Hayek On Economists Who Get Corrupted By Government

During a February 1983 interview, Friedrich Hayek said:

By moving around the world I have avoided that corruption which government service regularly involves.

And more sadly, I have seen in some of my closest friends and sympathizers—I won’t mention any names—who completely agreed with me, how a few years in government corrupted them intellectually and made them unable to think straight.[...]All my friends who have gone into it and stayed for any length of time have, in my sense, been corrupted.

This certainly applies as much to those who enter politics. If a politician wants to stay in office, he must move his positions so that he can gain 50% plus 1 of the vote. Since the masses presently tend to favor coercion by government in many aspects of society, a libertarian politician must move in this direction.