General Confusion

I just posted the pre-reading questions. Then I read further back and saw that I had already posted the pre-reading questions. Did we go over them? I can't remember. If we did, then you're supposed to be reading the assignment with an interpretive note source (I posted that with the pre-reading questions).

Here it is...you've got 2 days!

Here are your pre-reading questions for How an Aristocracy May Be Created by Industry by Alexis de Toqueville. Remember you can make this as short or long as you want. The idea is to make your point - so if you can do that in a few words - fine. If you want to explore your thoughts more fully and go into free-form, that is fine, too. Don't do it just to "do" it. These are some really awesome questions, especially now that our world is on the cusp of change.
Following the pre-reading questions, I am posting all of the additional assignments for this reading. Don't do them until they're assigned.

Pre-reading Questions
1. How would you define "aristocracy?"
"Noblesse oblige"?

2. What obligation do rich people have to help those with less money?

3. In American, can we become whatever we want, or are we limited by circumstances?

4. How might it be a threat to our democracy for some people to be better off than others?

5. Have you ever had to stay with a job you didn't like?

6. Are the president of a large corporation and his or her employees like a monarch and his or her subjects?


Interpretive Note Sources

Mark places where Tocqueville points out a danger to democracy.

Mark places where Tocqueville describes how the development of industry affects the workers who make the products.

Discussion Questions

1. Why does Tocqueville think that democracy constantly tends toward inequality?

2. Why does Tocqueville say that the worker has been assigned to a certain "position in society" instead of to a certain job? (125)

3. Why does Tocqueville think that "industrial theory" exerts a stronger influence on the factory worker than "morality or law"? (125)

4. Does Tocqueville blame the industrial aristocracy for the brutish existence of the factory workers?

5. Why don't the "impoverished and brutalized" workers revolt against their harsh industrial masters? (128)

6. Why doesn't the industrial aristocracy feel any obligation to help its workers in hard and difficult times? (128)

7. Why does the division of labor make the worker "weaker, more limited, and more dependent"? (125)

8. Why does Tocqueville call the new aristocracy a "monstrosity""? (127)

9. Why does Tocqueville stress that the new aristocracy will be made up not only of the rich, but of the "well-educated"? (125)

10. Why does Tocqueville assume that a worker cannot improve his position in society, no matter how hard he tries?

11. Why does Tocqueville see danger to democracy not in the degraded mass of workers, but in the new aristocracy?

12. Why doesn't he industrial aristocracy "know its own mind," and why can't it act? (128)

13. Why does the workman continually engage in making one object become "more adroit" but "less industrious"? (125)

14. Is there anything the worker can do to prevent the creation of the new aristocracy?

Post-Discussion Writing

1. What would Tocqueville say to Adam Smith about his faith in the division of labor?

2. Can a person be as happy working on an assembly line as owning one?

3. Do you agree with Tocqueville that a person who does a repetitive job loses the power to think?

4. Is a new "aristocracy," based on talent and ambition necessarily a bad thing?

5. Do you think Tocqueville would be in favor of labor unions?

6. Should we use robots rather than workers on assembly lines? Would this help or aggravate the plight of the worker?

Uhmmm...

What are our questions again?