Charity Rightly Understood: Charity, Self-Interest, and Tocqueville’s Response to Pauperism

• In Event: Forging Citizenship

Brief Overview

This paper probes Tocqueville’s critiques of private and public charity in the Memoir on Pauperism and Democracy in America. It turns then to his 1848 proposal of “charity applied to politics” and concludes offering wider implications of his views.

Author

• Sarah H. Gustafson, Harvard University