but few resources; they stand
therefore almost at the mercy of the master. When competition, or other
fortuitous circumstances, lessen his profits, he can reduce the wages of
his workmen almost at pleasure, and make from them what he loses by the
chances of business. Should the workmen strike, the master, who is a
rich man, can very well wait without being ruined until necessity brings
them back to him; but they must work day by day or they die, for their
only property is in their hands. They have long been impoverished by
oppression, and the poorer they become the more easily may they be
oppressed: they can never escape from this fatal circle of cause
and consequence. It is not then surprising that wages, after having
sometimes suddenly risen, are permanently lowered in this branch of
industry; whereas in other callings the price of labor, which generally
increases but little, is nevertheless constantly augmented.

This state of dependence and wretchedness, in which a part of the
manufacturing population of our time lives, forms an exception to the
general rule, contrary to the state of all the rest of the community;
but, for this very reason, no circumstance is more important or more
deserving of the especial consideration of the legislator; for when the
whole of society is in motion, it is difficult to keep any one class
stationary; and when the greater number of men are opening new paths to
fortune, it is no less difficult to make the few support in peace their
wants and their desires.

Chapter VIII: Influence Of Democracy On Kindred

I have just examined the changes which the equality of conditions
produces in the mutual relations of the several members of the community
amongst democratic nations, and amongst the Americans in particular.
I would now go deeper, and inquire into the closer ties of kindred: my
object here is not to seek for new truths, but to show in what manner
facts already known are connected with my subject.

It has been universally remarked, that in our time the several members
of a family stand upon an entirely new footing towards each other; that
the distance which formerly separated a father from his sons has been
lessened; and that paternal authority, if not destroyed, is at least
impaired. Something analogous to this, but even more striking, may be
observed in the United States. In America the family, in the Roman and
aristocratic signification of the word, does not exist. All that