“The Idea of Rights”: Tocqueville on The Social Question

Abstract

Tocqueville's writings on pauperism have gained renewed attention in the last decade. Scholars study hisMemoir on Pauperism(1835) to contextualize his thought in the nineteenth century, to question the extent of his liberalism, or to locate his policy solutions on a spectrum from private charity to state welfare. Yet Tocqueville's response to pauperism must be interpreted in light of “the social question,” or the problem of how to alleviate not only the material ills of poverty, but also the phenomenon of social exclusion that accompanied it. His discussion of the social question, I argue, illuminates his particular theory of rights and their possibilities. His thoughts on the poor laws culminate in a novel theory of the educative potential of property rights. This theory of rights prompts us to revisit his position on extending political rights and on the role of political participation in overcoming class division.

Tocqueville’s Politics of Grandeur

“…Though it began as an effort to reform France’s financial system, Tocqueville believed that his plan would serve as an “energetic and practical reminder of political morality,” enabling the nation to recollect the spirit it had lost (Tocqueville 1985h, 729). 20 It would accomplish this by addressing those economic and social issues that could not be ignored (Englert 2017; Drolet 2003) and introducing reforms to improve the lives of the lower classes. His short-lived Young Left included provisions for debt forgiveness, wage increases, a reorganized tax system “to lessen the burden on the poor,” and the incremental extension of the suffrage (Tocqueville 1985i, 734).…”

“… 12. The closest studies of these topics are in Boesche (1983, 2014), Drescher (1968), and Englert (2017). …”

Tocqueville y el socialismo

“…Françoise Mélonio, en sus conclusiones al coloquio, explicaba esta multiplicidad de aproximaciones por las tres acepciones que el término "libertad" encuentra en el pensamiento de Tocqueville: la libertad liberal, la libertad republicana, y la libertad moral; la atención que se prestase a las condiciones sociales de esa libertad explicaría la preferencia por uno u otro sentido. Podría destacarse, por último, el más reciente artículo de Gianna Englert "The Idea of Rights: Tocqueville on the Social Question" (2017) que, al hilo de la renovada atención sobre sus escritos dedicados al pauperismo de la última década, vincula esta cuestión a su concepción de la necesaria extensión de los derechos políticos y al papel otorgado a la participación política como medio para superar la división de clases 97 .…”