Reading a book in the family home it was written is special enough. But to have the same family give you a tour of that home is beyond words.
This June, I led a group of Alpha School students on a grand tour across the Atlantic. We went to Normandy to read Democracy in America where it was written, to meet the Tocqueville family, and to discuss his ideas in the very spaces Tocqueville himself used to host his salons. To top this all off, Tocqueville’s descendant, Alexis d’Hérouville gave us a comprehensive tour of his beautiful chateau, which made Tocqueville’s ideas come to life.
Cicero once wrote: “When we see the places where the notables of the past spent their time, it is far more moving than when we hear about their achievements or read their writings. This is how I am affected right now. I think of Plato, who they say was the first philosopher to have regularly held discussions here. Those little gardens just nearby not only bring Plato to mind, but actually seem to make him appear before my eyes.”
I trust that this tour will make Tocqueville appear before yours.
Capitalism is the great equalizer, and that is precisely why it is so dangerous.
There is no force in history that has done more for equality: tearing down barriers, weakening caste structures, disrupting feudal power. Tocqueville welcomed this march of equality but also feared its less obvious consequences. Perhaps those aristocratic barriers, structures, and fiefdoms served a function that would now be unfulfilled. He came to America to see the endpoint of this process — the place where commerce and equality had gone further than anywhere else on earth.
I hosted a seminar with 5 Alpha School students on Tocqueville’s insights because Alpha is a school distinctively American in its love of entrepreneurship. Each of these students have already achieved commercial traction while still in high school. I wanted to take them through Tocqueville not just to read an old book but to hold up a mirror: so that they can know themselves better, that they can understand the origin, strengths, and limitations of an American, entrepreneurial education. And I wanted to share this seminar with you not only for you to understand Tocqueville’s insights on America and capitalism but to hear how the best and the brightest in the next generation are thinking about technology, inequality, AI, and the future of work.