Pierre Manent.  Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy, trans. John Waggoner.  (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996)

Excerpt:

Tocqueville distills his discovery of the essence of modern society, of democracy, in this way. The equality of conditions is not a single characteristic among others, however important they may be; it is the “generative fact” from which all the rest is deduced. Modern societies have a “principle” to which everything that characterizes them must be referred. Certainly, some of their traits have other origins, but their specific differences inhere in this principle and its effect.  Equality of conditions is the common center of democratic societies, and it prevails in them all, more or less, This generative fact develops more or less freely and has consequences more or less complete.  But it is to this fact that one must direct oneself to understand democracy.

 

It is obvious that modern societies exhibit widely different political regimes.  Compare the French regime with the American regime, for example.  The first is characterized by a centralized administration, precarious freedoms, and frequent and violent changes among those who hold supreme power.  The second is characterized by administrative decentralization, recognized freedoms, and regular elections.  The “generative fact” of equality defines a “social state,” not a political regime.  This does not mean that such a state has no political consequences—quite the contrary.  But these political consequences manifest themselves in the form of an alternative.

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