in Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” which has a chapter called “How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Principle of Interest Rightly Understood.” Despite our ambient certainty that it is natural, Tocqueville describes individualism as a newfangled phenomenon. The word “individualism” itself entered the English language largely through translations of his work. Somehow, our leaders are educated into the error of dangerously discounting this “enlightened self-interest” (also a term Tocqueville invented).