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… is from page 32 of F.A. Hayek’s 1973 essay “Liberalism” as this essay appears as chapter one of Essays on Liberalism and the Economy [2] (2022), which is volume 18 (expertly edited by Paul Lewis), of The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek [3] (footnote deleted):
But while for these reasons it seems almost certain that unlimited democracy will abandon liberal principles in favour of discriminatory measures benefiting the various groups supporting the majority, it is also doubtful whether in the long run democracy can preserve itself if it abandons liberal principles. If government assumes tasks which are too extensive and complex to be effectively guided by majority decisions, it seems inevitable that effective powers will devolve to a bureaucratic apparatus increasingly independent of democratic control. It is therefore not unlikely that the abandonment of liberalism by democracy will in the long run also lead to the disappearance of democracy. There can, in particular, be little doubt that the kind of directed economy towards which democracy seems to be tending requires for its effective conduct a government with authoritarian powers.