What Tocqueville did not consider was how long such a government would remain in the hands of benevolent despots when it would be so much more easy f… - F.A. Hayek

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.

There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary; the contrast suggested by this statement is altogether false: it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary.

The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest functionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work.