In conclusion, I first want to make some general observations on the nature of Tocqueville's intellectual enterprise and then address some questions that arise from the – predictably controversial – title of the present work.

The methodology of social science is often characterized in terms of the relation between the micro-level and the macro-level. In some versions, this is a one-way relationship. In Thomas Schelling's wonderful Micromotives and Macrobehavior, the analysis moves from individual choices to their – often unintended – aggregate effects. Schelling does not deny that there is a reverse effect; he simply does not study it. In other versions, there is a one-way process in the opposite direction. In what has been called “the oversocialized conception of man,” the motives and even actions of individuals are entirely shaped by their environment. Durkheim is perhaps the clearest exponent of this view. In Le suicide for example, he argued that in some societies the individual is so weak that “society can force some of its members to kill themselves.” The reverse effect is, implicitly, denied.

A complete analysis would have to take account of the obvious fact of two-way interactions. Many economic analyses do exactly that: prices (macro-facts) cause producers to make decentralized decisions about how much to produce in the next period (micro-facts) that, when aggregated, cause a new set of prices (macro-facts). These analyses are still incomplete, however, since they take the objectives (desires, preferences) of the agents as given.