Voluntary Servitude (Boetie)

While Boetie presents an interesting argument, I believe that his argument is lacking one aspect. In regards to a nation which is under tyrannical rule and wants to rid themselves of his rule I do believe that withdrawing your obedience will in fact undercut the tyrants. However, territory that has been conquered I think will require much more than just the withdrawing of obedience. Boetie seems to have been fond of Greek classics, meaning he probably knew the story about the Athenians and the Melians. The story ends with the Athenians conquering Melian and committing grave crimes against the Melian people and finally basically colonizing Melian. To the Melians they probably considered the Athenians as tyrants. They never gave their obedience to this new government, how could they possible topple the tyrant rule by withdrawing the obedience they never gave to this oppressive government?

As such, Boetie’s argument needs to be expanded to include not just literal tyrant governments, but any type of government in which any portion of the population believes that they are being ruled by a tyrant(s). Specifically vast empires, such as the British Empire, that colonizes other land and people. The basically flaw in Boetie’s argument is that it does not include this scenario. It can easily be fixed, be expanding on the notion of civil disobedience by saying that to successfully topple a ‘tyrant’ government it requires not just the disobedience of the victims, but that it requires a majority of the population as well as a significant portion of the citizens of the oppressors for this idea to work.