The Road To Serfdom

I’ve just started to read F.A. Hayek’s "The Road to Serfdom" – and I happen to stumble over this

 quote from Pelosi and Marx on ‘Freedom’ over at the American Thinker:

Friedrich Hayek wrote about this subtle shift in the word "freedom" over sixty years ago. He argued that as socialists began coming under fire for promoting servitude and control, they made the creative decision to harness to their "cart the strongest of all political motives — the craving for freedom." For Hayek,

The subtle change in meaning to which the word ‘freedom’ was subjected in order that this argument sound plausible is important.  To the great apostles of political freedom the word had meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the arbitrary power of other men, release from the ties which left the individual no choice but obedience to the orders of a superior to whom he was attached.

For the socialists, however, "before man could be truly free, the ‘despotism of physical want’ had to be broken, the ‘restraints of the economic system’ relaxed." For Hayek, this new definition of freedom was simply "another name for the old demand for an equal distribution of wealth."

Hayek asks a fascinating question that each and every American needs to consider before deciding whether to return any Obamacare-supporting politician to power this fall:

Who can seriously doubt … that the power which a multi-millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest [bureaucrat] possess 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?

Nancy Pelosi’s theory of "economic freedom," you see, requires legions of new bureaucrats wielding the power of the state so that you can be liberated from your inauthentic, job-locked selves. If we take freedom in its true meaning — as freedom from coercion — we see instantly, however, that indeed, I am less coerced by a neighboring millionaire than by the tiniest government bureaucrat deciding where and when I can see a doctor, go to school, or become job-locked.

The calculus of Progressives that is always shown "we will make you free from the vicissitudes of life".  The translation is that you can have X, Y AND Z and it will cost you nothing.  The flip side is the phrase "There ain’t such thing as a free lunch" is not in their lexicon; if it were, the jig would be up.  The only way they can make this tune sing is to never say that your freedom comes at the expense and freedom of another.

Is it right to demand an entitlement from others for your freedom?