error Coercion

Force and compulsion in society

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"Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power."

— Friedman, Milton event 1962

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"The first reason why men serve willingly is that they are born serfs and are reared as such. From this there follows another result, namely that people easily become cowardly and submissive under tyrants. For the people, being numbed and having been made sleepy, are little by little lulled into insensibility, and accustomed to the idea of serving."

— de La Boétie, Étienne event 1576

menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

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"This single tyrant need not be combated, need not be defeated; he is automatically defeated if the country refuses to consent to its own enslavement. It is not necessary to deprive him of anything; simply give him nothing. There is no need for the country to do anything for itself, provided it does nothing against itself."

— de La Boétie, Étienne event 1576

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Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

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Written around 1549 by the young French magistrate Étienne de La Boétie and first published posthumously in 1576, this founding text of libertarian...

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