The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude
From LibertyActivism
| Politics of Obedience | |
 Cover | |
| Author | Etienne de La Boetie |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publication date | 2008 |
| Media type | paperback, pdf |
| Pages | 81 |
La Boétie wrote the following essay while still a law student at the University of Orléans in the early 1550s. Gene Sharp, author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action, had this to say about it: “[La] Boétie’s Discourse is a highly significant essay on the ultimate source of political power, the origins of dictatorship, and the means by which people can prevent political enslavement and liberate themselves.
Boétie's task is to investigate the nature of the state and its strange status as a tiny minority of the population that adheres to different rules from everyone else and claims the authority to rule everyone else, maintaining a monopoly on law. It strikes him as obviously implausible that such an institution has any staying power. It can be overthrown in an instant if people withdraw their consent.
He then investigates the mystery as to why people do not withdraw, given what is obvious to him that everyone would be better off without the state. This sends him on a speculative journey to investigate the power of propaganda, fear, and ideology in causing people to acquiesce in their own subjection. Is it cowardice? Perhaps. Habit and tradition. Perhaps. Perhaps it is ideological illusion and intellectual confusion.
Boétie goes on to make a case as to why people ought to withdraw their consent immediately. He urges all people to rise up and cast off tyranny simply by refusing to concede that the state is in charge.
The tyrant has "nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you?"[1]
| Chapter | Title | File |
|---|---|---|
| All | The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude | |
| 00 | The Political Thought of Étienne de La Boétie | MP3 |
| 01 | The Politics of Obedience: Part I | MP3 |
| 02 | The Politics of Obedience: Part II | MP3 |
| 03 | The Politics of Obedience: Part III | MP3 |
