Reflection on Voluntary Servitude

La Boétie chooses to ignore one fact about tyranny which explains why it can happen so simply. It does not matter if a single person gives his or her support to the tyrant, it matters when a majority choose to support him over any other option. “Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement.” This emphasizes the point that it must be the whole country (or at least a significant amount of it) which chooses to rebel against the tyrant, either nonviolently or violently. The individual or small group which does not submit to tyranny can be put down through violent means, but the large group will keep refreshing numbers if it is being repressed beyond what is reasonable. La Boétie also reduces the number of people needed to keep they tyrant in power; it is really the police and the military which he has command over which does that for him, if the military were to turn against him, it would be a bloodless revolution since he draws his coercive powers from them.