QuestionsMust we always obey the law?The tyrant is strong only through our obedience: let us support him no more
Must we always obey the law?The right to revolt

The tyrant is strong only through our obedience: let us support him no more

Voluntary servitude

Étienne de La Boétie 1530 · 1563Young magistrate and friend of Montaigne: at about eighteen he asks why millions of people serve one tyrant, and answers that it is they who support him.
See profile
What it claims

Faced with a tyrant, a people has the power to free itself by withdrawing its obedience, without any need to fight him.

Why

A tyrant has only two eyes and two hands like anyone: his strength is what the people lend him, so it is enough to stop giving it.

The same idea through history
Étienne de La Boétie1548Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (also called Contr'un): the version presented here. Written at about eighteen according to Montaigne, his friend, who presents it as a youthful essay; kept in manuscript, it was printed in 1574-1576, after the author's death (1563).
David Hume1741'Of the First Principles of Government': Hume is struck by the ease with which the many are governed by the few, and concludes that all government finally rests on opinion. The same observation as La Boétie, without calling for disobedience.
Henry David Thoreau1849Thoreau: withdrawing one's participation ('not lending a hand') is the minimal political act. It joins La Boétie's idea that power depends on the cooperation of those it commands.
In short

"The tyrant is strong only through our obedience: let us support him no more" is an argument by Étienne de La Boétie (La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (c. 1548), 1548) on the question "Must we always obey the law?" (answer: the right to revolt). Its claim: Faced with a tyrant, a people has the power to free itself by withdrawing its obedience, without any need to fight him. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (c. 1548)
Valid with an implicit premise

Around 1548 an eighteen-year-old Frenchman asks a simple question: how is it that millions of men, towns and nations endure a single tyrant, who has only the power they give him? His answer is not a call to arms. The tyrant is strong only through us: through our habit of being subjects, and through those who profit from him. It is therefore enough to stop supporting him. The text is written for the people's freedom, not for the order of the state; it is not a theory of all governments but a critique of tyranny. The P1 to P3 → C form is our reconstruction.

P1A tyrant has no more strength than the humblest of men: two eyes, two hands, one body. Everything he has in addition is the advantage his subjects give him to destroy them. His power therefore comes only from their cooperation.
P2This cooperation rests first on custom: one is born a serf and raised as one, and habit makes natural what is not.
P3It is therefore enough to stop serving in order to be free: there is no need to push or shake him, only to stop supporting him, and he falls like a colossus whose base has been removed.
P4 · implicit premiseA people that truly wanted to could stop serving: nothing that holds them is insurmountable.
Therefore, faced with a tyrant, a people has the power to free itself by withdrawing its obedience, without any need to fight him.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where tyranny depends on the people's support, but the people cannot withdraw it (for instance because each fears being the only one to do so). The other premises do not exclude it.
The argument is valid. If tyranny exists only through the people's support (P1), and if the people can stop supporting it (P3 and P4), then when they stop, the tyranny disappears. Its strength is that it does not ask for violence. Its weak point is P4: stopping service requires people to agree and take the risk, which is the real problem.
Analogy. A general strike. A factory runs only if its workers come to work. If all stay home on the same day, the boss, who has only two hands like them, can do nothing. The difficulty is agreeing so that all stay home together.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Thomas Hobbes 1651 · attacks the conclusion

Hobbes holds that those who have instituted a sovereign cannot, without his leave, cast off monarchy and return to the confusion of a disunited multitude. By withdrawing their obedience they would return to the state of nature, which Hobbes judges worse than almost any tyranny. La Boétie's question, 'why do we serve one man?', therefore has an answer for Hobbes: to avoid the war of all against all.

a defender replies
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1651, after the author's death (1563).
David Hume defender of the argument · 1741
Hume observes that force is always on the side of the governed: the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. All government rests on opinion, including the most despotic and most military. This is La Boétie's observation: the power of one man comes from the many letting him act.
The debate goes on (our summary) Hume supports La Boétie's premise (power rests on opinion), but draws no call to disobey from it: he mainly concludes that a government is solid when opinion is on its side. Hobbes therefore remains an opponent: he thinks the risk of falling back into civil war justifies bearing the tyrant. La Boétie thinks servitude is itself the greatest evil (our summary).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Hobbes: leaving obedience means falling back into the war of all against all. La Boétie: the tyrant has only the strength we lend him. The basic disagreement remains: is the worst evil tyranny or disorder?
M
Mancur Olson 1965 · attacks premise 4

Olson argues that rational individuals do not mobilise for a common good, even if all would benefit: each prefers to let others act and benefit without paying the cost. Applied to revolt (Olson mainly discusses economic groups): if ceasing to obey has a cost (prison, death) and the benefit is shared, no one has an interest in starting. It is therefore not a lack of will but a situation where obedience is the individually rational choice (our summary).

a defender replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1965, after the author's death (1563).
E
Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan defender of the argument · 2011
Chenoweth and Stephan study 323 resistance campaigns between 1900 and 2006 and find that nonviolent campaigns succeeded about twice as often as armed ones, mainly because they mobilise far more people. Mass non-cooperation, La Boétie's idea, therefore appears both possible and effective in practice.
The debate goes on (our summary) Chenoweth and Stephan's results are debated: it is objected that nonviolent campaigns do not face the same opponents or conditions, and that past success guarantees nothing. Olson himself does not say that collective action is impossible, but that it requires selective incentives or organisation (our summary).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Olson: each has an interest in letting others resist. Chenoweth and Stephan: mass non-cooperation campaigns have often succeeded. The basic disagreement remains: does mass resistance depend on interest, or on convictions that go beyond calculation?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1762 · attacks premise 3

Rousseau notes that slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire to escape: they love their servitude as the companions of Ulysses loved their brutishness. If there are slaves by nature, it is because there were slaves against nature. If servitude destroys the desire for freedom, 'it is enough to want it' no longer works.

Boétie replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1762, after the author's death (1563).
La Boétie 1548 · What La Boétie wrote around 1548, before Rousseau
La Boétie is not unaware of the effect of custom: he makes it the first reason for voluntary servitude. But he adds that there are always a few, better born than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot help shaking it off, and who remember their natural privileges.
The debate goes on (our summary) La Boétie thinks the desire for freedom never entirely disappears, and he counts on those few. Rousseau, who does not answer him, is more pessimistic: he writes elsewhere that freedom can be acquired but never recovered (II, 8). The discussion joins the modern question of how awakened minorities can draw others along (our summary).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Rousseau: servitude destroys even the desire for freedom. La Boétie: there are always a few who feel the yoke. The basic disagreement remains: can freedom be desired by those who have never known it?