In a book written more than four hundred years ago (Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, 1548), La Boétie conveyed his astonishment about people “acquiescing to their own servitude.” Ruling Oneself Out restates the problem: why do groups legitimize the prospect of their political incapacity and, by way of consequence, the possibility of their servitude? I address this question by considering two parliamentary decisions of crucial historical significance: the parliamentary surrenders of constitutional authority in Germany (March 1933) and in France (July 1940). These events have paradigmatic value because they are clear-cut cases of collective abdications and because they lend themselves to explanations that seem as obvious as they are commonsensical. People abdicate because they face coercive pressures. They abdicate because they misjudge the consequences of their action. Or they abdicate because their ideology predisposes them to do so.