Freedom is not measured by how much a person possesses, but by the restrictions and shackles under which he lives. Throughout history, politicians have used other people's property to buy themselves power. That is the primary achievement of the welfare state. The danger of government handouts to freedom was clear to some political writers hundreds of years ago. The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.
Government handouts insinuate political power into the deepest recesses of a person's life.
And when the time is ripe, politicians take command where they previously lavished their gifts. Essays in Honour of Friedrich A. von Hayek, Erich Streissler, ed. Ibid., p. 108. Quoted in F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. Quoted in Marvin Gettleman and David Mermelstein, eds.