Tocqueville on Government Regulation
“Thus, after taking each individual by turns in its powerful hands
and kneading him as it likes, the sovereign extends
its arms over society as a whole.”
“It covers its surface with a network of small,
complicated, painstaking, uniform rules
through which the most original minds
and the most vigorous souls
cannot clear a way
to surpass
the crowd.”
“It does not break wills but it softens them, and directs them,
[then] it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly
opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy,
it prevents things from being born;
it does not tyrannize, it hinders,
compromises, enervates,
extinguishes, dazes,
and finally reduces
each nation
to being
nothing.”
“Nothing more than a herd of timid
and industrious animals
of which government
is the shepherd.”
According to me
“A ubiquitous government works the population
into a smooth and uniform mass.
Networks of law and regulation
force an extremely healthy mind
into compromise;
until the mind
extinguishes
itself.”
