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Just as a herdsman is superior in nature to his herd, so kings, who are herdsmen of men, are superior in nature to their people.Thus, the emperor of Caligula reasoned, inferring truly enough from this analogy that kings are gods, or that men are brutes...Aristotle had likewise said that men are not naturally equal, but that some are born for slavery and others for dominion.

Aristotle was right, but he mistook effect for the cause. Every man born in slavery is born for slavery; nothing is more certain. Slaves lose everything in their bonds, even the desire to escape from them; they love their servitude as the companions of Ulysses loved their brutishness. If ,then, there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves contrary to nature. The first slaves were made by force; their cowardice kept them in bondage.

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The strongest man is never strong enough to be always master, unless he transforms his power into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, a right apparently assumed in irony, and really established in principle...Force is physical power; I do not see what morality can result from its effects. To yield to force is an act of necessity , not will; it is at most an act of prudence. In what sense can it be duty?

Jean Jacques Rousseau,
from
"The social contract and discourse on the origin of inequality"