who have the privilege of speaking not to their
own age merely, but to all time; there would also gradually shape itself forth a national education, which,
without overlooking any other of the requisites of human well-being, would be adapted to this purpose in
particular.
What is requisite in politics for the same end, is not that public opinion should not be, what it is and must be,
the ruling power; but that, in order to the formation of the best public opinion, there should exist somewhere
a great social support for opinions and sentiments different from those of the mass. The shape which that
support may best assume is a question of time, place, and circumstance; but (in a commercial country, and
an age when, happily for mankind, the military spirit is gone by) there can be no doubt about the elements
which must compose it: they are, an agricultural class, a leisured class, and a learned class.

The natural tendencies of an agricultural class are in many respects the reverse of those of a manufacturing
and commercial. In the first place, from their more scattered position, and less exercised activity of mind,
they have usually a greater willingness to look up to, and accept of, guidance. In the next place, they are the
class who have local attachments; and it is astonishing how much of character depends upon this one
circumstance. If the agricultural spirit is not felt in America as a counterpoise to the commercial, it is
because American agriculturists have no local attachments; they range from place to place, and are to all
intents and purposes a commercial class. But in an old country, where the same family has long occupied the
same land, the case will naturally be different. From attachment to places, follows attachment to persons
who are associated with those places. Though no longer the permanent tie which it once was, the connexion
between tenants and landlords is one not lightly broken off;—one which both parties, when they enter into
it, desire and hope will be permanent. Again, with attachment to the place comes generally attachment to the
occupation: a farmer seldom becomes anything but a farmer. The rage of money-getting can scarcely, in
agricultural occupations, reach any dangerous height: except where bad laws have aggravated the natural
fluctuations of price, there is little room for gambling; the rewards of industry and skill are sure but
moderate; an agriculturist can rarely make a large fortune. A manufacturer or merchant, unless he can
outstrip others, knows that others will outstrip him, and ruin him, while, in the irksome drudgery to which he
subjects himself as a means, there is nothing agreeable to dwell on except the ultimate end. But agriculture is
in itself an interesting occupation, which few wish to retire from, and which men of property and education
often pursue merely for their amusement. Men so occupied are satisfied with less gain, and are less
impatient to realize it. Our town population, it has long been remarked, is becoming almost as mobile
ando uneasy as the American. It ought not to be so with our agriculturists; they ought to be the
counterbalancing element in our national character; they should represent the type opposite to the
commercial,—that of moderate wishes, tranquil tastes, cultivation of the excitements and enjoyments near at
hand, and compatible with their existing position.

To attain this object, how much alteration may be requisite in the system of rack-renting and tenancy at will,
we cannot undertake to show in this place. It is sufficiently obvious also that the corn-laws [*] must disappear:
there must be no feud raging between the commercial class and that by whose influence and example its
excesses are to be tempered: men are not prone to adopt the characteristics of their enemies. Nor is this all.
In order that the agricultural population should count for anything in politics, or contribute its part to the
formation of the national character, it is absolutely necessary that it should be educated. And let it be
remembered that, in an agricultural people, the diffusion of information and intelligence must necessarily be
artificial;—the work of government, or of the superior classes. In populous towns, the mere collision of man
with man, the keenness of competition, the habits of society and discussion, the easy access to reading—
even the dulness of the ordinary occupations, which drives men to other excitements—produce of
themselves a certain development of intelligence. The least favoured class of a town population are seldom
actually stupid, and have often in some directions a morbid keenness and acuteness. It is otherwise with the
peasantry. Whatever it is desired that they should know, they must be taught, whatever intelligence is
expected to grow up among them, must first be implanted, and sedulously nursed.

It is not needful to go into a similar analysis of the tendencies of the other two classes—a leisured, and a
learned class. The capabilities which they possess for controlling the excess of the commercial spirit by a
contrary spirit, are at once apparent. We regard it as one of the greatest advantages of this country over
America, that it possesses both these classes; and we believe that the interests of the time to come are greatly
dependent upon preserving them; and upon their being rendered, as they much require to be, better and
better qualified for their important functions.

If we believed that the national character of England, instead of reacting upon the American character and
raising it, was gradually assimilating itself to those points of it which the best and wisest Americans see with
most uneasiness, it would be no consolation to us to think that we might possibly avoid the institutions of
America; for we should have all the effects of her institutions, except those which are beneficial. The
American Many are not essentially a different class from our ten-pound householders; and if the middle
class are left to the mere habits and instincts of a commercial community, we shall have a “tyranny of the
majority,” not the less irksome because most of the tyrants may not be manual labourers. For it is a
chimerical hope to overbear or outnumber the middle class; whatever modes of voting, whatever
redistribution of the constituencies, are really necessary for placing the government in their hands, those,
whether we like it or not, they will assuredly obtain.

The ascendancy of the commercial class in modern society and politics is inevitable, and, under due
limitations, ought not to be regarded as an evil. That class is the most powerful: but it needs not therefore be
all-powerful. Now, as ever, the great problem in government is to prevent the strongest from becoming the
only power; and repress the natural tendency of the instincts and passions of the ruling body, to sweep away
all barriers which are capable of resisting, even for a moment, their own tendencies. Any counterbalancing
power can henceforth exist only by the sufferance of the commercial class; but that it should tolerate some
such limitation, we deem as important as that it should not itself be held in vassalage