Wealth & Money Quote by Walter Lippmann

Lippmann’s line is a cold splash of realism on the romance of democratic self-rule. The sting is in “after a little freedom”: he concedes the intoxicating trial period, then suggests the hangover arrives fast. Freedom, in his telling, isn’t primarily a right people cling to; it’s a burden they test-drive and often return. What replaces it is “authority,” not because authority is noble, but because it’s efficient. The phrase “consoling assurances” names the psychological payoff: someone else narrates the world, trims uncertainty into talking points, and turns chaos into a story with villains, fixes, and timelines.

The real bite is “economy of effort.” Lippmann isn’t flattering the public; he’s diagnosing a market for cognitive shortcuts. Self-government demands attention, patience, and the willingness to sit with ambiguity. Authority offers a subscription model: fewer decisions, less homework, more emotional certainty. The quote’s subtext is that mass politics, left to its own devices, doesn’t reliably produce enlightened citizens; it produces exhausted ones, ripe for managerial experts or charismatic strongmen to step in and “handle it.”

Context matters. Writing in the early 20th century, Lippmann watched propaganda techniques mature through World War I and saw modern media’s ability to manufacture consent. He doubted the average citizen could track complex industrial societies without intermediaries. Read now, the line lands like a warning about algorithmic newsfeeds and political brands: when freedom feels like an endless to-do list, authority starts to look like self-care.