Tocqueville Road Trip: 2. Against all obstacles
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 13 June 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tocqueville saw America’s faith in its own democracy as a vital force. But these days the majority of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. Can a group of maximum security prisoners in Sing Sing offer a vision of how to get back on track?
Guests and Hosts
- John Prideaux, The Economist’s US Editor
- Sean Pica, executive director of Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison
- Jean Frantz, prisoner at Sing Sing Correctional Facility
Topics
- Alexis de Tocqueville’s views on voluntary associations
- Sing Sing prison education programme
- Prisoners’ views on the American dream
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist |
| 0:05.0 | More than league-wide and covered with sails, the great river runs north into a range of high blue mountains and disappears. |
| 0:28.6 | Its banks are a scene of bustle and prosperity delightful to observe. |
| 0:35.6 | And overhead is an unmarable sun whose rays, |
| 0:40.3 | filtering through the humid atmosphere of the region, |
| 0:43.3 | bathe everything they touch in a soft, transparent light. |
| 0:48.3 | Alexis de Tocqueville wrote those words in a letter to his father. |
| 0:53.3 | He was perched in a tree at the top of a hill overlooking the Hudson Valley. |
| 0:58.6 | The French aristocrat was a few weeks into his trip around America. |
| 1:03.3 | After spending time with High Society in New York, Togville took a steamboat up the Hudson |
| 1:08.4 | River. |
| 1:10.6 | Our one aim since we've come, has been to comprehend the land we are exploring. |
| 1:16.5 | We cannot accomplish that goal unless we disassemble society. |
| 1:21.8 | And I dare say no man, whatever his social rank, is incapable of teaching us something. |
| 1:33.9 | Togfield's next stop was what was then America's biggest prison, Sing Sing. |
| 1:39.6 | When he visited in 1831, it was just a few years old. |
| 1:44.8 | He had been commissioned to write a report on the American penal system for the French government. |
| 1:50.1 | That was the official reason for his trip, a great excuse to get funding for nine months studying a new democracy. |
| 1:57.5 | At Sing Sing, he wanted to see something called the New York system. |
| 2:01.8 | It was a novel approach that aimed to reform prisoners, not just punish them. |
| 2:06.9 | It combined work with solitary confinement. |
| 2:10.1 | The aim was to give prisoners time to reflect on their crimes, |
... |
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