Tocqueville and individualism in democratic societies

Abstract

This article deals with Alexis de Tocqueville’s conception of “individualism”, regarded as a social malaise that is particularly harmful to democratic societies which, when becoming desintegrated by losing their political and civil bonds, are indirectly inclined towards the progress of bureaucratic centralism. Moreover, the article analizes the remedies which Tocqueville himself proposed in order to curb that tendency. They are based on his own American experience, where he came upon the existence of some institutions that serve that purpose, along with a doctrine –that of “interest well understood”– which is well internalized in the average citizen.