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On the 150th anniversary of
Tocqueville's death, an insightful new book looks at his
legacy and the state of democracy today
Published on the 150th anniversary of
Tocqueville's death,
Soft Despotism, Democracy's
Drift examines the lasting relevance of the
early democratic philosophers and considers how America
and other modern democracies have veered too far from
their fundamental roots.
In 1989, the Cold War abruptly
ended and it seemed as if the world was at last safe for
democracy. But a spirit of uneasiness, discontent, and
world-weariness soon arose and has persisted
in Europe, in America, and elsewhere for two decades. To
discern the meaning of this malaise we must investigate
the nature of liberal democracy, says the author of this
provocative book, and he undertakes to do so through a
detailed investigation of the thinking of Montesquieu,
Rousseau, and Tocqueville.
Paul Rahe argues that these
political thinkers anticipated the modern liberal
republic's propensity to drift in the direction of “soft
despotism”—a condition that arises within a
democracy when paternalistic state power expands and
gradually undermines the spirit of self-government. Such
an eventuality, feared by Tocqueville in the nineteenth
century, has now become a reality throughout the
European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the
United States. So Rahe asserts, and he explains what
must be done to reverse this unfortunate trend.
Click here to buy Soft Despotism, today!
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