Well, you were a sharp kid!
It is my belief that it wasn't that it didn't occur to them. It was they were also socialists at heart. Or at least statists. When you realize how popular socialism, communism, and fascism were between WW1 and the end of WW2 it starts to make sense. The ideas of liberty and free markets were dropped by intellectuals and the common man was fed lies about organized labor and democracy.
Right, my view now is that they never believed the case for freedom over control. At the time, I couldn't imagine that people didn't believe what they said.
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Yeah, sadly there are "adults" walking around with jobs that still don't seem to get this with politicians and authority figures.
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