Sideways look on Iberian America in the perspective of Tocqueville

Abstract

Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville carries a theory of the causes of the anglosaxon democratic republic that flourished in the north of the continent of that name. In the French author’s exposition the explanation of the causes of democracy gets mixed with those of northern American prosperity. Along the book, Tocqueville expresses a series of observations on the part of the New World that was colonized by Spain and Portugal. The article systematically analyzes these observations, so as to reconstruct Tocqueville’s implicit theory of comparative economic development of Iberian and Anglo-Saxon America. Thus, the relative weight of a) laws, b) mores, and c) what Tocqueville calls circumstances or accidental causes, is assessed, discovering inconsistencies of interest for those who wish to understand the causes of material backwardness of Iberian America relative to Anglo-Saxon America.