Politics of Obedience

the State. Those experts, too, must be desanctified, and again La
Boétie strengthens us in the necessity of such desanctification.
The libertarian theorist Lysander Spooner, writing over four
hundred years after La Boétie, propounded the similar view that
the supporters of government consisted largely of "dupes" and
"knaves":
The ostensible supporters of the Constitution,
like the ostensible supporters of most other
governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1.
Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the
government an instrument which they can use for
their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes- a
large class, no doubt--each of whom, because he is
allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what
he may do with his own person and his own
property, and because he is permitted to have the
same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering
others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and
murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that
he is a "free man," a "sovereign"; that this is a "free
government"; "a government of equal rights," "the
best government on earth," and such like
absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation
of the evils of government, but either do not see
how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far
sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves
seriously and earnestly to the work of making a
change. 60
60 Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority {Colorado Springs,
Co.: Ralph Myles Pub., 1973), p.18.
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