It's been a long time since I read Democracy in America but one passage in particular has always stuck with me.
It's where he contrasts New England (aka Vermont etc) with the South.
He essentially says:
- In New England, it's almost a Greek democracy b/c everyone is seen as equal and everyone is required to work together for the common good
- In the South, they tried to recreate the aristocracy. That was only possible if there were multiple classes of society with the lowest class being the primary manual laborers. In other words, if you didn't have serfs then you needed slaves.
Year later, I was reading a comparison of the US vs Argentina. Similar size, similar resources and similar weather yet vastly different outcomes politically and economically. The thesis of the comparison was that Argentina imported the Spanish aristocracy model whereas US had a more egalitarian model.
It was interesting to see two somewhat similar comparisons made hundreds of years apart and coming to similar conclusions.
It's where he contrasts New England (aka Vermont etc) with the South.
He essentially says:
- In New England, it's almost a Greek democracy b/c everyone is seen as equal and everyone is required to work together for the common good
- In the South, they tried to recreate the aristocracy. That was only possible if there were multiple classes of society with the lowest class being the primary manual laborers. In other words, if you didn't have serfs then you needed slaves.
Year later, I was reading a comparison of the US vs Argentina. Similar size, similar resources and similar weather yet vastly different outcomes politically and economically. The thesis of the comparison was that Argentina imported the Spanish aristocracy model whereas US had a more egalitarian model.
It was interesting to see two somewhat similar comparisons made hundreds of years apart and coming to similar conclusions.