Etienne de la Boetie² on All Governments Being Illegitimate Authorities

by Jeremy Nell, Jerm Warfare
originally published December 5, 2022
updated August 24, 2023

 

Etienne de la Boetie² (with a squared sign and, no, it isn’t his real name) has written extensively on why all governments are illegitimate authorities.

His alias is a play on the real Etienne de La Boétie, who was a French writer and philosopher who lived during the 16th century, best known for his essay titled Discourse On Voluntary Servitude in which he questioned why people willingly submit to oppressive rulers and argued that it is through voluntary obedience that tyrants are able to maintain their power.

Etienne (with a squared sign) makes the chaos for anarchism, which is a philosophy that advocates for a society without hierarchical authority or rulers.

It does not mean chaos because it emphasises voluntary cooperation, mutual aid, and decentralised decision-making.

Anarchy, meanwhile, refers to an absence of government control.

While the words “anarchism” and “anarchy” are related and often used interchangeably, they are technically different.

Anarchism is often associated with chaos due to a misunderstanding of its principles.

Anarchists believe that individuals are capable of organising themselves and making collective decisions without the need for a central authority. They argue that (government) hierarchy and coercion are the sources of many social problems and that people can freely cooperate and resolve conflicts through voluntary means.

Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian thinker during the 1800s, is generally considered one of the fathers of anarchism. He advocated for a society based on federalism, in which free associations of workers and communities would govern themselves without a centralised state.

Another thinker is Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French philosopher who coined the term “anarchism” and argued for a system based on mutualism and workers’ self-management.

Although not an example of anarchism, the Hanseatic League and anarchism emphasise decentralised decision-making and cooperation. The League was a confederation of merchant guilds in Northern Europe during the medieval period, in which participating cities maintained a level of autonomy while engaging in voluntary associations for trade and defence. Similarly, anarchism promotes self-governance through voluntary associations and rejects the need for centralised authority.

Anarchist societies have existed throughout history.

The Spanish Revolution (1936 – 1939) is one such example. Parts of Spain experienced a social revolution in which anarchists, alongside other groups, established self-governing communities, collectivised industries, and implemented direct democracy (which is when individuals participate directly in decision-making processes, rather than delegating authority to representatives).

Basically, the government is the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external will.

In Etienne‘s book, Government – The Biggest Scam In History, he argues

the case that “Government”, of every flavor, has been a scam of inter-generational organized crime since the beginning… and they have been getting away with it… until now… because they have been controlling the media and academia.

Think of it more simply.

If an armed gang knocked on your door and demanded that you pay them a percentage of your income, no matter what their reasons might be, then any rational individual will agree that such behaviour is criminal.

Replace “armed gang” with “government”.



 

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See Related:

The Big Debate: Voluntaryism vs. Constitutional Republicanism – Etienne vs. Sam Bushman: Is “Government” Moral?

The Shady History of the Con-stitution

Why the Organized Crime Media Misrepresents Voluntaryism and Peaceful Anarchy as Chaos and Dystopia

 

Why the Organized Crime Media Misrepresents Voluntaryism and Peaceful Anarchy as Chaos and Dystopia

Voluntaryism and Peaceful Anarchy Expose the Violence, Illegitimacy and Criminality of “Government” 

by Etienne de la Boetie2, The Art of Liberty
March 29, 2023

 

Voluntaryism is the only “ISM” that is fair for everyone. All other “ISM” have a ruling class that gets to use violence and extortion on everyone else to achieve socio-economic objectives. Elections are immoral/illogical and easily rigged by monied interests.

Anarchy doesn’t mean “No Rules”; it specifically means “No Rulers,” but because the organized crime “Rulers” don’t want the public to know there is an option on the menu called “No Rulers,” they have used their weaponized media and propaganda system to change the meaning of the word: “No Rulers” to mean: Chaos and Dystopia.

The practice started in France where the organized crime government of 1893 passed the Lois Scelerates (“villainous laws”) that made it illegal even to use the word: Anarchist. Now organized crime uses their control of the media, Wikipedia, and even the dictionary to confuse the public by associating Anarchy with everything from violence to communism.



The Canadian police were caught staging violence with police dressed as “anarchists” during protests against the G8 in Montebello in 2007.

The word “Liberal” went through a similar weaponization. The root word is Liber which means “free,” Early liberals were similar politically to today’s small government “libertarians.” Because organized crime didn’t want the public to know there was an option on the menu called: “free” or “libertarian,” they used their control of the media to popularize the word to mean “leftist.” The term “libertarian” is, in many ways, a re-branding of the word liberal after it was weaponized and hijacked. Many older advocates of freedom refuse to part with such a noble word and refer to themselves to this day as “Classical Liberals” to denote the difference.

The weaponized media propaganda system would have you believe that Anarchy is something to be feared because without “Gubernare Mente”/ Government, there would be Mad Max chaos and murder in the streets. The reality is that Anarchy is a philosophy of peace where most anarchists believe in the NonAggression Principal, where initiating violence is illegitimate except in self-defense or protection of property.

In a world without rulers, there would still be both a market for justice and armed protective services but without monopoly government, the protectors would only be focused on actual crime (not victimless crimes or road piracy). They would not delusionally believe they have rights that others don’t and could be fired immediately at the first sign of abuse. Many legal theorists believe anarchy would lead to dramatically less crime and violence in society with more prosperity for all.

Understanding Propaganda – The Dictionary as a Weapon

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary is owned by Encyclopedia Britannica, which is owned by the Safra banking family, where Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, sits on the Editorial Board of Advisors. You can understand the weaponization of language by comparing the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary definition of Anarchy with the current definition from Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, which has been promoting a pro-Statist version of the word: Socialism in the “Trending Now” section, the #1 spot available to promote a specific word/concept, for over a month as of this writing.

Their own definition of “democratic socialism” laughably claims “would ensure economic growth and a fair distribution of income.” Technically any kind of socialism only achieves “redistribution” at the point of a gun, and “fair” to whom? Who decides? The Bankers and CFR members who own/control Merriam-Webster? Their definition of Socialism also falsely claims that “socialism” was “conflated” with communism when communism IS, by definition, socialism. Compare their claim of socialist “fairness” to their misrepresentation of Anarchy as “Utopian,” disorder and something that “prevailed in the ghetto.”

Voluntaryism (The “Re-Brand”)

Voluntaryism –  A political and social philosophy that all forms of human association should be voluntary and based on the Non-Aggression Principal (NAP) that posits that any initiation of violence on peaceful people is illegitimate, no matter what the outcome, but allows for the use of force in self-defense or to protect property. There is also an understanding that the world is a self-organizing system that produces spontaneous order with no need for top-down hierarchical control of society. In a voluntaryist society, all the “services” provided by the government — from protection to roads to charity — would be better supplied by voluntary interaction, the free market, mutual aid societies, co-ops, non-profits, and genuine charity.

 

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Cover image credit: PublicDomainArchive