Most early sociologists are middle class men.
When they have know relation with the university,
they work as engineers or as freelance journalists.
And sometimes they earn they're money by giving lectures,
as was the case with Comte.
And they often find it hard to make ends meet.
Think of the poverty in the family of Karl Marx.
But Tocqueville is another case, he was an aristocrat.
This was a member of the highest layers of society,
born in a family with prestige, and power, and wealth.
So the sociological view of Tocqueville, his perspective,
is very different from what we are used to in sociology.
This is not a man who looks at people in power from the outside.
This is an author who could analyze power from the inside,
drawing on his own personal experiences.
Many 19th century intellectuals such as Karl Marx,
were admirers of the French revolution of 1789 when the privileges of
the nobility were curbed in the name of freedom, equality and fraternity.
But that type of enthusiasm is conspicuously missing in the work of
Tocqueville.
The Tocqueville family had lost many of its members during the French Revolution.
At birthday parties,
little Alexi witnessed the moments when his uncles and his aunts
burst into tears remembering innocent relatives who had been decapitated.