I began with a 16th-century essay that investigated the nature of political obedience called, “The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude,” written by Etienne de la Boetie while he was a law student at the University of Orleans, in France. De la Boetie’s key insight was that government, resting always in the hands of relatively few, does not have enough manpower or force to compel obedience to its will, and does not really rely on force in order to govern. It was his view every government, even tyrannies, governed because men voluntarily obeyed and submitted to them.

It was his view if men would but awake to this reality, and simply refuse to cooperate in their own servitude (e.g., not be police, soldiers, judges, prison guards, government employees, not vote), their government would crumble, without a shot being fired.

Noncooperation

Because de la Boetie’s explanation describes both how governments work and fail to work, his theory equally explains not only how nonviolent noncooperation can bring a government down, but also how it’s possible for a relatively small group of men to overthrow an existing government, and have their new government soon be accepted, or at least acquiesced in, by the people at large. His theory explains, and is consistent with observed experience, even terrible dictatorships can have a long reign and enjoy the acquiescence of the people at large. As such, unlike some philosophies of nonviolence (which we’ll look at later), which morally condemn the use of force to achieve political goals, de la Boetie’s views admit the possibility the people, by exercising a right to bear arms against their government, could establish a new form of government.

Of course, if de la Boetie is right, it’s a sobering thought men will soon accept and cooperate with a government established by coup or force of arms, even if it’s a dictatorship. And it’s important for those who believe in armed resistance to tyranny understand that nothing in the Second Amendment guarantees those who take up arms against their government will end up establishing a better government. The French Revolution began with high ideals, degenerated into a bloodbath and ended with France under an emperor (Napoleon).

Having and exercising a right doesn’t guarantee a good outcome. Even those firmly committed to a philosophy or armed resistance to tyranny must consider armed revolt may unleash forces not foreseen, cannot be controlled and lead to consequences far different than those at which they aimed.

De la Boetie’s essay is in three parts, and we’ve reviewed the first, in which he explains governments work because men place themselves in servitude voluntarily, willingly aiding and abetting those who enslave them. In the second part of his essay, he investigates “how it happens this obstinate willingness to submit has become so deeply rooted in a nation that the very love of liberty now seems no longer natural.”

Five Factors

By my count, he identifies five factors inducing men to seek, continue in, and even relish, their own servitude. Again, his analysis is neutral. The factors, which maintain people in their servitude, will prevent people from throwing off their chains by nonviolently refusing to cooperate with their government, just as much as they will prevent them from taking up arms to reign in a tyrant. Even one who doubts the efficacy of nonviolence but believes in a philosophy of armed resistance to tyranny would want to consider his explanations of why people, even under tyrants, cling to their servitude and don’t seek freedom.

De la Boetie begins by conceding men who are free, before letting themselves be enslaved, must either be “driven by force or led into it by deception.” Enslavement by force occurs when a people are “conquered by foreign armies — or by political factions.” However, he notes, when men lose their liberty through deceit, “they are not so often betrayed by others as misled by themselves.”

What he finds incredible, however, is “as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation, that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.” He then begins his investigation of why this occurs.

The first and most compelling reason for men’s voluntary servitude is custom. What they grow up with is what they are used to; it’s accepted as natural, it’s “just the way things are.” How could it seem unbearable or intolerable to them, when they’ve lived so long in just this condition? How could they feel a real need to change what has always been part and parcel of their lives?

Proud American

But custom is more than just ease and comfort in a state of unquestioning acceptance. The subjection people don’t even see or feel because it’s “just the way things are” becomes part of their identity, their tradition and a source of pride. It’s who they are. De la Boetie puts it this way: “Men are like handsome race horses who first bite the bit and later like it, and rearing under the saddle a while soon learn to enjoy displaying their harness and prance proudly beneath their trappings.”

Consider our federal government’s annual expenditures are close to one-fifth our entire gross domestic product. Consider the degree of taxation, the extent of governmental surveillance, the reporting and monitoring of our personal activities. Consider the extensive regulation to which we’re subject, the ever-mounting number of crimes we may be punished for that don’t involve real criminal intent (such as passing through a gun-free school zone with a gun).

Now consider how many millions are “proud to be an American” where, in the words of the song, “at least I know I’m free.”

Isn’t there some profound disconnect here? Isn’t this precisely what de la Boetie is talking about when he describes people’s inability to see their own servitude because of custom and their fine history and traditions? People who are proud of who they are aren’t likely to feel a burning need to change who they are or to work at changing it — with or without arms. Perhaps it’s servitude that’s in the words of the post-9/11 bumper sticker “powered by pride.”

In the next column I’ll discuss the other four factors de la Boetie cites that render a people willing participants in their own servitude, as well as his theory of how the tyrant secures his power. I’ll argue his explanations undermine any simplistic idea liberty may be re-established and maintained by an armed people.