Hayek repeatedly praised Pinochet, Salazar, and Suharto’s dictatorships as liberty-preserving

Evidence

This was not the first time Hayek had expressed sympathy for liberal dictators. In 1978, he singled out Pinochet and the Portuguese dictator Oliveira Salazar as leaders of ‘authoritarian governments under which personal liberty was safer than under many democracies’. In 1962, he sent Salazar a copy of The Constitution of Liberty with a note expressing his hope that it would help the dictator ‘design a constitution which is proof against the abuses of democracy’. Five years later, Hayek praised the regime of Indonesia’s General Suharto – also brought to power by a CIA-backed anti-communist coup – in similar terms. In each case, the threat that democracies would interfere with the ‘spontaneous order’ of the market led him to support brutally violent dictatorships that were prepared to take all necessary measures to preserve existing inequalities. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 363

Categorization

• XREF: The repeated pattern across Chile, Portugal, and Indonesia strengthens the generalizable claim that market-liberal doctrine aligned with anticommunist authoritarianism globally. — connects to: A German pro-market economist excused Pinochet-era repression while resenting traffic lights at home — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 344; Hayek and Friedman personally advised and legitimized the Pinochet dictatorship. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 305; Hayek actively defended the Pinochet regime against human rights criticism. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 304 (+11 more)
• SHARE: The 1962 Salazar letter — Hayek sending a democracy-proof constitution draft to a dictator — is the kind of specific archival detail a political-history colleague would relish.

Broader Connections

• Hayek directly legitimized Pinochet’s dictatorship as more liberal than unrestricted democracy. #corroborates (1.00) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1592
• Hayek publicly defended self-limiting dictatorships as possibly more liberal than unrestrained democracy #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2151
• Hayek claimed a self-limiting dictatorship can out-liberalize an unbounded democracy #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1638
• Hayek preferred a liberal dictator over a democracy that impinges on markets #corroborates (0.95) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 363
• Hayek distinguished authoritarian from totalitarian regimes to exempt Chile from criticism #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1590
• Hayek ranked freedom above democracy and would temporarily sacrifice democratic procedure for it #qualifies (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2152
• Hayek endorsed suspending freedom to preserve market institutions long-term #corroborates (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 362