… is from page 168 of the 1981 Liberty Fund edition of Felix Morley‘s 1959 volume, Freedom and Federalism; here, Morley is discussing Franklin Roosevelt’s preposterous if much-applauded two “freedoms from” – Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear – in Roosevelt’s January 1941 “Four Freedoms” speech:
Moreover, though this does not bother the communists, there is an obvious tendency which makes freedom from want and freedom from fear mutually contradictory, as soon as they are regarded as dominant government responsibilities. As Robespierre soon discovered, dissenters must be terrorized if egalitarianism is to be enforced.
It is in the nature of the state – whose foundational means of acting is the use of force – to make all people who disobey its diktats fearful. State officials achieve their and their principals’ ends not through voluntary exchange but by making people fear the painful consequences that befall all who disobey these officials’ commands.
