The sovereign power [or soft despot] extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules … it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America1
