stocratic system. Great Britain has a House of Lords, but to any American observer of modern British politics this body seems vestigial and all but invisible. Like the monarchy, the House of Lords has no very evident connection with the real government of Britain, and unlike the monarchy, it does not even produce a visible soap opera. (In fact, the House of Lords includes a sub-group, the Law Lords, that functions rather like the Supreme Court, but with vastly less power or influence.) C-Span does not bother to bring debates in the House of Lords to American television. Modern Britain is, in American eyes, simply a parliamentary democracy with some ornamental features carried over from a past era.
What, then, is (or was) aristocracy, and why did de Tocqueville view it as the natural point of contrast for the comprehensive social system that he identified as American democracy? We may start with the fact that Alexis de Tocqueville was himself an aristocrat, identified as such by his very name. "De" is the French equivalent of our word "of," so his na
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