Agriculture is, perhaps, of all the useful arts that which improves most slowly amongst democratic nations. Frequently, indeed, it would seem to be stationary1, because other arts are making rapid strides towards perfection. On the other hand, almost all the tastes and habits which the equality of condition engenders2 naturally lead men to commercial and industrial occupations.
Suppose an active, enlightened, and free man, enjoying a competency, but full of desires: he is too poor to live in idleness; he is rich enough to feel himself protected from the immediate3 fear of want, and he thinks how he can better his condition. This man has conceived a taste for physical gratifications, which thousands of his fellow-men indulge in around him; he has himself begun to enjoy these pleasures, and he is eager to increase his means of satisfying these tastes more completely. But life is slipping away, time is urgent—to what is he to turn? The cultivation4 of the ground promises an almost certain result to his exertions5, but a slow one; men are not enriched by it without patience and toil6. Agriculture is therefore only suited to those who have already large, superfluous7 wealth, or to those whose penury8 bids them only seek a bare subsistence. The choice of such a man as we have supposed is soon made; he sells his plot of ground, leaves his dwelling9, and embarks11 in some hazardous12 but lucrative13 calling. Democratic communities abound14 in men of this kind; and in proportion as the equality of conditions becomes greater, their multitude increases. Thus democracy not only swells15 the number of workingmen, but it leads men to prefer one kind of labor16 to another; and whilst it diverts them from agriculture, it encourages their taste for commerce and manufactures. *a
a
[ It has often been remarked that manufacturers and mercantile men are inordinately17 addicted18 to physical gratifications, and this has been attributed to commerce and manufactures; but that is, I apprehend19, to take the effect for the cause. The taste for physical gratifications is not imparted to men by commerce or manufactures, but it is rather this taste which leads men to embark10 in commerce and manufactures, as a means by which they hope to satisfy themselves more promptly20 and more completely. If commerce and manufactures increase the desire of well-being21, it is because every passion gathers strength in proportion as it is cultivated, and is increased by all the efforts made to satiate it. All the causes which make the love of worldly welfare predominate in the heart of man are favorable to the growth of commerce and manufactures. Equality of conditions is one of those causes; it encourages trade, not directly by giving men a taste for business, but indirectly22 by strengthening and expanding in their minds a taste for prosperity.]
This spirit may be observed even amongst the richest members of the community. In democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he fears that his sons will be less rich than himself. Most rich men in democracies are therefore constantly haunted by the desire of obtaining wealth, and they naturally turn their attention to trade and manufactures, which appear to offer the readiest and most powerful means of success. In this respect they share the instincts of the poor, without feeling the same necessities; say rather, they feel the most imperious of all necessities, that of not sinking in the world.
In aristocracies the rich are at the same time those who govern. The attention which they unceasingly devote to important public affairs diverts them from the lesser23 cares which trade and manufactures demand. If the will of an individual happens, nevertheless, to turn his attention to business, the will of the body to which he belongs will immediately debar him from pursuing it; for however men may declaim against the rule of numbers, they cannot wholly escape their sway; and even amongst those aristocratic bodies which most obstinately24 refuse to acknowledge the rights of the majority of the nation, a private majority is formed which governs the rest. *b
b
[ Some aristocracies, however, have devoted25 themselves eagerly to commerce, and have cultivated manufactures with success. The history of the world might furnish several conspicuous26 examples. But, generally speaking, it may be affirmed that the aristocratic principle is not favorable to the growth of trade and manufactures. Moneyed aristocracies are the only exception to the rule. Amongst such aristocracies there are hardly any desires which do not require wealth to satisfy them; the love of riches becomes, so to speak, the high road of human passions, which is crossed by or connected with all lesser tracks. The love of money and the thirst for that distinction which attaches to power, are then so closely intermixed in the same souls, that it becomes difficult to discover whether men grow covetous27 from ambition, or whether they are ambitious from covetousness28. This is the case in England, where men seek to get rich in order to arrive at distinction, and seek distinctions as a manifestation29 of their wealth. The mind is then seized by both ends, and hurried into trade and manufactures, which are the shortest roads that lead to opulence30.
This, however, strikes me as an exceptional and transitory circumstance. When wealth is become the only symbol of aristocracy, it is very difficult for the wealthy to maintain sole possession of political power, to the exclusion31 of all other men. The aristocracy of birth and pure democracy are at the two extremes of the social and political state of nations: between them moneyed aristocracy finds its place. The latter approximates to the aristocracy of birth by conferring great privileges on a small number of persons; it so far belongs to the democratic element, that these privileges may be successively acquired by all. It frequently forms a natural transition between these two conditions of society, and it is difficult to say whether it closes the reign32 of aristocratic institutions, or whether it already opens the new era of democracy.]
In democratic countries, where money does not lead those who possess it to political power, but often removes them from it, the rich do not know how to spend their leisure. They are driven into active life by the inquietude and the greatness of their desires, by the extent of their resources, and by the taste for what is extraordinary, which is almost always felt by those who rise, by whatsoever33 means, above the crowd. Trade is the only road open to them. In democracies nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed towards it. Neither their own prejudices, nor those of anybody else, can prevent the rich from devoting themselves to it. The wealthy members of democracies never form a body which has manners and regulations of its own; the opinions peculiar34 to their class do not restrain them, and the common opinions of their country urge them on. Moreover, as all the large fortunes which are to be met with in a democratic community are of commercial growth, many generations must succeed each other before their possessors can have entirely35 laid aside their habits of business.
Circumscribed36 within the narrow space which politics leave them, rich men in democracies eagerly embark in commercial enterprise: there they can extend and employ their natural advantages; and indeed it is even by the boldness and the magnitude of their industrial speculations38 that we may measure the slight esteem39 in which productive industry would have been held by them, if they had been born amidst an aristocracy.
A similar observation is likewise applicable to all men living in democracies, whether they be poor or rich. Those who live in the midst of democratic fluctuations40 have always before their eyes the phantom41 of chance; and they end by liking42 all undertakings43 in which chance plays a part. They are therefore all led to engage in commerce, not only for the sake of the profit it holds out to them, but for the love of the constant excitement occasioned by that pursuit.
The United States of America have only been emancipated44 for half a century [in 1840] from the state of colonial dependence45 in which they stood to Great Britain; the number of large fortunes there is small, and capital is still scarce. Yet no people in the world has made such rapid progress in trade and manufactures as the Americans: they constitute at the present day the second maritime46 nation in the world; and although their manufactures have to struggle with almost insurmountable natural impediments, they are not prevented from making great and daily advances. In the United States the greatest undertakings and speculations are executed without difficulty, because the whole population is engaged in productive industry, and because the poorest as well as the most opulent members of the commonwealth47 are ready to combine their efforts for these purposes. The consequence is, that a stranger is constantly amazed by the immense public works executed by a nation which contains, so to speak, no rich men. The Americans arrived but as yesterday on the territory which they inhabit, and they have already changed the whole order of nature for their own advantage. They have joined the Hudson to the Mississippi, and made the Atlantic Ocean communicate with the Gulf48 of Mexico, across a continent of more than five hundred leagues in extent which separates the two seas. The longest railroads which have been constructed up to the present time are in America. But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the marvellous grandeur49 of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones. Almost all the farmers of the United States combine some trade with agriculture; most of them make agriculture itself a trade. It seldom happens that an American farmer settles for good upon the land which he occupies: especially in the districts of the Far West he brings land into tillage in order to sell it again, and not to farm it: he builds a farmhouse50 on the speculation37 that, as the state of the country will soon be changed by the increase of population, a good price will be gotten for it. Every year a swarm51 of the inhabitants of the North arrive in the Southern States, and settle in the parts where the cotton plant and the sugar-cane grow. These men cultivate the soil in order to make it produce in a few years enough to enrich them; and they already look forward to the time when they may return home to enjoy the competency thus acquired. Thus the Americans carry their business-like qualities into agriculture; and their trading passions are displayed in that as in their other pursuits.
The Americans make immense progress in productive industry, because they all devote themselves to it at once; and for this same reason they are exposed to very unexpected and formidable embarrassments52. As they are all engaged in commerce, their commercial affairs are affected53 by such various and complex causes that it is impossible to foresee what difficulties may arise. As they are all more or less engaged in productive industry, at the least shock given to business all private fortunes are put in jeopardy54 at the same time, and the State is shaken. I believe that the return of these commercial panics is an endemic disease of the democratic nations of our age. It may be rendered less dangerous, but it cannot be cured; because it does not originate in accidental circumstances, but in the temperament55 of these nations.
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1
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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engenders
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的第三人称单数 ) | |
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3
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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4
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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7
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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8
penury
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| n.贫穷，拮据 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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10
embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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embarks
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| 乘船( embark的第三人称单数 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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12
hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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23
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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25
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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covetous
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| adj.贪婪的，贪心的 | |
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28
covetousness
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29
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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30
opulence
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| n.财富，富裕 | |
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31
exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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33
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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circumscribed
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| adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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39
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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40
fluctuations
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| 波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 ) | |
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41
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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42
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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43
undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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44
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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46
maritime
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| adj.海的，海事的，航海的，近海的，沿海的 | |
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47
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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48
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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49
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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50
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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51
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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52
embarrassments
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| n.尴尬( embarrassment的名词复数 )；难堪；局促不安；令人难堪或耻辱的事 | |
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53
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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54
jeopardy
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| n.危险；危难 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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