Why do people, at all times and in all places, submit to the orders of a government made up of a small minority of those people?

Murray Rothbard (1926-1995), an anarcholibertarian economist, claimed that this is the central problem of political philosophy: despots do not stay in power simply because they are villains and terrify their populace.

In addition, there is a voluntary following of the subjects, a kind of bondage, without which it would not be possible to explain why, for example, many people in the Soviet Union cried tears after Stalin's death and mourned their greatest tormentor instead of dancing for joy.

It is also said that the Romans wept for Nero after his death, despite his cruelty.

Rainer Hank

Freelance author in the business section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Tyrants don't always have to be putschists who used violence to bring themselves to the head of a state.

Tyrants also appear in history as "flawless democrats" who came to power through legal elections.

The downside of despotism is often paternalism, which camouflages the naked exercise of power as paternal care.

In return, those in power allow themselves to be worshiped by poets, musicians or managers, who in turn benefit from the favor of those in power.

Liberate from bondage

"The enigma of tyranny is as unfathomable as love," we read in the French author Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563).

Not only for the American liberal Murray Rothbard, but also for the German pacifist Gustav Landauer, La Boétie is the best guide to exploring the paradox of why people voluntarily enter into bondage.

And for the question of how we can free ourselves from this bondage.

The French moralist Michel de Montaigne, a contemporary, was so fascinated by La Boétie's Treatise on Voluntary Serfdom that he decided to meet the author.

This resulted in an intimate friendship until La Boétie's early death.

La Boétie is considered by the pacifists to be the founder of “civil resistance”.

Do I need to justify why I recommend reading La Boétie's writing in these dark days?

Where does the "poison of bondage" come from?

Democratic rulers, writes La Boétie, are no better than violent usurpers or monarchs with inheritance rights.

They all succumb to the "appeal of size" and, once they have won power, do not want to relinquish it.

Even the democratic ruler, who owes his rule to the election of the people, then seeks to turn the power that the people have bestowed on him against them: “The people put their hands on their chains, cut their throats, give them up Liberty for the yoke gone.” La Boétie writes that Caesar was a ruler “who abolished the laws of liberty, and in whom, I believe, nothing good could be found.”

And yet he was revered beyond measure.