“Too much importance is attributed to legislation, too little to manners (p. 372),” says Tocqueville. It seems an odd thing to say. But by “manners,” Tocqueville is not referring simply to things such as table manners, but rather the “moral and intellectual characteristics of social man taken collectively”. I’m not sure that his definition really clarifies things, though.

 

In searching for passages where he gives examples of manners, one thing I found is a reference to people’s religious habits. He also mentions education, though it is not clear how that doesn’t fall under “legislation” since the schools in America are government schools. Even religion, to a certain extent, is supported by legislation in that religious liberty is protected by the constitution; there is no state religion. Tocqueville also mentions the Americans’ propensity to read, particularly newspapers. In another passage he seems to imply that the Americans’ entrepreneurialism is a part of their manners. Though again, he references the government’s efforts to ensure it is easy for businesspeople to operate, implying that it is legislation and not manners that are important.

 

I wish he would have elaborated more on this theme and given more concrete examples. The biggest question that kept coming up for me is: if the manners of your people aren’t what they need to be, how do you change the manners? To change them by legislation would imply that laws are more important than manners, which is the opposite of what Tocqueville says. To not change them by legislation is, in effect, to not have the government involved in changing manners. So then, who is changing the manners? Civil society leaders? Church leaders? Writers like Tocqueville? I think this would be an extremely difficult undertaking. How would you coordinate the change in manners? For the church leaders might want to change one way while civil society leaders and writers might want things to change the other way.

 

I suppose, since Tocqueville is writing a book directed at his fellow Frenchmen and Europeans, that he is suggesting that the people who support a transition to democracy in those societies should work to change the manners. In this case, church leaders who are sympathetic to democracy would try to create the kinds of religious manners in their congregations that are conducive to democracy, such as a tolerance for other denominations. Opinion leaders would write editorials extolling the virtues of reading newspapers. Writers, like Tocqueville, would help create in people’s minds a sympathy and desire for freedom and democracy.

 

In his discussion of manners, though, the one that stuck out the most for me, despite Tocqueville not making a huge deal out of it, is the idea of entrepreneurialism. One example he gave was of how the Americans seem willing to leave a semi-prosperous position in society to go off to new land in the hopes of building an even more prosperous life for themselves. He contrasted this with the French colony in what is now Canada. He said they are “closely crowded on a narrow territory,” even though they had ample room to expand outwards like the Americans. He said this was a result of the combination of the manners and laws of these peoples. The Americans are more enterprising.

 

He also said: “The American legislators have succeeded to a certain extent in opposing… its practical knowledge of business to the impatience of its desires (p. 376)”. Again, it is not entirely clear what he is referring to here, but my best guess from the context and other parts of the book is that in America, they have made it easy for people to start and run businesses and build wealth. This means that instead of causing trouble in politics, people’s passions and energies are absorbed in making money. I couldn’t help but think of two examples in our own times where this rings true, one personal and of minor importance, the other quite significant.

 

The first example is from my own personal experience running a small business growing and selling vegetables. Before I was a farmer, I used to be quite “political” and helped candidates during their campaigns and wrote letters to the editor. After I started my business, however, it always made sense for me just to put my head down and focus on growing the business. I was no longer an agitator in society, for better or worse. The only times when the politics came back into it was when the government was illegitimately (to my mind) interfering in my business.

 

In one case, for example, I had a particularly earnest enforcement officer from the federal weights and measures department apply the law in a manner that didn’t make a lot of sense for the size of farmer I was. He prohibited me from using my scale because it wasn’t “certified” by an appropriate authority. I asked him to check my scale to show that it wasn’t accurate (for I knew that it was giving good measurements). He refused to check it, saying it didn’t matter; what mattered was that an authority hadn’t checked it. Cost of my second-hand uncertified scale, $10. Cost of the certified scale we eventually bought, $500. We needed two, so it was a cost of $1000 instead of $20 (the certified scales were also better scales, so the cost isn’t just representing the “certification” difference, mind you). But to a start-up farmer, being able to get by with a $10 scale made a big difference in the early days of our farm. While we didn’t make a big stink about this, if we had experienced numerous situations like this, we would have started to become more political. Other experiences I had did result in us going before our local governments to lobby them against particular measures, such as governments supporting measures that gave preference to new farms at the expense of existing farms, creating an unlevel playing field.

 

The second example is also about scales, in one sense, but is much more serious. On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire (later dying) in reaction to how the government treated him for trying to sell fruit or vegetables on the streets of Tunisia. The exact story of what happened is contested, but in essence it is a story of a government making it difficult (arbitrary rules or enforcement, corrupt officials) for people to make a living running a small business. An enforcement official, who Bouazizi apparently refused to bribe, seized his fruit and scales and may have even slapped him when he tried to resist. He later went to the governor’s office to ask for his scales back but was not given an opportunity to see the governor, even when he threatened he would burn himself, which he proceeded to do in the street after saying, “How do you expect me to make a living?”.

 

This incident appeared to be the straw on the camel’s back of a people sick of a bad government, sparking protests across the country that led to the toppling of the dictatorship of 23 years. The protests spread to other countries and became known as the Arab Spring, which resulted in at least four countries ousting their leaders and other governments making changes to quell dissent.

 

This is, obviously, an extreme example of the consequences of a government not permitting its people freedom to pursue their economic interests, but nevertheless, I have a feeling Tocqueville wouldn’t have been surprised that such a seemingly small event could have such large political implications.

 

What, then, should we make of the protests in our own cities over Uber? Is the government getting in the way of our good manners as an enterprising people?

 

Part of America’s genius, Tocqueville appears to be saying, is that it leaves people free to pursue economic interests so that they don’t have a reason to protest. I can’t help but think in America and Canada today about the ride-sharing service Uber, which is causing taxi drivers to get violent and putting immense pressure on politicians to act. Why? Because governments artificially restrict entry into the taxi industry and regulate it like crazy as a result of their intervention in the market. We wouldn’t be seeing so much violence and political agitation if the government was far less involved in this aspect of the economy.

One of the more interesting observations Tocqueville makes regarding manners is a distinction he draws between the Americans and Europeans with respect to the mixing of public life and private life. “In Europe, we frequently introduce the ideas and the habits of private life into public affairs… . The Americans, on the other hand, transfuse the habits of public life into their manners in private; and in their country the jury is introduced into the games of schoolboys, and parliamentary forms are observed in the order of a feast (p. 368).” Again, I would have loved to have an example here, particularly how kids’ games incorporated juries into them. Today, it seems, we are more like Europeans in that we value the private sector and try to bring its habits into our public sector. It would be interesting to do an analysis on our private and public realms to see how they have become cross-fertilized over the years. Also, it would be interesting to answer the question: what would it look like today if our society was incorporating the habits of public life into our private manners?