The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, 2nd Edition

Foreword

Nothing is more deserving of your attention than the intellectual and moral associations of Americans. Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations [of a] thousand kinds . . . religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. I have often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object for the exertions of a great many men and inducing them voluntarily to pursue it.

As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote, they look out for mutual assistance, and as soon as they have found one another out, they combine. From that moment they are no longer isolated men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve for an example and whose language is listened to.

Only by the reciprocal influence of men upon one another are feelings and opinions recruited, is the heart enlarged, and is the human mind developed. . . . This can only be accomplished by associations. What political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which the American citizens perform every day, with the assistance of the principle of association?

—Alexis de TocquevilleDemocracy in America, 1840

The Bogleheads of the Internet, it seems to me, are the paradigm of the American association described with such perceptive power by Alexis de Tocqueville in his seminal work. ...