“The most important change which extensive government control produces,” Hayek observes, “is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of a people.” … It takes, Hayek notes, “perhaps. . . one or two generations”

Hayek was of course right. But I think for people who are not convinced by his mostly theoretical predictions, a reading of some Theodore Dalrymple, such as Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass is apt to be more persuasive. The welfare state has more than a few victims, even when it remains a democracy.