The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude is a famous work attributed to Étienne de La Boétie by Montaigne. The text was published clandestinely in 1577. The date of preparation of the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude is uncertain: according to recent studies it was composed by Étienne de La Boétie during his university education. According to his closest friend Michel de Montaigne, the speech was written when La Boétie was about 18 years old.
Content
The essay argues that any tyrant remains in power while his subjects grant him that, therefore delegitimizing every form of power. The original freedom of men would be indeed abandoned by society which, once corrupted by the habit, would have preferred the servitude of the courtier to the freedom of the free man, who refuses to be submissive and to obey. This relation between domain and obedience would be resumed later by anarchist thinkers. Lew Rockwell summarizes La Boétie’s political philosophy as follows:
To him, the great mystery of politics was obedience to rulers. Why in the world do people agree to be looted and otherwiseoppressed by government overlords? It is not just fear, Boetie explains in “The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude,” for our consent is required. And that consent can be non-violently withdrawn.
Influence
The thought of La Boétie was also taken up by many movements of civil disobedience, which drew from the concept of rebellion to voluntary servitude the foundation of its instrument of struggle. Étienne de La Boétie was one of the first to theorize and propose the strategy of non-cooperation, and thus a form of nonviolent disobedience, as a really effective weapon. 1575 Nicholas Barnaud The morning awakening of the French "Reveille matin des Francais"......herditary right of kings tempered by advice from electors of the people. He thunders against voluntary servitude in which whole people s stagnated. A servitude which Etienne de la Boetie explained by three series of factors in "Discourse on voluntary servitude" a) custom or acclimatisation b) reverence for religious or sacred rites which sustain or tower over tyranny C) proliferation of fear.
