Revitalizing the American Republic by reinvigorating voluntary association

Abstract

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville famously described the depth and breadth of voluntary association in the antebellum United States. Recent empirical research shows that de Tocqueville did not exaggerate. Between the founding of the republic in 1788 and the start of their Civil War in 1861, Americans voluntarily chartered over 23,000 business and over 15,000 nonprofit corporations across a wide swathe of activity. Contrary to the “state capacity” view, which holds that the weak state of early American governments rather ironically forced Americans to voluntarily associate to address social ills, the reverse is closer to the truth. In other words, Americans voluntarily associated to keep regulations relatively few and taxes relatively low. Americans today could revitalize their deeply divided republic by reinvigorating voluntarism, the non-mandated unilateral transfer of resources, making it once again the main mechanism for mitigating socioeconomic problems.