18. Chapter XVIII: That Amongst The Americans All Honest Callings Are
Honorable
Amongst a democratic people, where there is no hereditary
wealth, every man works to earn a living, or has worked, or is
born of parents who have worked. The notion of labor is
therefore presented to the mind on every side as the necessary,
natural, and honest condition of human existence. Not only is
labor not dishonorable amongst such a people, but it is held in
honor: the prejudice is not against it, but in its favor. In the
United States a wealthy man thinks that he owes it to public
opinion to devote his leisure to some kind of industrial or
commercial pursuit, or to public business. He would think
himself in bad repute if he employed his life solely in living.
It is for the purpose of escaping this obligation to work, that
so many rich Americans come to Europe, where they find some
scattered remains of aristocratic society, amongst which idleness
is still held in honor.
Equality of conditions not only ennobles the notion of labor
in men's estimation, but it raises the notion of labor as a
source of profit. In aristocracies it is not exactly labor that
is despised, but labor with a view to profit. Labor is honorific
in itself, when it is undertaken at the sole bidding of ambition
or of virtue. Yet in aristocratic society it constantly happens
that he who works for honor is not insensible to the attractions
of profit. But these two desires only intermingle in the
innermost depths of his soul: he carefully hides from every eye
the point at which they join; he would fain conceal it from
himself. In aristocratic countries there are few public officers
who do not affect to serve their country without interested
motives. Their salary is an incident of which they think but
little, and of which they always affect not to think at all.
Thus the notion of profit is kept distinct from that of labor;
however they may be united in point of fact, they are not thought
of together.
In democratic communities these two notions are, on the
contrary, always palpably united. As the desire of well-being is
universal -as fortunes are slender or fluctuating -as everyone
wants either to increase his own resources, or to provide fresh
ones for his progeny, men clearly see that it is profit which, if
not wholly, at least partially, leads them to work. Even those
who are principally actuated by the love of fame are necessarily
made familiar with the thought that they are not exclusively
actuated by that motive; and they discover that the desire of
getting a living is mingled in their minds with the desire of
making life
illustrious.
As soon as, on the one hand, labor is held by the whole
community to be an honorable necessity of man's condition, and,
on the other, as soon as labor is always ostensibly performed,
wholly or in part, for the purpose of earning remuneration, the
immense interval which separated different callings in
aristocratic societies disappears. If all are not alike, all at
least have one feature in common. No profession exists in which
men do not work for money; and the remuneration which is common
to them all gives them all an air of resemblance. This serves to
explain the opinions which the Americans entertain with respect
to different callings. In America no one is degraded because he
works, for everyone about him works also; nor is anyone
humiliated by the notion of receiving pay, for the President of
the United States also works for pay. He is paid for commanding,
other men for obeying orders. In the United States professions
are more or less laborious, more or less profitable; but they are
never either high or low: every honest calling is honorable.