... far too long to recognize the truth ...

Ian Vásquez, director at the Cato Institute, recently published an article about economic freedom in democracy. He cites our beloved Belloc:

Economic freedom allows for independent sources of wealth to counterbalance political power and to nourish a pluralistic society. When the state owns or exerts undue control over banking, credit, telecommunications, or newsprint, for example, it controls not only economic activity, but expression as well. It has taken the world far too long to recognize the truth in the statement of early 20th-century writer Hilaire Belloc that "the control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself."

(eJournal USA: Issues of Democracy. Dec 2005. link)