A little spark can start a flame which will devour all the wood it finds, growing stronger all the time. But you do not need water over it to extinguish it — if you stop supplying wood it will consume itself, since it has nothing else to consume, and will languish and die out. In the same way, the more that tyrants pillage, the more they exact and extort, the more they ruin and destroy, the more you give them, the more you subject yourself to them — so much the stronger they become, so much the readier to destroy everything, to wipe out everything. But if you give them nothing, if you withhold your obedience, then — without you having to struggle or strike a blow — they become naked, defeated, mere nonentities, nothing but the dry, dead branch of a tree whose roots have been deprived of moisture and sustenance.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
On the types of tyrants:
There are three types of tyrant. Some are king by democratic election, others by force of arms, others by inheritance. Those who have become king by right of war conduct themselves in such a way that people are left in no doubt that they are living in what are called conquered lands. Those who are born kings are commonly little better; being born and brought up in the womb of tyranny, they imbibe a tyrant's nature with their mother's milk, and treat their underlings as their inherited serfs, and treat the kingdom as a personal inheritance to be administered with parsimony or prodigality, according to their own temperament. A man given power by the people ought, it seems to me, to be more bearable; and I imagine he would be, were it not that from the moment he sees himself elevated above the others, he feels flattered by something people call greatness, and resolves not to relinquish power, and usually arranges to hand on to his children that power which the people have given him. And as soon as these people get these ideas, it is a curious fact that they surpass the other tyrants in all sorts of vices, and especially in cruelty. For they see no other way of consolidating the new tyranny than by making servitude so prevalent and liberty so alien to people that they lose all memory of it, however recent that memory. So, truth to tell, I can see some difference between these sorts of tyrant, but can see nothing at all to choose between them. They come to power by different methods, but the way they govern is always virtually identical. Elected monarchs treat the people like bulls to be tamed, conquerors treat the people as their prey, inheritors treat the people as their natural slaves.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
George Bush I arranged to hand his power to George Bush II. Etienne de la Boetie speaks truth.
Does George Bush treat people like bulls to be tamed? Has he made servitude so prevalent and liberty so alien to people that they lose all memory of it, however recent that memory? Does anyone remember the Patriot Act, which was rushed through Congress after 9/11?
Deception is a frequent cause of loss of liberty, and in this people are more often deceived by themselves than by other people. Thus, when the people of Syracuse (the main city of Sicily, which I gather is now called Saragossa) found themselves at war, they dealt only with the immediate danger and made Dionysius I the sole commander of the army -- a reckless thing to do. They did not realize how powerful the army was making him; and when he returned victorious with this mighty force, he changed from being a general to being a king, and from a king to a tyrant, as though it were not the enemy he had defeated, but his fellow-citizens.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
Does George Bush II have too much Power? Is he now our King?
The Gods among Men:
But there are always some men who are more noble than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot prevent themselves shaking it off, who will never be tame enough to accept subjugation. These men, like Ulysses (who, in all his travels, longed to see again the smoke from his own humble dwelling), will always remain aware of those privileges wich Nature gave them, and will recall their original, ancestral state. These people, endowed with a clear mind and a visionary spirit, do not confine their gaze to what lies at their feet as the common run of humanity does), but readily look backward and forward, recalling past events so as to weigh up the present and judge the proper course for the future. These men were endowed with a good mind and have refined it by study and erudition: even if liberty were wiped off the face of the earth, these men would see it in their mind's eye, and have a feel for it, and savor it, and they would have no taste for servitude no matter how well it was dressed up.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
We must find these men, feel that spirit in their breast, and catch the fever.
Banding together, the Freedom Fighters must first find each other:
Normally, people who have kept their devotion to freedom intact despite the passage of time are unable to make each other's acquaintance, and so their zealous longing for freedom remains ineffectual, however numerous they may be. Under a tyrant, they are denied freedom to act, to speak, almost even to think, so that those who hold these views are kept apart from each other.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
On Weakness, Cowardice, and the Spread of the Effeminate:
But to get back to the point that I had almost lost sight of, the first reason why people choose slavery is that they are born and brought up as serfs. This leads us to another reason, which is that under the rule of a tyrant, men easily become cowardly and effeminate. I am immeasurably grateful of Hippocrates, that great father of medicine, who observed the phenomenon and described it in a book of his titled On Sickness. This man certainly had his heart in the right place in every respect, a fact which he demonstrated when the king of Persia tried to attract him with great promises of gifts. He replied candidly, to the effect he would feel very guilty were he to take the job of curing those barbarians who aim to kill Greeks, and if he were to use his art in the service of a king who sought to reduce Greece to servitude. The letter he sent to the king has survived, and can be read along with his other works: it will be an eternal testimony to his great heart and noble nature. Now it is certain that when liberty is lost, valor is lost at the same time. The subjects of a king have no heart for combat or difficulty: they face danger with a servile and leaden soul, as it were, out of obligation, and feel nothing of that ardent love of freedom which has people despise peril and long to acquire honor and glory among their fellows by a good death. Free men strive in emulation with each other to work for the common good . and for their own good: they expect as individuals to have their share in the evils that come with defeat or the benefits that victory brings. But people who are slaves lose not just courage in war but also a vitality in all other things, and they have a lowly, effeminate heart which is incapable of great things. Tyrants know that very well, and when they see their subjects going in that direction, they encourage the process so as to make them more lethargic still.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
No one ever governs Humans. They refuse to be governed, to acquiesce to the loss of their freedoms. They are born free and die free. Only beasts can be governed. A man being governed is but a beast under the yoke.
At government, you think you're clever:
You govern beasts -- but humans never.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
Shower them in Porn, Alcohol and Television, and see them weaken and turn to sponge, absorbing blow after blow bestowed by Government and Authority:
But this ruse whereby tyrants reduce their subjects to the status of beasts is nowhere better illustrated then in the story of what Cyrus did to the Lydians after he had seized their principal city and captured its immensely wealthy king, Croesus, and taken him away as captive. News was brought to Cyrus of a revolt by the people of Sardis. He could have brought them to heel very quickly, but he did not wish either to have such a beautiful city sacked or to have to keep an army there to guard it, and so he hit upon a most expedient way of ensuring control of the city: he set up brothels there, and taverns, and public festivities, and issued a decree to the effect that all inhabitants were to patronize them. This garrison turned out to be so effective that he was never again obliged to draw his sword against the Lydians. These poor, miserable souls devoted themselves to inventing all sorts of games, with the result that the Romans took from them their word for games, and what we call pastimes they call "ludi', recalling Lydia. Not all tyrants have explicitly declared, as he did, that it was their intention to make people effeminate, but there is no doubt that most of them pursued covertly a policy which this man decreed formally and publicly.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
You are culpable for your soma-coma:
Theaters, games, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, tableaux and other such drugs were the bait that lured ancient nations into servitude, they were the price at which freedom was sold, they were the instruments of tyranny: these were the methods, the procedures, the allurements which ancient tyrants could use to put their people to sleep, to place them under the yoke. Thus, these foolish people, finding these pastimes enjoyable, taken in by the idle pleasures which met their gaze, became accustomed to slavery: they were as gullible as little children who are induced to read by the colorful illustrations in books -- but their gullibility is culpable.
From La Boetie, Slaves by Choice
A comparison with Machiavelli's The Prince:
There is no better way to conclude a discussion of the content of La Boetie's notable Discourse of Voluntary Servitude than to note Mesnard's insight that "for La Boetie as for Machiavelli, authority can only be grounded on acceptance by the subjects: except that the one teaches the prince how to compel their acquiescence, while the other reveals to the people the power that would lie in their refusal."
From The Political Thought of Etienne de la Boetie, By Murray N. Rothbard
Rule by Consent still hasn't been absorbed yet by 'moderns':
In the first place, La Boetie's insight that any State, no matter how ruthless and despotic, rests in the long run on the consent of the majority of the public, has not yet been absorbed into the consciousness of intellectuals opposed to State despotism. Notice, for example, how many anti-Communists write about Communist rule as if it were solely terror imposed from above on the angry and discontented masses. Many of the errors of American foreign policy have stemmed from the idea that the majority of the population of a country can never accept and believe in Communist ideas, which must therefore be imposed by either a small clique or by outside agents from existing Communist countries. In modern political thought, only the free- market economist Ludwig von Mises has sufficiently stressed the fact that all governments must rest on majority consent.
From The Political Thought of Etienne de la Boetie, By Murray N. Rothbard