Do you think that he may have been idealizing the stability of premodern society? As you're putting it here, it sounds a lot like the fantasies of the idyllic past you see in a lot of conservativism. (In particular, the ideal state being conceived of as one in which everybody knows his or her place and all classes work harmoniously is a mainstay of the classical European right; it was one of Mussolini's main points.)
I mean, he was French, writing in the aftermath of the French Revo, which saw abolishing traditional society and overthrowing ruling classes as its central goal. It's not like the France of De Tocqueville's time was a class-conflict-free place. What's particularly American about this?
--- On Wed, 8/5/09, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 6:36 PM
> As I've researched it for my
> Political Sociology and Individual in Society
> courses, to De Tocqueville is usually attributed the term
> individualism and
> he saw it as the/a result of the breakdown of stable,
> pre-modern social
> statuses where people knew who they were, and where they
> stood, and could
> therefore forget themselves (their selfish interests) and
> act according to
> their status'/class interests. According to
> Tocqueville, individualism led
> people to look inward and locally towards themselves,
> family and community
> (at best) and to undermine a sense of shared, collective
> unity. Rather than
> the positive product of transcendental natural rights,
> individualism was the
> social product of the breakdown of society which was then
> only exacerbated
> by xenophobia and isolationism. Thus, the negative
> side of his description
> of America.
>