|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: that amongst a great democratic people there will always be some
members of the community in great poverty, and others in great
opulence; but the poor, instead of forming the immense majority
of the nation, as is always the case in aristocratic communities,
are comparatively few in number, and the laws do not bind them
together by the ties of irremediable and hereditary penury. The
wealthy, on their side, are scarce and powerless; they have no
privileges which attract public observation; even their wealth,
as it is no longer incorporated and bound up with the soil, is
impalpable, and as it were invisible. As there is no longer a
race of poor men, so there is no longer a race of rich men; the
|