American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville (most popular ebook readers .txt) 📕

The disastrous influence which popular authority may sometimes exercise upon the finances of a state, was very clearly seen in some of the democratic republics of antiquity, in which the public treasure was exhausted in order to relieve indigent citizens, or to supply the games and theatrical amusements of the populace. It is true that the representative system was then very imperfectly known, and that, at the present time, the influence of popular passions is less felt in the conduct of public affairs; but it may be believed that the delegate will in the end conform to the principles of his constituents, and favor their propensities as much as their interests.

The extravagance of democracy is, however, less to be dreaded in proportion as the people acquires a share of property, because on the one hand the contributions of the rich are then less needed, and on the other, it is more difficult to lay on taxes which do not affect the interests of the lower classes. On this account universal suffrage would be less dangerous in France than in England, because in the latter country the property on which taxes may be levied is vested in fewer hands. America, where the great majority of the citizens is possessed of some fortune, is in a still more favorable position than France.

There are still farther causes which may increase the sum of public expenditures in democratic countries. When the aristocracy governs, the individuals who conduct the affairs of state are exempted, by their own station in society, from every kind of privation: they are contented with their position; power and renown are the objects for which they strive; and, as they are placed far above the obscurer throng of citizens, they do not always distinctly perceive how the well-being of the mass of the people ought to redound to their own honor. They are not indeed, callous to the sufferings of the poor, but they cannot feel those miseries as acutely as if they were themselves partakers of them.

Provided that the people appear to submit to its lot, the rulers are satisfied and they demand nothing farther from the government. An aristocracy is more intent upon the means of maintaining its influence, than upon the means of improving its condition.

When, on the contrary, the people is invested with the supreme authority, the perpetual sense of their own miseries impels the rulers of society to seek for perpetual meliorations. A thousand different objects are subjected to improvement; the most trivial details are sought out as susceptible of amendment; and those changes which are accompanied with considerable expense, are more especially advocated, since the object is to render the condition of the poor more tolerable, who cannot pay for themselves.

Moreover, all democratic communities are agitated by an ill-defined excitement, and by a kind of feverish impatience, that engenders a multitude of innovations, almost all of which are attended with expense.

In monarchies and aristocracies, the natural taste which the rulers have for power and for renown, is stimulated by the promptings of ambition, and they are frequently incited by these temptations to very costly undertakings. In democracies, where the rulers labor under privations, they can only be courted by such means as improve their well-being, and these improvements cannot take place without a sacrifice of money. When a people begins to reflect upon its situation, it discovers a multitude of wants, to which it had not before been subject, and to satisfy these exigencies, recourse must be had to the coffers of the state. Hence it arises, that the public charges increase in proportion as civilisation spreads, and that the imposts are augmented as knowledge pervades the community.

The last cause which frequently renders a democratic government dearer than any other is, that a democracy does not always succeed in moderating its expenditure, because it does not understand the art of being economical. As the designs which it entertains are frequently changed, and the agents of those designs are more frequently removed, its undertakings are often ill-conducted or left unfinished; in the former case the state spends sums out of all proportion to the end which it proposes to accomplish; in the second, the expense itself is unprofitable.

In Democracies those who establish high Salaries have no Chance of profiting by them.—Tendency of the American Democracy to increase the Salaries of subordinate Officers, and to lower those of the more important functionaries.—Reason of this.—Comparative Statement of the Salaries of public Officers in the United States and in France.

There is a powerful reason which usually induces democracies to economise upon the salaries of public officers. As the number of citizens who dispense the remuneration is extremely large in democratic countries, so the number of persons who can hope to be benefited by the receipt of it is comparatively small. In aristocratic countries, on the contrary, the individuals who appoint high salaries, have almost always a vague hope of profiting by them. These appointments may be looked upon as a capital which they create for their own use, or at least, as a resource for their children.

It must, however, be allowed that a democratic state is most parsimonious toward its principal agents. In America the secondary officers are much better paid, and the dignitaries of the administration much worse than they are elsewhere.

These opposite effects result from the same cause: the people fixes the salaries of the public officers in both cases; and the scale of remuneration is determined by the consideration of its own wants. It is held to be fair that the servants of the public should be placed in the same easy circumstances as the public itself;[Footnote:

The easy circumstances in which secondary functionaries are placed in the United States, result also from another cause, which is independent of the general tendencies of democracy: every kind of private business is very lucrative, and the state would not be served at all if it did not pay its servants. The country is in the position of a commercial undertaking, which is obliged to sustain an expensive competition, notwithstanding its taste for economy.

] but when the question turns upon the salaries of the great officers of state, this rule fails, and chance alone can guide the popular decision. The poor have no adequate conceptions of the wants which the higher classes of society may feel. The sum which is scanty to the rich, appears enormous to the poor man, whose wants do not extend beyond the necessaries of life: and in his estimation the governor of a state, with his two or three hundred a year, is a very fortunate and enviable being.[Footnote: The state of Ohio, which contains a million of inhabitants, gives its governor a salary of only $1,200 (260_l._) a year.

] If you undertake to convince him that the representative of a great people ought to be able to maintain some show of splendor in the eyes of foreign nations, he will perhaps assent to your meaning; but when he reflects on his own humble dwelling, and on the hard-earned produce of his wearisome toil, he remembers all that he could do with a salary which you say is insufficient, and he is startled or almost frightened at the sight of such uncommon wealth. Besides, the secondary public officer is almost on a level with the people, while the others are raised above it. The former may therefore excite his interest, but the latter begins to arouse his envy.

This is very clearly seen in the United States, where the salaries seem to decrease as the authority of those who receive them augments.[Footnote:

To render this assertion perfectly evident, it will suffice to examine the scale of salaries of the agents of the federal government. I have added the salaries attached to the corresponding officers in France, to complete the comparison:—

I have perhaps done wrong in selecting France as my standard of comparison. In France the democratic tendencies of the nation exercise an ever-increasing influence upon the government, and the chambers show a disposition to raise the lowest salaries and to lower the principal ones. Thus the minister of finance, who received 160,000 fr. under the empire, receives 80,000 fr., in 1835; the directeurs-generaux of finance, who then received 50,000 fr., now receive only 20,000 fr.

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Under the rule of an aristocracy it frequently happens, on the contrary, that while the high officers are receiving munificent salaries, the inferior ones have not more than enough to procure the necessaries of life. The reason of this fact is easily discoverable from causes very analogous to those to which I have just alluded. If a democracy is unable to conceive the pleasures of the rich, or to see them without envy, an aristocracy is slow to understand, or, to speak more correctly, is unacquainted with the privations of the poor. The poor man is not (if we use the term aright) the fellow of the rich one; but he is the being of another species. An aristocracy is therefore apt to care but little for the fate of its subordinate agents: and their salaries are only raised when they refuse to perform their service for too scanty a remuneration.

It is the parsimonious conduct of democracy toward its principal officers, which has countenanced a supposition of far more economical propensities than any which it really possesses. It is true that it scarcely allows the means of honorable subsistence to the individuals who conduct its affairs; but enormous sums are lavished to meet the exigencies or to facilitate the enjoyments of the people.[Footnote: See the American budgets for the cost of indigent citizens and gratuitous instruction. In 1831, 50,000_l_. were spent in the state of New York for the maintenance of the poor; and at least 200,000_l_. were devoted to gratuitous instruction.

(Williams’s New York Annual Register, 1832, pp. 205, 243.) The state of New York contained only 1,900,000 inhabitants in the year 1830; which is not more than double the amount of population in the department du Nord in France.

] The money raised by taxation may