Politics of Obedience

The Political Thought
of Étienne de la Boétie
[Introduction to The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary
Servitude by Étienne de la Boétie, written 1552-53. Translated by Harry Kurz
for the edition that carried Rothbard's introduction, New York: Free Life
Editions, 1975. The pagination in the footnotes refers to this 1975 edition. This
online edition of Rothbard introduction 2002 (c) The Mises Institute, reprinted
with the permission of the Rothbard Estate]
Étienne de La Boétie 1 has been best remembered as the great
and close friend of the eminent essayist Michel de Montaigne, in
one of history's most notable friendships. But he would be better
remembered, as some historians have come to recognize, as one
of the seminal political philosophers, not only as a founder of
modern political philosophy in France but also for the timeless
relevance of many of his theoretical insights.
Étienne de la Boétie was born in Sarlat, in the Perigord region
of southwest France, in 1530, to an aristocratic family. His father
was a royal official of the Perigord region and his mother was
the sister of the president of the Bordeaux Parlement (assembly
of lawyers). Orphaned at an early age, he was brought up by his
uncle and namesake, the curate of Bouilbonnas, and received his
law degree from the University of Orléans in 1553. His great and
precocious ability earned La Boétie a royal appointment to the
Bordeaux Parlement the following year, despite his being under
the minimum age. There he pursued a distinguished career as
1 Properly pronounced not, as might be thought, La Bo-ay- see, but rather La Bwettie
(with the hard t) as it was pronounced in the perigord dialect of the region in which La
Boetie lived. The definitive discussion of the proper pronunciation may be found in Paul
Bonnefon, Oeuvres Completes d'Estienne de La Boetie (Bordeaux: C. Gounouilhou, and
Paris: J. Rouam et Cie., 1892), pp. 385-6.
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