Alexis de Tocqueville on the features of despotism

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world.  The first thing that strikes the eye is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike...  Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and watch over their fate.  That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild.  It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people whould rejoice, provided that they think of nothing but rejoicing.  For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry... what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and the trouble of living?

~ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 2