Friedrich August von Hayek Democracy Quotations

By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.

It is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

It is when it is contended that "in a democracy right is what the majority makes it to be" that democracy degenerates into demagoguery.

If democracy is a means rather than an end, its limits must be determined in the light of the purpose we want it to serve.

It is one of the saddest spectacles of our time to see a great democratic movement support a policy which must lead to the destruction of democracy and which meanwhile can benefit only a minority of the masses who support it. Yet it is this support from the Left of the tendencies toward monopoly which make them so irresistible and the prospects of the future so dark.

When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself.