Alexis de Tocqueville's idea of association

A. de Tocqueville's writings deal largely with the idea of association. This idea is important in the two volumes of the Democracy in America, published respectively in 1835 and 1840, and it is also the same for the texts (of the period) that A. de Tocqueville dedicates to the pauperism. The association is defmed as an economic process which is able to bring an answer to the social question. This paper studies this thought of the association. We'll distinguish, on one hand, the solutions proposed for the problem of pauperism, and on the other hand, the doctrine of the "interet bien entendu" which underlies it.