Episode 14: Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America,"

(upbeat music) From H.Poll World Headquarters on the World Wide Web, this is Coms List Radio, with Robert Ferguson and Marie Totten, and joined today by the broader H.Poll universe. We have Akreedy Sethi and Grant Madsen. This is, I guess it's the first episode of season two of Coms List Radio. So that's very exciting. We're on to a new academic year. It's a bombing 118 degrees here in Tempe, Arizona. Akreedy, what's the like outside of Delhi? - It's extremely humid. We had a couple of rainy days, so now it's pretty humid. - I can imagine, Marie, Conway Arkon, checking in from just outside of Conway, Arkansas, how's Mid-Arcan, Middle Arkansas? - It's hot, it's been stormy. We've been out of power. So glad to be here and glad to have power and glad to be on season two. Here we go. - Well, we haven't been canceled yet. - Not yet. - And Grant, Provo, Utah, how are things there? - It's sort of surprised. We're the coolest, I think of every place. We're only 82 degrees right now and very sunny. It's a beautiful day. So sorry, you guys aren't all here. Where we get cooler and dry heat, so anyway. - We got hit with a massive dust storm last night. Like a true big hubbub came in and rattled our windows for a good 45 minutes. It was pretty crazy. - Yeah, the joys of living in Central, or in the valley of the sun is that our storms are actually quite scary sometimes when we get them. Anyways, so this is the first episode of season two. Because it's the first episode of the season, I guess we should probably introduce ourselves a little bit. On Grant that a creedy have been on previous episodes, Marie and I, for those of you who are just joining us, are your usual co-pilots. We know you have lots of listening options when it comes to podcasts. So we appreciate you choosing ours. The purpose of the podcast, as initially kind of designed is that we are a political history group at H. Pol, that's our job to be stewards of political history. And we realize that there's a lot of books that I think previous generation read a lot of and inspired them that haven't trickled down through the consoles just as there's been a proliferation of writing in the last 20 or 30 years. But I think there's sort of been an assumed knowledge of what's in those books that I just think has been lost. And so we're trying to recover that and just help graduate students and early scholars on some level engage with some of these classical ideas and hopefully be able to either integrate into their own work, better understand them, and maybe better understand some of the other stuff that's actually under-concilists. And do it in a fairly digestible format, that's at least the goal. I'm a postdoctoral fellow here at the Center for American Institutions at Arizona State University. And yeah, I guess what I usually research and write about is the South agriculture and foreign affairs and the institutional politics that kind of mediates in between. Marie, can you tell the fine listeners a little bit about yourself? - Yes, and you did such a great job explaining the purpose of the podcast as well. And hopefully we're reaching that audience at this point. But I'm Marie Totten, I'm a visiting assistant professor at the University of Central Arkansas and I am a political biographer. And I'm currently working on a political biography of a Arkansas segregationist. So in the South as well, although you and I do often travel outside of the South when we are talking about these work. - Yeah, we are not a Southern specific podcast, although when you and I both end up with a Southern work, we tend to get a little, maybe gets a little granular, but anyway, a creedy, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? You are joining us from a long way away, so. - Yeah, so I, it's nice to be here with you all. My name is Ocati Fati and I am basically a research associate at VIF New Delhi. And I'm also in the process of finishing my PhD from Central Study of America's GNU New Delhi. And currently at VIF, I am actively covering the midterms. So that's something that's been on my radar, but it's always a pleasure to be with you all. - Well, you know what, Accredion, Glad you brought that up because so I told the people, I told everybody on the podcast that I'm going to be cross posting this with another podcast that I do. And I'm going to have to get you on that because we're doing midterm coverage a little more narrowly there. So I think that would be, it would be really good to have you on there. So for those who are listening, so for those from the politics of the past audience, welcome, glad you're here. And hopefully that's a, what's your appetite for a future episode of politics of the past? But anyway, Grant, can you tell the fine people a little bit about yourself? - Yeah, sure, I'm an associate professor at Brigham Young University in the history department. I do a lot of economic, political, and intellectual history with, like everybody kind of in my generation with a, you had to be sort of international in your focus if you wanted to get a job when I went on the job market. So that's true for me too. And I'm super happy to be with all of you. It's very nice of you, Robin, really a lot, let Accredion me into the fold is a word, right? To join you. This is going to be fun, I think. - Well, it should be. I admit that doing so was a little bit self, doing this was a little bit selfishly. We are sort of hoping that we could, you know, ease our own burdens here. So this episode, we, this episode began, I think, talking about this episode a long time ago because we were trying to figure out what we thought the most important book was for political historians in the United States. And Grant and his wonderful research assistant put together a list of about 400 books that he thought were sort of germane to the topic. And we all kind of, I think in consensus agreed that this was the most important book. And that's Alexis de Toeckville's Democracy in America. Now, I don't know how much peer pressure was involved in that. Like after four people say that that's the number one book is the fifth person going to really disagree at that point? - Well, it might be one of those situations where we all had a book that we thought was more important, but that Toeckville ended up, you know, sort of top five enough so that we, he just sort of on average ended up at the top. - If we board accounted this enough, it was going to end up with Toeckville at the top. But that was a shout out to our social choice listeners, if they're, because I'm sure there's a lot of big fans of like kind of arrow that are listening to this right now. Okay, so yeah, that's kind of where it came from. Let me start with, you know, before we get too far into the book itself, I'm gonna actually try to like be a little more intentional. It's the word the kids use, right? As to how I actually pilot this a little bit. So Marie, are you able to give, can you tell us a little bit about Alexis Toeckville and where this book democracy in America actually came from? - Yeah, so Toeckville was born at 1805. He came from an aristocratic family in France. His family barely survived the terror in France. I read his great grandfather was actually guillotine. His parents were imprisoned. And so he grew up in that era. He grew up saying that. So the potential and then how that potential played out in France essentially is what he's looking at. He's a lawyer by training. He went on in the 1830s to visit the United States. I think he was 24, 25 years old when he came to the United States in 1931. And he was, he brought an associate with him. And he was looking mostly at the prison system or that was the idea. The idea was he was gonna come and look at the prison system. And he did give a report, he wrote a report after he left the United States on the prison system. But it's going to be these two volumes, democracy in America, the first and second, that are going to be the work that come out of this trip. And he's looking at, I mean, he's looking at democracy in America. He's looking at the enlightenment ideas and seeing how they have played out on the ground essentially in these works. And I think that one of the reasons we may think this is the most important work is so many political historians respond to this in some way. Either they use some of these ideas in their work, I mean, some of these ideas, just come straight from the Enlightenment, so we hear them there, and we hear them in other works as well. So his ideas, even if you don't know it's Tocqueville, his ideas are in a lot of the work that we've talked about and that we will talk about in the future. And so I do think that this work is important, even though there are some issues. He's writing this during Jackson, Jackson in America. He's writing this during the Second Great Awakening. It's a particular time and place. And he's writing this for the French to show, okay, this has happened here, can this happen in France? Can we have this type of democracy in France? So he's asking this question from the very beginning. Now Americans love this, especially New Englanders, because he is, he adores them in a way. He writes these glowing passages about how democracy has worked in New England. And I know we'll talk about some of this, the reasons why he thinks that this has worked. But I think that's a good overview and starting point of the context of these volumes. - That's great, I think that that's really great. Yeah, I mean, he's, we're gonna probably dig into this a little bit, but he's coming to the United States in the wake of the 1830 Revolution in France, which is a liberal revolution. And after the kind of a return to autocracy under Charles's intent. And so again, it's just sort of like, okay, so we're back, we kind of feel like maybe we're back in the 1780s a little bit, early 1790s in France. How can we prevent that from going the bloody way the first one did? - And ending with an Napoleon. - Right. - So I think that's, you know, I think you touched on the, I think was really important here. So he is speaking to a French audience and trying, and I'm asking a French question. - Right. - Right. So Grant, how, when did you first encounter Tocqueville? Let me start with that. - Yeah, so not probably not until, actually I'm gonna answer that a couple of different ways. That's a good question. So I would say Tocqueville in some ways is just in the water, right? You're even recognize it in the United States. Like the Tocqueville in account of America, the development of the United States is not all that different from, for those who are old like me, school house rock. I don't know if you remember this, either those cartoons. I mean, if you go back in, you read Tocqueville, you're like, oh yeah, like this is, this is what school house rock told me. Kind of this, this account of the development of American institutions that starts with the Puritans, that's rooted in sort of town hall democracy, that's very associational and civic-minded as a result of those associations. All of that, that's just, that is what I understood the history of the country to be. And, you know, and so going back and rereading Tocqueville as we did to prep for this. I was like, oh yeah, okay, I see it more clearly. Now, like this was just kind of how I understood the country growing up. It all felt very familiar in a lot of ways. Which I think is, I mean, I know we're probably going to talk about this more, which is how do historians make use of Tocqueville, right? Because there's sort of like the account Tocqueville gives that I think is useful in some ways. There's also all the descriptive things he's doing that are really useful at, you know, making him a great primary source document. And, and so on. So, I would say in an informal sense, Tocqueville is the water I swam in as a child and then didn't start to realize the source of that in some ways until grad school and started reading. But the interesting thing, I don't know about you guys. I mean, we all, I bet most of us came to Tocqueville piecemeal, right? He covers so much ground that, you know, so Tocqueville, the primary source was probably the first way I encountered him. And that was mostly, you know, for whatever weird reason, through feminist writings, where his notion of separate spheres and all the rest is super useful and sort of the gender analysis he made of the country. And then later, sort of the associational approach and then after that, some things I know we're going to talk about, some of the warnings about the dangers, the downsides of democracy. And then probably later than that, reread him, geo-reading him against the grain to say, like, how exceptional really is the United States? Yeah, so anyway, there's a lot of ways to encounter him. And a lot of ways I feel like I've had to reread him and re-understand him over the years. But anyway, so that's my long story with hopefully a lot of hooks for us to talk about stuff moving forward. - No, I think that's really good. A crazy, you know, you're educated in India, which is a long way away from the United States, although you're an American, you're an American, a res-- you know, professional. But what-- when in your life did you encounter Tokeville? Or was three weeks ago when I assigned this the first time? - No, so I think it was during my postgraduate days, the one of my associate professor. He was still new, just fresh out of college, just finished his PhD. So he had a lot of passion. And I think we were his first batch. So he came in the class with a lot of insight about Hollywood and about whatever he thinks of America. And I always was always fascinated with America. But I think that was when I heard the term Tokeville. And I think because of him, I ended up really diving into the literature. And when I graduated, he gifted me his copy, which we bought, of Tokeville. And I still have that. And that definitely came in handy. So I think it started from there. But it took me a lot of years to properly understand what that literature was all about. Because I think at that time I was still young, still trying to understand this field. I won't be cocky enough to say that I understand it now. I think it's one of those specs you've always go back to. But I definitely understand it a little bit better than what I did back in the day. So I think that's my local story. I don't know. I mean, I'll give you a song, Canadian, for those who don't know. I'll give you an, you know, I thought it was Tokeville until not that long ago. Because in Canada, a Toke is in a winter hat, like a beanie. Americans might know it as a beanie or a toboggan, depending on where you're from. And we called it Toke. And it spelled T-O-Q-E-E. There's no C in it, but it spelled T-O-Q-E-E. So I just assumed it was Tokeville. So yeah, it wasn't until actually embarrassingly recently. Like, it wasn't last year, but it was within the last decade that I actually realized it was Tokeville. Because people were talking about this Tokeville guy that I had no idea who they were going to. [LAUGHTER] So that's the kind of expertise that you're going to get by listening to this podcast. [LAUGHTER] OK, well, I think Grant touched on some really important questions that I'd really like to discuss. Maybe we try to focus on the, you know, some of the arguments that he's actually making. And then we'll kind of approach it from how to historians treat this. And then thirdly, OK, what are the warnings here that he's talked about? So Grant, do you want to tell us, like, what is his overall argument? Wow. I mean, it's a big argument and there's several arguments. I want to be clear. But, you know, what do you think is maybe the most salient argument? Yeah, I mean, I think most interpreters would say-- and you already laid it out. What are the, in some ways, the downsides to a society dedicated to equality? Like, if you're going to make that sort of like the organizing principle of social life, what are the consequences of that, right? And I think you were, you know, you, Rob, you, and Marie, both kind of pointed out. Already, he's seen how that can go off the rails, right? He's lived through the French Revolution. And so he's aware of how bad that can get. And so then the court question is, like you said, so is that about-- is that happening in the United States? Will that happen in the United States? And if the answer's no, why not, right? So those are the court questions. And so-- and I think what we really like him is that he's really nuanced about what the consequences are for thinking of everybody as essentially equal. And consequences in terms of, you know, like getting stuff done, right? Like, how do you organize building a road or, you know, or just having any kind of governance when everybody sort of feels like they are equal? And so, and so that's, I think, one of the core questions. This is how, if you don't have a hierarchy, how do you actually organize social action, right? So we'd say, it's a political scientist would say, you know, is he's challenging, he's encountering a collective action problem in some ways, how do you you know that that sort of thing right so that's that's one of the things he thinks through and uh anyway so uh so with that kind of in mind he ends up with these really interesting very nuanced arguments about uh this is why it's working and this is how it can go off the rails right so one of the things he wants to say is it works you know one of the things that's a challenge with being equal is that um it tends to atomize individual citizens right so that's where the collective action problem comes if we're all equal individuals why do we ever combine together to collectively solve a problem but then he has this fascinating account of its exactly our weakness that brings us together right it's it creates a recognition that I only can get stuff done if I combine with my fellow citizens and that that's why associations end up being such an important part of his analysis is that's where it teaches us how to cooperate and um and how to come together and he says well you know equality also but that also highlights uh that uh kind of individual weakness which maybe will drive some of us towards what he calls kind of a stop-depth despotism right like maybe in the interest of this solving this collective action problem we will give over some of our liberty to the state in order to protect us and care for us and so there is a danger in so you know and and I think that's again so his analysis is always kind of good news bad news right here's here's how it can go wrong here's how Americans have solved it but here's how it can still go wrong that's sort of thing so I don't know if I'm I'm not covering all of the key points I'm sure but uh but that's that's the problem at least you know I think he treats democracy as a problem as much as a sociological fact right it's it's and and so it's what what are the ways democracy solve certain issues but what are some of the issues that it keeps uh that it will deraze as well in terms of just how to organize a peaceful successful you know society yeah I think that's that that's a really good yeah I mean I think that speaks to exactly what's what the like what the problem is that he's trying to solve or one of the broader problems that he's trying to solve you know what are the what are the opportunities what are the limitations of what it actually means if if everybody is equal and of course he's writing in jackstone in america and we know not everybody is equal then but it is a universal man white manhood suffrage and in some states it's actually universal suffrage but of course that's got the great story of the Quakers in Pennsylvania hold on why don't you let and the question was like why don't you let black people vote and the guy says it is you know he's for instance that they are absolutely able to vote they have the right they just know that their citizens will be really get all those citizens will be really upset if they do right but when I do you raise an interesting question and one of the things I also wanted to mention is um you and you may know more about this but I think it's really interesting that uh that he starts with the I mean I guess it's an aristocrat he would start with a quality rather than freedom but he sees the freedom is uh emerging from equality not the other way around right and uh and maybe that's because the declaration of independence puts him in that order right we all men are created equal uh you know I'll have and then the rights follow from that but um but it but it seems to me that most people uh well I shouldn't say most but but that a lot of critics of America people worry about uh the kinds of problems he worries about start with the freedom problem you know and say well if you if you let everybody do what they want that's why you have collective action problems is you know people are too free but he says no the problem is they're too equal and and you're right we're obviously it's kind of an ironic thing at that particular moment because I think the Marvani we say it wasn't all that equal but I suppose he could come back and say yeah but uh but as an organizing principle we keep coming back to equality as a core political issue and so on well you you had people voting in the United States that were not that had no political rights anywhere else in the world right you'd have you know mechanics and Philadelphia voting who would have never who had that that I mean we don't realize until them I can't remember the the first year of the Great Reforms of the UK is in 1836 and Tocqueville's writing before that right and I mean like the actual like voter rolls in England which is also one of the most democratic or the UK which is one of the most democratic places in the world in the 1830s or some of the broadest political rights in the world in the 1830s in like the voter lists are minuscule before the Great Reforms began in 1936 and so I mean yeah I mean you know universal white manhood suffrage is not exactly perfectly equal but from Tocqueville's perspective it would appear very equal especially with his priors on certain other things yeah and with the people who are with him as he's touring America you know he's with lawyers and other elite who are showing him certain aspects of the United States that he wouldn't get if he was with a common working man or even spent time with a poor woman or an enslaved person so a complete I mean that matters a lot when looking at Tocqueville and looking at this work that he's going to get what they show him and that's what they're showing him and it looked much more equal than what he's saying in Europe as well so absolutely his experience here would suggest you know this this fight between equality and the idea that we need to give up some of our rights for protection I know he doesn't use that word but for like a larger government larger protection overall and this kind of push and pull and in the United States he sees that pull toward equality and like Grant said eventually after equality comes freedom he also something that Grant said about the collective action problem one of the things that he says in here is that if everyone is equal to have a role in a say in government then they are going to act collectively they are going to act ideally for the public good and that's what he's saying in these township where you have according to Tocqueville everyone being able to talk about problems and decide how to handle those problems at the very very local level so they have some buy-in to what's going on they have some buy-in to their government they're learning how to do government in real time as this is playing out and I think this is one of the really strong arguments that he makes here is the township and then the associations that just to follow up on what Grant was saying earlier. A creative is overall argument about you know what we're getting at here and inequality. Does this sort of an argument that would resonate for people living in India? To some extent but then I think whenever I think about Tocqueville first of all I think before this podcast I never thought about Tocqueville from an Indian lens I think it was only when I revisited the text I actually started thinking so before I go ahead let me just say that I haven't gone to own my own parts completely it's all fragmented in my own head but maybe after this podcast I'll have a bit more clarity but I think if I think it from the India context I think there are something that really stood out for me I did not necessarily resolve inequality a bit but I think in terms of similarities or if I have to connect it with India I think so first of all I think Tocqueville's core proposition is that democracy is not sustained by elections alone right like citizens need habits and institutions through which they actually practice self-government and I think this has a very strong parallel in India because India is not simply a parliamentary democracy at the union level right it has constitutional federalism, state governments, panchayati large institutions, municipalities, courts, political parties, a very engaging civil society organization, professional associations and so on and so forth so I think the Indian constitution therefore provides multiple levels and channels through which citizens can participate in public life for example the supreme court describes India as a federal system with a separation of part right fundamental rights and independent judiciary so all these things I was like okay yeah I think this this is something that India also does I mean of course the world he saw back in the day was very different from what it is now and again the geography and the diversity all of that makes India a very distinct case but I think there are few things where I was like okay I can connect certain things because the again I'm not saying that it's exactly how in English town was the whole township local township which he spoke about it again and again it's not exactly like that in India but panchayati large which is like the village unions at the grassroots level that's where the politics actually starts the community comes in together I think I was like yeah I can I can make certain similarities better yeah I mean I he really is taken by the townships for sure and I mean he does extend that to counties in the south but I think Marie and I would both argue that counties in the south are different than New England townships yeah and he certainly thought that he did yeah um but he does say that there is sort of this still this you know active democratic um opportunity at the county level. And that makes sense. It's easier to act locally than it is to act nationally. So if you have opportunities to act locally, it gives you respect for the system in a way that and appreciation for things and teaches you habits that otherwise might you might miss. And I had a point that I was building to and I completely lost it, not to the first or last time for anybody who listens to this podcast on the regular. Well, I want to jump in on this because I think this is, I mean, I don't know if we want to spend a lot of time on the associational topic. Yeah, that's thank you. Thank you. That's where I was headed. So thank you, Grant. Yeah, but I mean, this is the thing that, you know, I think is still really fascinating in the 21st century because there's sort of no doubt that in the United States, that federal government does a whole lot more than it did in 1830. And so this is, I think this is why certainly those on, you know, kind of on the right side of politics by which I mean, like conservatives or libertarians are are going to say, you know, Tocqueville becomes a hero, right? Because Tocqueville's warning in the way that they would want to echo that like democracy doesn't sustain itself, the more centralized things become, right? It robs us of the power of those localities to be the incubators of democracy. I think I'm that's not a Tocqueville phrase, right? That's nobody, but he uses public school of democracy. Yeah, there you go. So it's something like that, right? And so I mean, I think this is a really interesting normative claim about democracy, right? Can it can it function when we are so atomized that our vote in a sense doesn't count? You know, I mean, or it counts, but it counts as United States, you know, would, you know, one 100 millionth of a of a, you know, of a voice in government, something like that. And I mean, I think it's about 100 million people vote per, you know, in a big election in the US a little more probably. I mean, it's closer to a billion. I don't know what it would be in India if everybody voted who is eligible to vote. But, you know, and, you know, in other words, it raises this question, is democracy a national phenomenon or is a local phenomenon? Is it a, is democracy a practice that extends all the way down into, you know, solving all problems or is it, you know, and if so, but, you know, what happens as, as democracy centralizes more and more, will, will those institutions continue to sustain themselves? Yeah. I mean, you know, Tocqueville distinguishes between what he calls administrative centralization and governmental centralization. And he says the, you know, the the US Constitution, I'm combined with American history and the, the way that the state centered the union that's the people under the union, not say, but, you know, the, that whole process created a federal system. The federal systems are still really novel in the 1830s, right? And he, um, he's coming to America at a time and he keeps referring to them as the majority, where there really is this incredible majority in the US, like the Jacksonian majority, where, you know, they're dominating every, they dominate every election essentially, certainly at the national level and at a lot, a lot of, but not all local levels. And there is sort of this general cult, and he, and he keeps referring to this cultural sort of supremacy as well, that the Jacksonians have. Um, I can't remember if it's in the essays that I, that I gave you, and I think it is, but where, um, he's describes the fact that like there's clearly some elites who are very unhappy with Jacksonian America. But they, in public, they profess being very happy. And is it so great that everybody gets a share in, you know, getting to, to, to shape society? And meanwhile, they themselves have basically retreated from public life and live in opulence and private, right? Even though they disagree and, you know, but in public, they have almost adopted the, the trappings of the Jacksonian. So, Tulkville's, I am part of his question is, this majority could him, should be able to impose a really impressive tyranny. But it has it. And one of the things that he speaks to is one of the things that great you, you've talked to is just institutionally. Um, there's governmental centralization, which means that the federal government does a few things, but in order to actually like, um, bring the, uh, effectuate those laws, they're relying on local officials, local constables, local magistrates, some of whom might be with the majority and some of them might be with the minority party. And it means that you just need this cooperation that isn't that the federal government doesn't really have the ability to like impose on, right? And so there's just this, these natural barriers to the Jacksonian majority becoming a suffocating authoritarian national tyranny, right? And, uh, which he compares to administrative centralization, which is the way that you had things going in, which would weigh how things worked in like Louis the 14th's France, where the fed, the national government, the central government did everything. And therefore, a change at the top could change everything. There weren't those institutional barriers that the United States had. Yes, I'm sorry, great, go ahead. Yeah, as you say. So I'm not, I'm going to speak a little bit beyond my expertise, or maybe a lot beyond my expertise, because I'm not a 19th century historian. It's okay, great. I speak beyond my expertise all the time. That should probably be the name of this podcast. Yeah, beyond our expertise. That's great. That's great. But it seems to me that one of the historiographical issues about the 19th century, and especially in the last, say, 20 years, and within sort of people who want to do political history of the 19th centuries, is exactly the tension you kind of brought up right there is, how do you view the American state in the 19th century? And of course, there's one branch led by Bill Novak, who I want to say, hey, the state is doing a whole lot. There's a myth of the weak American state. The American state was never weak. It was always very strong, and you go through local laws, and they regulated everything, right? Sabbath, worship, alcohol, consumption, kind of all these things that today we say, they're violating all kinds of what we would think of as constitutional rights right and left, because they can, right? Because that's what the democracy empowers them to regulate sort of whatever. But the flip side is, I think what you point out, Rob is this more kind of technical side, which is, but there's a much smaller distinction between the populace and the state, right? Like when it comes time to build a road in the 19th century, it wasn't that you hire, you know, the federal government sent in a body of, you know, professional road builder builders from DC that are going to go ahead and, you know, take care of, kind of, you know, like I think maybe, so I'm, again, way beyond my expertise, maybe more what you would expect in France, right? Like officials would show up and start saying, this is how it needs to be done and, and whatever else. But it was more, you had a town hall and you kind of all got together and said, all right, we got to build this road. Let's go do it. And, and so I think this is what Tocqueville's getting at is that that creates a sort of a gap between the ability of a national majority to impose its will, because it will always be interpreted by the local community. And, and so, and so what you get is, I think if you fast forward a couple hundred years, not quite, but I think we call it fiscal federalism now, where there's this idea that the, the federal government can direct funds, it can initiate projects, but they always get reinterpreted by the states or the communities, which end up being the ones to implement them, and that this then undermines the tyranny of the majority. It, or it, it, it maybe, undermined is too strong word, defuses maybe. It, it allows for that sort of imposition of central will to become defused enough that it doesn't feel like an imposition, right? It feels more like, okay, well, we got to, we got to do this mandate. We're going to, we're going to do it this way and we can get everybody locally involved. And, you know, and so, and that's true for road building again today. The federal government will give the funds, but ends up being sort of a state and then local propositions to who actually builds them and where they get built and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think that, and again, I, I don't want to speak beyond my expertise here. Again, you know, again, 18th century France, not an expert, even 19th century, and even, even, even in 1830s America. Not an ex. I'm thinking about like a book like Brian Ballows is it government out of sight or you know where where the book is making an argument about how federal government is doing a lot more than you think in terms of infrastructure improvements but then by the time it gets implemented it's it has enough of a local flavor that it's out of sight you know yeah federal government doing it right and it also helps again that the local citizenry become involved they're involved whereas it's not you just do as you're told you get to you know and it's not just simply a petition to the to the central authority like are we need you to do this it's a little bit of money we can you know we can do this ourselves and I mean I think this is so you know I talked about the majority you know the this challenge potentially or the spread of this overwhelming majority um but we've talked around associations and we certainly used in the way that that Tocqueville meant them to but what else do we does he refer to as associations because he has a broader meaning for them I mean I'm thinking in the sense of like if people need a home built like if people need any local thing built there's a committee struck a local committee struck and they just kind of do it right and there's this notion and they're gonna do it and nobody's asking the other person what their politics is and you start realizing you know because there's all of these little you know Edmund Burke has something similar that he calls little protunes but Tocqueville civic associations where there are you know people are just working together and kind of an apolitical environment and it allows you to get to know people on a personal level and it allows you to appreciate them as individuals and that like you know and then Charles Putnam I think he built on this when he did bolt when he wrote bowling alone um where you know we people use that bowling teams as the example that he uses and you know you'd be on a bowling team and maybe four fifths of the bowling team would be Republican and there'd be one Democrat or vice-person you know maybe sometimes you thought that person with a little weird but there was never any like but there was never any animosity you just kind of you were there to bowl up and that's what fundamentally mattered and so there was this and and he's looks at if there's an American exceptionalism to some degree at least socially as he kind of looks at these things and he says these are kind of absent culturally and socially at least in France in that yeah that freedom of association is so important to what he's talking about here because not only are he talking about civic associations which are obviously these places where people can have this experience in building a home or solving problems without the use of the government so they're practicing essentially how the government works at the very local level within these civic associations and I think that the freedom of association is something that also is a bulwark against the the tyranny of the majority because those are allowed to exist you can have an association that speaks out against the federal government you can have even if it's not necessarily a political party you can have these associations in public where in France a lot of that was pushed to private and then you have conspirators and he's got this great quote and I I've been looking forward to my notes and I can't find it but essentially in France he says you have conspirators and in the United States you don't have that because those associations can be open and free and so this is such an important part of this through line with the what makes American America exceptional at least talking about and also what is the bulwark against the tyranny of the majority yeah just to add on to what Marie said I think something that stood out to me personally was that I think what a total civic life is learned through participation and associations teach individuals how to cooperate and date responsibility for matters beyond their private lives and I think that is something that he found very fascinating in America in that sense I think civic association is one of the mechanisms through which civic responsibility becomes a habit which eventually becomes the central piece in his larger argument and observation about America and I think it all yeah yeah yeah yeah and that also builds into tokeville sort of inherent he is an inherent aristocrat because he he recognizes that these little civic associations are likely to be read by the town's most enlightened people and that therefore it will give people the common people exposure to this to their more enlightened leaders which will show that first of all they're not some evil they're not some evil thing they're not like they're just you know they're ordinary people who might just be a little more learned of them right and so it's but again it's about the more opportunities you create these cross-class relationships to tokeville and in non-necessarily political settings the more opportunity for cooperation you have maybe not perfectly solving the collective action problem but you know working towards a solution right right yeah so for what it's worth when I teach tokeville I like asking students what was the first election you participated in and you know they'll say you know I haven't yet because they just turned 18 or whatever else and I'll be I'll be like no think about it like when was when was the first time you remember voting on something and you kind of keep going and they realize you know they probably voted in a you know in the kindergarten or first grade class for class president or whatever else and I will say so this is a little bit what tokeville's talking about is there's this way that democracy as a again a collective action problem hurts a problem solving the approach is embedded in the way we deal with everything right like you know you're on a double date and you're trying to pick what movie together to how do you resolve this you take a vote and I'm like it's and so like this is what tokeville is talking about in terms of training to mock democrats essentially which is in every sort of social gathering whenever there's a conflict we don't know what to do next we sort of instinctively say we'll vote right and and it has this so I think Rob's exactly right it has this first function of of diffusing expertise or you know I guess a total would say as you said it Rob you know bringing the the lower into the orbit of the higher citizenry but it also legitimates the practice which is I think really critical because the core question that seems to always be on the mind of any kind of political philosophers why does the minority agree to lose right like why why am I okay why do I say oh the majority spoke I guess I have to go along right what you know why don't I take up arms or succeed or any sorts of things and I think tokeville's trying to say well it's like because from like kindergarten on we're just used to it it just is the way we sell problems and and that's what all these associational uh and other kinds of organizational experiences get us to buy into it legitimize the whole the whole process um my kid voted for donuts the other day in the car I did not offer the election I did not but I was outvoted two to one and I informed I had to inform them that while I appreciate their democratic uh enthusiasm this is not a democracy so maybe I snuck that out though you refused to lose I refused to lose exactly no soft despotism no you're done I just had a despotism honestly I don't think my two-year-old knew what he was voting on and so I honestly think there were some election irregularities if I'm being completely honest watch by my five-year-old yeah no but I think what just grand said of yeah an accident point I think that really stood out to me when I read it for the first time I think um when I read tokeville I think what stood out to me especially on this side why my minority agrees to lose and I think some hope people never thought that I think the minority accepts and I'm again speaking from a very tokevilleian standpoint I think the minority accepts losing because democracy gives it a legitimate way to continue participating um it can disagree with uh today's decision while accepting the procedure that produced it and I think that is such an important distinction which I found interesting in the right up I think what tokeville wants to prevent is is I think the majority using its victory to permanently silence or exclude the minority right I think majority rule therefore uh has to operate alongside constitutional protections and freedom of association so I think that really stood out to me yeah so if there's one thing I can bring up on this point um only because the last time we were all together to talk about um a classic American work we talked about the federalist papers yeah I do think it's uh worth noting the tension between tokeville and madison right so madison's great concern is factions uh and the way facts you know and how to sort of accommodate factions and tokeville seems to be saying Actually, factions are where people learn how to practice democracy, right? It's all of this coming together that is really, you know, as a faction that's really important in order to keep democracy going. And I think that's a really, you know, an interesting question to explore, you know, like which, as again, is a kind of a normative political philosophy question, like, are factions the ruin of uh, republics or is to fill on to something where if, if contained in the right way, a factions are the help of republics, you know, and if he would, oh, I'm sorry, we're all going. Just thinking about, um, if he were writing when Madison were writing, what would he have thought of factions? Because by the time he's writing in Jackson's era, there are two parties. There's a political system by that point. This argument over factions is over, you know, we've decided. So I wonder here, just in this kind of philosophical discussion, um, what he would have thought if he were there, not just reading Madison, but if he were there writing during Madison's time, if that would have changed his perspective, because it was, I mean, Madison couldn't see that the opposition would willingly lose when he's thinking of that. And Tocqueville saw, okay, they will, you know, they will allow that. Yeah, I mean, 1800, I mean, we can't overstate the importance of 1800 of that, right? When the federalists willingly see power, right? And it's a, but I mean, there is this tension, but there is also one major common thread there between Madison and Tocqueville, which is fear of the majority, right? Have an untrammeled majority, what can happen? And to some extent, Tocqueville's living in that, like, or Tocqueville's visiting the United States in that moment, right? And, and in some ways, the system that Madison developed is being tested under Jackson. Like it's absolutely being tested under Jackson, right? Jackson goes to the limit of what he's allowed to do, right? So we could talk about this endlessly, but I do want to get, talk about one more thing. And then he, uh, he's a lawyer and he likes lawyers. Yes. He does. What do you, like, judicial supremacy, does he think that might be to seek, you know, aside from all the social and, you know, stuff that we've talked about? Is that judicial supremacy the thing that I think he, or the acceptance of judicial supremacy? The thing that kind of holds it all together? Yeah, so, and let me throw a, I agree it's a great question and, um, and once again, I wish I knew more about the 19th century, but my kind of rough understanding is that, um, people suit each other way more in the 19th century than today. Like the courts were involved in far more, uh, disputes. And, and they were typically, again, local courts look, and, and again, all these guys, I mean, it's, uh, to be an attorney, I'm, I'm pretty sure there's not the same kind, there's definitely not the same kind of formal process of, you know, law school passing the bar or licensure, all that, you read law. That was it, right? Exactly. You know, so again, it's, it's a lot more amateurish, but, but the courts, I think, I, I, I mean, I think it's a good question because he does seem to suggest that the courts play this very important, uh, diffusing role, again, that, that, that by being a little slower, but by being formalized and all the rest tended to reduce social conflict in a way that didn't force it into the legislative process, right? They didn't force it to go through an administrative process. It's sort of, once again, kind of the community coming together and, uh, and, you know, I'm probably getting a little ahead of TOEFL here, but it does seem that he has a sense, like you said, Rob, of, uh, an independent judiciary as the secret sauce as, as performing this very important social function, resolving conflict, um, short of violence, uh, in a way that everybody kind of seems to buy into. Right. And he also, and he also says that, like, judges are the aristocrats in American society, right? However, they are the aristocrats that the majority accepts, right? And they will accept them as aristocrats. And part of that is because they, when they sit on juries, they're participating in the process. They're the ones rendering judgment, right? Even if there's bench trials, the, the, which there were, um, you know, the, by, by, by the jury's actively rendering judgment and just seeing the judges, like some are, you know, almost independent Arbiter, right, in a non-Solomon sort of way, right, where, you know, the, the people are making the decision. But that actually gives more credibility to the, to the judicial aristocrats. And then, of course, and TOEFL talks about this, the, the one truly unique innovation of the American Constitution is the Supreme Court. And like that it can declare, it can truly, in a way, like nothing else declare what is law and what is not. Even if it cannot really officially make a lot of self, or, of course, people can argue that it doesn't and can. But do you kind of, do you see that, I mean, I think we've, you know, it's in TOEFL, but I mean, do you guys think that, that the law and the legal system plays this important role in American society? I think that part of what he's talking about is that it tempers radicalism because they rely on precedent. And so, yeah, if you look at the fact that they rely on precedent, which gives them more legitimacy as well, because people say, okay, this has happened, they're, they're not radical themselves. And again, time and place here, you know, what he needs to talk about a certain time in a certain era, but I do think the law is an important part of what he's saying here, and pushing back against that radicalism, pushing back against what he saw in France, because the courts do have that independence. And just like you said, serving on a jury is also a way for people to experience democracy to experience control over this system. So they don't feel like it gets out of control. Right. And, you know, it's funny, one of the things that he mentions is the importance of sitting on a civil jury rather than a criminal jury. And it makes me wonder, we, there are so few civil jury trials anymore. Almost none, because, you know, there's all these arbitration mechanisms that are set up going to trial so expensive. I mean, really, the only people who go to trial very often anymore are like, isn't like family court and criminal court. Otherwise, everything settled out of court. With the exception of, you know, occasionally, there's a case that goes, it's, the stakes are so big it has to, but it's very rare. And I just wonder, I mean, how many Americans have experienced sitting on a civil jury? Can we Americans have experienced sitting on a jury anymore? Right. Anyway, a cre-indian, this is a one distinct difference, I think, between the American Constitution and the Indian Constitution is the role of judges. Even though judges are, of course, very important in India, there is very clearly legislative supremacy. Yeah. Yeah. But I think, I don't know if it's a strong parallel, but I think topos sees the judiciary as one of the barriers preventing democratic majorities from exercising unlimited part. India's constitutional framework similarly gives judiciary a role in enforcing constitutional limits and fundamental rights. The Supreme Court states that the Constitution is the Supreme legal authority and empowers the independent judiciary to invalidate legislation or government action in that violates the Constitution. In this case, it means that the Indian democracy or the democratic system contains an important topelian element that is democracy is constitutionally structured rather than being reduced to simple majority rule. And I think that is one similarity I could trace it to the whole topelian idea. So I think it is safe to say that India combines populace of granity with constitutional self-denity, and I think that stood out to me when I was reading it, especially if I applied the Indian lens. Yeah. No, I think that's a really good point. I mean, you see in India, I simplified it, I shouldn't have said what I did because I implied that it is just straight-up legislative supremacy. It's not. In certain cases, there is legitimacy in a way that doesn't exist in the United States. But for the most part, it's common law in India. And the common law is this, this deference to precedent that the population accepts. Yeah. And I think I'll tell you why there is, it's a colonial explanation. I mean, our colonial era, of course, shaped us in a big way. I mean, the big difference I could understand is that Tocqueville, which what he admired about the American judiciary, was the restrained, it showed, right? Well, that's not the case in India. Restrain is not the thing I think it's the judicial activism. It's the it's basically Judiciary is very actively involved in whatever that's happening in the civic space. So I think that's one distinction that stood out. Right. Yeah, that is that that's true because that that's that's actually a really an interesting point that in a lot of countries where the legislature is really strong. It's very, very strong, but where it's not really strong, the Judiciary is extremely strong. It can be very active. And so, whereas in the United States, it is a little more balanced actually, which is interesting. So one thing I'll just kind of throw out one again sort of in a teaching context. If you read John Adams or another one of the founders talking about mixed forms of government. So, you know, they're going back to the classics. There's a monarchy. There's aristocracy. There's democracy and they say that the best constitution is going to be a mix of the three. It's very nice to then had a fulfill come along and say essentially right that the judiciary is the aristocracy right it's it's a it's a version of this right so you have, you know, you have a president, which is, you know, the one. Judiciary can be the aristocracy and then the legislature can be the democracy or you can kind of map this on to state and local government and so on, but. But this idea of like it functions precisely because it's a it can be a bit of an aristocracy right it can be. And you know, and I think it's interesting like we tend to think of judges is the best educated of government officials like we want that right we, you know, if they're on the Supreme Court, you better have gone not just to law school, but a really good law school. You know, one of two apparently, yeah, hold it right. Yeah, usually right it's usually Harvard or Yale, we have I think Notre Dame made it onto the bench. Finally, yeah, we that it was a great democratizing of the Supreme Court right exactly and and then on top of it right to have maybe ideally taught at a and at one of those institutions and so and so. So there is a kind of and we put them in robes, you know, like there is a sort of aristocracy to the judiciary that could put them in wigs too. It feels picking up on right exactly. Anyway, I you know, we are running out of time and I just want to there is this sense of what could go wrong with the majority, you're granted alluded to stop desmitism earlier, I don't know if we have the time to really dig too far into that, but. What what is the great threat that talk those talking about in a democracy. Part of it is just the civil society not being engaged, it's just people not realizing that their freedoms are slowly being taken away because over generations, you just take those for granted. And so you don't even know what's slowly being chipped away at so the less engaged we are the less likely the democracy is to stand and so that's just like on a just the basic level that's one of those threats. Yeah, and I think there's we haven't really talked about totals interaction is sort of a kind of materialism and, you know, writing it, I mean another big thing happening early 19th century is a spread of a kind of commercial capitalism, you know, and I think that it serves a good function. In some ways it's again be a release valve so rob you were talking about earlier like the fact that not everybody's bought it, but in course I choked on something where I want to start talking somebody else taught for a second. Well, I'm going to pivot to you are greedy, what do you think is the great threat, I think there are two things that stood out for you, I think his first think nature concern was individualism, so equality gives individuals independence, but it can also encourage them to withdraw into private light, you know, in the form of family or career and you know other material interest, I guess, and they eventually become less concerned with public affairs. I think if citizens talk participating, they become increasingly dependent on the administration, so I think this leads to it, we don't have the time to get into it, but sub this but isn't so I think government can become increasingly protective and administrative without openly destroying the democratic institutions. The dozens may continue to vote and retain formal rights, but gradually I guess it's the render responsibility because the state can manage more of their lives and I think that is something that really stood out for me when I was reading talk with and it's crazy how. There's a reason why everyone goes back to talk with it has really stood the test of time, I think the other thing which he speaks about, which stood out for me was I think the tyranny of the majority. So majority rule is essential to democracy as we all know, but the majority must not become unlimited and I think that is something that once he presented very well I think majority opinion can exert social pressure and discourage independent thought even without formal repression. I think this is why top will play such importance on local government or voluntary association or federalism or constitutional listings, I think all of that or judiciary for that matter, I think these institutions distribute power and give that isn't opportunities to practice self government, so I think these two things come to my mind. Yes, sorry K, I ate an M&M and got me a apologize that you're not in nothing screams material capital. Like checking on an M&M that's right. Yeah, so choking on a choking on our own prosperity grant that's right. Total metaphor, very meta, so a pretty said it all right, I guess the only thing I was going to add is, yeah, I do think to feel, I mean, he seems to admire the fact that well, so the materialism that he kind of sees around him, lends itself to a sort of mindset that frames democracy, again, in almost materialist ways where it's like, you know, we do it because we get a better deal, right, let's like, there's something in it for me. So, and it's also what brings us together, it's like, we combine together because collectively we can solve this problem and so, but it's very utilitarian. And I think he does worry that utilitarian soil may not be rich enough to sustain the flower of democracy, right, it's, if it's just a kind of selfish, I'm doing this because in the long run, I will be materially better off. That may not be enough to get through the hard times and, you know, which you, we kind of look at the workly backwards like, you know, if you have a period like a great depression, you know, is, was that a moment at which democracy could be abandoned and it certainly was in a lot of other countries, right, so. And so you would say, well, it took feels maybe on to something there where it's like democracy only survives so long as it provides the goods, but once this once material growth slows. Will people do right to like recrease turn to a soft despotism or even worse, right, depending on how that the economic downturn is. I mean, I think one of the you know, I created so the toe fills stands the test of time very well and I think he does one of the things about toe fillers, whatever you want, you'll find it here. Yeah, right, the eye of this is one of the reasons I'm so curious to talk with people about toe fill is that people get different things from them. And there is an eye of the beholder, I think there is stuff that if you want to see it, you'll find it in here. So, for instance, if you want to see democracy or liberty as being related to some sort of like inner virtue, you'll find that in toe fill. If you want to see it as well actually as institutional structure, you'll find that in toe fill. If it's a mix of the two, you'll find it in toe fill and you can find it in in or whatever else, you know, so many other things that you're looking for. You know, one of the the passages that I reread for this and that I maybe had an appreciate of the first time I read it was that role of majority opinion that a treaty was referring to. And just how coercive majority opinion can be you'll retain your rights. Your property isn't going to be taken for you. Your life will not be for that. Yet you seem to conform. We know you disagree. Why did you conform? And you almost like don't even realize you're conforming or that you're going against your beliefs and toe fill recognizes this. And this is what he says is so dangerous about a democracy. He didn't use this word because he's predating this word by a hundred years, but there's this Italian totalitarianism in democracy that, you know, Louis the 14th was never, you know, France was never totalitarian. Because the people still had their own thoughts. The people still like had their own, you know, privately they, or you know, they would do things that, you know, they would almost do some burst of things for a laugh right that everybody. knew what they were doing, but they were totally safe. It was never going to cause. But it would almost be this like galvanizing social thing and cultural thing. But in a democracy, the majority has this incredible ability to coerce public opinion, softly. And that's another aspect of this potential soft despotism, right? Where it's the despotism of public opinion. And that if you're too far outside of it, you are going to be so socially ostracized. The threat of being so socially ostracized doesn't have even if you don't lose your actual physical liberty. You'll lose a, you'll be so socially ostracized that it can be devastating that you'll just comply. And if we're, you know, in an era where we all communicate and for so many kids, their relationships are online, so many young people, their relationships are online. Social ostracism is closer to social depth than maybe it's ever been. Yeah, you know, and this is, I think toefield is on a something because you guys can correct me, but it seems like most, when the internet first appeared, the idea was this was going to democratize information. You know, it would be easier to get heterodox views because who's policing the internet? And that the irony, of course, is that the opposite happened, right? And toefield is on a something, right? That by allowing more voices in, it somehow created a kind of tiering the majority when it came to opinions and news sources and all this sort of stuff where like we all tended to now get access to the same news sources and it's been the death of local news and you know, it has had the opposite effect. Yeah, so I think, I think that's right. I think he's onto a kind of dynamic that is counterintuitive. Right. You let in the fewer opinions you get. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we need an arch judge at the internet. We need an internet aristocracy. So the one thing I want to, I want to go back to why he's a classic, you know, why maybe we all ended up saying we had to talk about him and Rob, I think you hit on a lot of things. I mean, there's everything you want is in toefield. So it occurred to me as I was prepping. Some people go to toefield because he's descriptive. He's a sociologist of a particular moment in time. And if you're a historian, like that's, you know, which is gold, right? It's, he, like, he was doing exactly what you'd want somebody to do in that period to help you write your book. You know, and so he's a sociologist of 1830s early, you know, well, mid-republic or mid-early republic America, something like that. Okay. He's also normative. He's a political scientist. He's trying to describe what will make democracy work. So, uh, so he's saying, you know, this is how it functions and kind of in some ways how it has to function. If it's going to avoid all of the, you know, the robes Pierre or other kinds of fates of other sorts of republics past or recent recently, uh, that from his time. And then the last thing is he's kind of prophetic. So he's making predictions about how things are going to go. And so, you know, you can go to toefield for a description. You can go to toefield for normative claims. Or you can just start off your essay by saying or your article or whatever else you're writing. Took Phil once said this is going to happen. And now it doesn't matter whether it happened or not. It's the perfect way to start your, you know, start whatever you're writing about because, you know, he's made a prediction that you can go back to. And anyway, so he's like, it's hard to not just be like, yeah, I'm going to start everything I write with toefield. Yeah. I mean, actually, I think that your point there is is toefield should, I mean, I can be framed as prophecy. Right. What you're reading here is prophecy. And I think that makes it so interesting. It makes it so much more interesting to read when you're reading in this prophecy. Great. Yeah. All right. We are, we are totally out of time here. And I want to be fair to everybody. Marie, what final thoughts? I think that the idea that we're reading this as prophecy or reading it, you know, from a president's view is interesting. I think that's right. And I think that we can gain a lot of understanding about ourselves today and what could have been or what didn't happen from reading took Phil. So not only from a historical lens, but also from the president looking back at our government. And I like how Grant brought up schoolhouse rock in the beginning because he is talking about what like the potential here and what it's supposed to be. You know, what the ideas are and what he's saying, but what it's supposed to be. And so it is this kind of golden age that we like to think back on from when we did learn from schoolhouse rock when we were young. So yeah. And I think this conversation was very illuminating overall. A treaty. I think Grant touched something which I want to speak. So I'm glad that he brought it. I think he spoke about how descriptive, you know, the work is of Phil. And there's this one section which really stood out to me when I was reading. And I think it was the majority tyranny. I think that section. And the way he described it, I have it in front of me. So I really wanted to talk about it. I think he said that local institutional segments, parties and counties, they function like hidden shows which slow down or divide the flood constituted by the popular will. So he's basically making everyone picture the tide, right? And he is associating the tide with the majority opinion or a law on the majority once. And he's calling that tide as a flood coming in. And the shows don't stop it. They just break it up or slow it down and diverted into channel. So it doesn't hit everything at once with full force. And I think that kind of sort of blew my mind when I was reading it as a full graduate. And I went back to it again. So I think that really stood out to me the way he explained in whatever his ideas were and observations were because it was so descriptive. So I think for me that stood out was that he not only described America, I think he went one step ahead. He saw America as a laboratory of understanding democracy itself. And I think there were a lot of questions he answered and there were a lot of questions he sprinkled everywhere, questions which we can go back to even now. And I think sometimes half of the thing is just about asking the right question. He asked questions like how does it quality affect liberty at that time? Something that really something we can go back to even today, right? So I think, oh, for that matter, how do citizens learn self-government? Something that every country is trying to understand every democracy for that matter. So yeah, I think torque will is going to be with us. Till we turn 80 or 90 or whatever. We are always going to come back to torque with. Grant, I'll give you the final word. Oh, I'm going to do what I did last time you did this to me. I want to defend like you have the final word because I know this is close to your heart too. So I, I, I, I, I reserve my time and well, how what's the way to say this in Congress? I can see time to, uh, uh, well, gentlemen, you'll, yeah, you'll my time. That's it. You'll my time. A gentleman from Canada. Yeah. Uh, I honestly, I don't have much more to say than I already have. I mean, I can talk, you know, we could all talk endlessly about Tokyo. I think the way of finishing, you mentioned his soci, soci, his sociologist, he's so descriptive. Um, in some ways, he's a, he's a liberal Marx in that sense. In that he marks off an opera. Marx kind of touches on, he's a historian. He's an economist. He's a sociologist. They kind of all get mixed up together. But, um, when he's a sociologist, I think there's a lot of, um, you know, there's a lot of parallels in the way that they describe things, the way that they analyze things. Obviously, they're coming to very different conclusions and have very different premises that they're operating from. But I think it's actually the fact that in a way that say like, you know, David Riccardo is writing around the same time as a really prominent economist, but few people would be able to point to their favorite David Riccardo passage. Um, and it's when these great scholars of the period are, are kind of have the sociological bent that have given them a, um, an enduring legacy, I think. And because they do so much for us. So, um, I'm saying nice things about sociologists. There we go. But on that note, thank you very much. That was, I thought that was a great discussion. Uh, this is the start of season two. Uh, if you're interested, please like and subscribe. Um, it's been a lot of fun and we got a lot of really, really fun stuff on deck. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Rob Marie for letting us crash the party. Great to be here, guys. Yes, thank