Étienne de la Boétie

This classic of anti-statist and libertarian thought -- orig­inally entitled Discours de la Servitude volontaire -- is the best known and most enduringly influential work of Étienne de la Boétie (1530–1563), a French judge, poet, and writer. Gene Sharp, author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action, praised it as “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.

The Discours should have a prominent place in the history of po­litical theory, and also of the development of the power anal­ysis in which the technique of non-violent struggle is rooted." “It is indeed the nature of the populace,” wrote la Boétie, “to be suspicious toward one who has their welfare at heart, and gullible toward one who fools them. Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into ser­vitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths.”

He also wrote: “There are almost as many to whom tyranny is profitable as there are to whom liberty would be agreeable.” In his preface to this well-annotated edition, James J. Mar­tin puts “this remarkable early libertarian treatise” in his­torical context. Edited, with annotations and an introduction, by Wm. Flyg­are. In English, with original French text on facing pages.


Softcover, 144 pages
ISBN: n/a
Stock Number: 0450