Abstract

Small mistakes in the English translation appear significant enough to force us to think that Tocqueville understood the term >civil society system of needs civil law company<, in French société de droit civil, in German Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts–imposed upon the whole of continental Europe by Bonaparte with his Civil Code. To get out of the semantic confusion one should assume that Tocqueville, while writing about civil associations, thought rather of business entrepreneurships than of non-governmental organizations. Tocqueville was writing about America rather in a liberal than a republican spirit.