Hayek expanded on these themes in a 1981 interview with the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio. Echoing Schmitt, he argued that, when a government is in a 'situation of rupture', it is 'practically inevitable for someone to have absolute powers'. As the market is necessary to preserve freedom, when the market is threatened, society may temporarily be converted into an organisation, and government may rule by decree. He would prefer a 'liberal dictator', he told the newspaper, to a 'democratic government lacking in liberalism'.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 363