Why does democracy tend toward inequality?

Why does democracy tend toward inequality? Or, as it appears to me, why does Tocqueville believe that a democracy leads towards aristocracy, a form of inequality? In our selection Tocqueville writes that “…just while the mass of the nation is turning toward democracy, that particular class which is engaged in industry becomes more aristocratic” (127). The most important part of that statement is industry. Tocqueville is not saying that democracy, as a form of government and societal mindset, directly influences all members and factions of society to turn back to an aristocratic lifestyle. Instead, he is saying that in industry, democracy leads to an aristocracy “not at all like those that have preceded it” (127).

Now the true question, how does industry create or lead to an aristocracy? The workmen of Tocqueville’s time are mainly factory workers of the industrial revolution, men and women who sewed on buttons or putting heads on pins. These jobs were, and are, repetitive above all else. Menial jobs, done for hours every day, required no special training, no drive, ingenuity, creativity, or head for business. These men and women “no longer belong to himself but to his chosen calling” (125). The population was not an even mixture of masters and workers, but a whirling pool of men and women to exhausted and poor to do anything but work day in and day out. “In vain are all the efforts of law and morality to break down the barriers surrounding such a man and open up a thousand different roads to fortune…” (125). The creation of an aristocracy is, then, inevitable for their must be someone to organize those confined to their stations.