[From “Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals In Social Change Toward Laissez Faire” in The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Fall 1990] Why, La Boétie cries out in anguish, why, when reason teaches us the justice of natural rights and equal liberty for all, why, when even animals display a natural instinct to be free, is man, “the only creature really born to be free, [lacking] the memory of his original condition and the desire to return to it?”7 Why, in short, are people steeped in such a “vile” and “monstrous vice” as consenting to their own subjection? La Boétie answers, first, that … Continue reading Why Most People Embrace the State