Tocqueville saw that some in Europe like Hegel argued that the way to help the individual overcome a sense of powerlessness in modern society was to increase the powers of government. Tocqueville believed this was a mistake. Such a move would destroy the motivation for volunteerism and the impulse for drawing together for a common purpose. “If men are to remain civilized,” he concluded, “or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.”12
