Good Dictatorship vs Bad Democracy

Do you think good dictatorships can exist? If so, which one do you think is better? Also, give me examples of countries using bad democracies/good dictatorships.


Interesting topic,

I believe it depends on the type of person/people running the country.

IMO democracies can only work out if the opposition is indeed working for the betterment of the country.

Take Maldives for example. We endured a dictatorship for 30 years; he appointed his family and friends to political posts, spent every revenue we received for his personal needs, distributed drugs to youth and destroyed a generation, exiled anyone young and educated...I could go on.

In 2008 we fought back and brought democracy with a multi party system. Our country has 3 separate powers though; The Government, The Legal System and the Parliament.

During the dictatorship, Maumoon was incharge of everything. Before he stepped down, his supporters ensured that the Legal System had Judges that cannot be easily removed from their post and had infested the Parliament with corrupted members that bought their way inside by taking advantage of the uneducated rural islands and atolls.

The result? Anything that the government did was considered wrong. The Parliament ensured that no bills or budgets were passed that could be used to implement the current ruling party's manifesto. The Legal System ensured that the Political Criminals and their supported youth cum gangsters never stay behind bars.

Slowly but surely we are now educating the people and gaining a lot of support to make sure that we can make this democracy work out. However, as a last resort, the opposition has now finally, say desperately, used religion as the reason to protest against the government; and it really works out in a sense as we have been considered a "100% muslim" country and hence the long history has really made this sensitive.

Would you believe if I said that the opposition called for the resignation of the current government for starting to impose General Service Tax (after stopping Custom Duties and Tariffs) and Parking Fines right after the same Government started free, no registering required health care for every citizen of the country?

Coming to my point, if the current government leaders are leading a Dictatorship, we'd be developing at an unbelievable rate. The current democratic system is so flawed that the opposition, whose intention is to only bring down the only democracy in the history of Maldives, we are so slow in progress.

That said, if the Government has opposition that ensured that the actions taken are beneficial for the country, and intends to improve rather than delay or stop a country's development plan, democracy in theory is the best option

I think a good dictatorship is possible, but then you get into an issue of succession. Just because the first dictator is good it doesn't mean that the ones that will come after him will be. That being said, dictatorships are conductive to higher corruption, and are usually military-lead, who aren't exactly the smartest blokes in the world, or the ones that care about human rights the most.

I'd much rather live under a bad democracy than a good dictatorship, because I would still have a voice and it can change it into a good democracy, which is unlike the case in a good dictatorship.

A decentralized republic which limits government is much better than a democracy or a dictatorship

Yuri Yukuv wrote:decentralized republic is much better than a democracy

...wat

anyway democracy is fundamentally flawed... out of 100 people you meet on the street, would you trust 51 to make decisions, or even hold sensible opinions, about your country and your personal life? hell no

plus no matter what you do, people everywhere are going to serve their own interests so any kind of ruling system will be, and is, susceptible to corruption

Che you're wrong, read the book The Wisdom of Crowds, you'll be surprised.

Nazi Germany 1932-1938 vs Russia 1917

/thread.

u only need to look at Pakistan, whenever the army/General takes over the the country in a coup everything improves, things happen and our GDP increases and right when a so called Democratic government comes, everything stops and our money drains away and the army is forced to come back...

Nice points from everybody, keep them coming.

What about good dictatorships? Can/do they exist, and cite some examples if they do please.

Dictatorships can rally a population in a unique manner achieve consensus.........and combined with socialism...can work towards providing equality and productive and allocative efficency.The problem is the cost of that....Stalin could've actually survived if Russia actually had enough money to keep subsidizing the buyers and the sellers but that's always a very thin thread.

imalegend wrote:u only need to look at Pakistan, whenever the army/General takes over the the country in a coup everything improves, things happen and our GDP increases and right when a so called Democratic government comes, everything stops and our money drains away and the army is forced to come back...

to build on my point



Miltary Rulers..
1958–1971, 1977–1988 and 1999–2008 (from around 2001-now we have been in war)


one reason i would say Military Dictatorship is good because they are disciplined and they have values, they may be corrupt and they will still do something for their country.

While Politicians when they get into power they do nothing, the only time they do something is before the election and right at the end of their terms

Nationalism: Franco, Salazar-both named as greatest ppl in their countries. Mussolini, Hitler pre-imperialist madness ambitions.

Communism: Hrushev was quite successful

And ofc Qaddaffi if we compare with what Libya was before him. Although has blood on his hands

Lol imalegend, that might be the case in Pakistan, but in Argentina we've gone from being the 7th highest GDP in the world to somewhere in the 50ths due to dictatorships, which included a 15 year recessionary period and a period where the govt killed 30,000 people systematically due to having left-leaning thoughts, or even knowing someone with that kind of thought. Granted this is far from the "good dictatorship" model this thread aims to discuss, but I think dictatorships are flawed by design.

Anyways if you're going to base your argument on economic data you're both wrong and right. In the book The Bottom Billion the author claims that dictatorships in the bottom billion countries have higher growth rates than democracies. This is because dictatorships are allowed to think long-term whereas democracies think in 4 year spans (or whatever the reelection year is, it's not long-term). However, they found that as a democracy becomes more democratic (using the democracy index) the GDP growth increases and surpasses that of a dictatorship. So in economic terms a good dictatorship might surpass a bad democracy, but not a good one.

Grande_Milano wrote:Nationalism: Franco, Salazar-both named as greatest ppl in their countries. Mussolini, Hitler pre-imperialist madness ambitions.

Franco, Hitler and Mussolini all equally ran their countries into the ground, Hitlers "imperialist madness" was needed to fund his insane investions into domestic growth, which was largely based on slave labour and the arms race. Mussolini and Franco both left behind incredibly ineffective governments that took decades to get in order, hell, that haven't gotten in order up to this day.

I don't know where you got your data, but I'd suggest a history book, and not just because they were dispicable racists, but actually because they were horribly bad economists and statesmen.

I have yet to meet 1 Spanish person that thinks highly of Franco

My Mother hates him.......and she hates that i support Real Madrid.It's quite funny actually.........while I doubt he was as bad as Mussolini/Hitler.......his suppression caused anger for many people apparently.

Anyway...no surprise considering the way she talks about him like the devil.

Look at it this way. The alternative for Franco were Bolshevists. Probably worse.

He kept country in one, stopped all regionalism and separatism.

I might be biased, but I think at that time a strong leader was a need for Spain. And overall he transformed country after civil war in a better way.




And if we compare them with democracies. US ofc dont have the "iron hands" control, they use controlled media and the cult of consumerism to draw ppl attention from politics. Probably, smartest way. Thats what other dictatorship countries should ve usen.

Anyway, the foreign policy is in the arms of the elite, and Americans had and have to fight wars they dont need. So, again debatable if this type of democracy is absolutely superior to moderate-authoritarian like Salazar and Franco, esp when they havent had any wars in their time in power

Spain's economy didn't start to expand until Franco left, how did he transform the country in a better way? Regionalism has only increased as a result of Franco's discrimination, and it actually got worse. I'm no expert about him, but I've never heard a positive thing being said about him.

Grande_Milano wrote:Look at it this way. The alternative for Franco were Bolshevists. Probably worse.

No it's not, the Spanish socialists were mostly not that authoritarian, so we have no reason to think they would've been as bad as a facist dictator.

He kept country in one, stopped all regionalism and separatism.

That's neither a good nor a bad thing though, if the regions are really that heterogenic, why don't you just balcanize the country and have it be a couple new states? Better than force people who hate each other to live under the same flag.

Besides, centrilization is not a virtue to me, you can easily have some kind of federal system, which democracies like the US and Germany manage to keep rather democratic - and independent.

I might be biased, but I think at that time a strong leader was a need for Spain. And overall he transformed country after civil war in a better way.

Needed for what? To fix their distinct lack of racism and persecuting people for their beliefs? I'm not saying Spain wasn't in need of modernization, but just because a fascist was in charge at the time most of Europe modernized doesn't mean that racist assholes are a great choice to run a country.

And if we compare them with democracies. US ofc dont have the "iron hands" control, they use controlled media and the cult of consumerism to draw ppl attention from politics. Probably, smartest way. Thats what other dictatorship countries should ve usen.

Those aren't really hallmarks of democracies, though, those are problems democracies have, or rather: shouldn't have. And, in fact, they don't. At least not in the way you put it. The government doesn't control the media. Corporations control the media. That isn't necessarily better, but the US have enough free media to inform the people who actually want to be informed, so do all of the Western- and Central-European states.

Anyway, the foreign policy is in the arms of the elite, and Americans had and have to fight wars they dont need. So, again debatable if this type of democracy is absolutely superior to moderate-authoritarian like Salazar and Franco, esp when they havent had any wars in their time in power

This isn't due to democracy, though, this is due to doctrin. Russia fought as many weird wars as the US did during the cold war and they were a dictatorship. Germany is a democracy and literally fought no wars between '45 and '99, and even when democracies do fight a war, they tend to behave a hell of a lot better than autocratic regimes do.

Sure, democracies do f*cked up shit, that's not the point, the point is: they do less f*cked up shit than other types of regimes.

I mean I'm German, and from what my grandparents tell me, you sure should prefer to be occupyed by the French, English or Americans instead of the Russians, who basically behaved like the Nazis, except with screwing everyone, instead of just people with the wrong colour or surname.

So... Yeah. No, not a big fan of authoritarian types of government.
And I've never seen the huge deal with Socialism. Socialism is fine by me, dicatorship always was the problem. Lack of freedom in so-called communist states always came because they were led by dictators, not because Marxist ideology demands it - because it doesn't.

Well, Spain was in shambles and its economy was in shambles. He did really revive the country. It didnt went as good as Italy, Germany and Japan economical miracles, but remember these countries lost the ability to position themseleves and sweared loyalty to one of big players. Spain on the other hand wasnt in any unions.

And also freedom is debatable. As well looking through the perspective of humanism, liberalism and rights solely. There are a lot of countries that enjoy 'freedom' and 'democracy' in the world, but are in hard economic and political conditions. Haiti for instance.

My take on Franco, Salazar, Mussolini and national-socialism China now, is that they ve done pretty darn good. Could ve done better, could ve done worse.

2 Viva:

Regionalism is bad, bad and bad. The regions weaken themselves and weaken country as well. Everybody loses. In geopolitical game, other players will take their chance to take influence of them. Usually regionalism is sponsored by outside forces. If countries start dividing, we should hell end in small states and tribes.

Socialists were sponsored by Soviets, Stalin would ve not lose chance to take over later.

As for unions, Germany is tied up and doesnt have any free economic and low level of foreign policy. Moreover, crisis exposes the problems of such unions like EU.

As for occupation. Just read interview of a reporter with Afghani citizen. He witnessed both Soviet and US occupation. His take on it was that Soviets were actually better. They did bomb them and there were civilians casualties, but always told before it so ppl can avoid it. Soviet government provided the work for everyone in the country who wasnt Muhadjideen

Now: US soldiers as he said dont respect a little. No sponsorship from them to try to transform the country, only funding military. Afganistan became center of drug trade, crime and terrorism. A democratic state.


So I think it differs in every case what is better. Franco and Salazar I see as more positive figure, esp with Bolshevik alternative. Mussolini and Hitler built really good states, but their obsession with imperialism ended tragically.

"Good" dictatorships are extremely rare. So rare, I would not risk being under one because the chances of getting a decent guy/party are very limited, and most of the time all you're getting is an asshole.

At least in a functioning democracy you only have to suffer 4 or whatever years, then vote out whatever failures you had in power. Most of the time you vote for a lesser asshole, but it's still leagues better than whatever dictator power freak you had.

If you have a smart dictator, he'll make damn sure he stays in power for long and maybe even earn popular vote, like Chávez has done here. IMO, the benefits of a dictator are offset by the inevitable crash and civil war that may be produced which can all leave a country in shambles, like in the Arab countries. But I don't see that happening in many places, at least not here. People here are far too conformist and self centered to take matters into their own hands.

I would sure as hell not give the future of a whole country to 1 man, who like every human being on this planet is flawed and will inevitably frack up. Sure as hell not self centered madmen as most dictators are.

The thing is, life under a dictator is horrible.

India - democracy? - sure

only thing is people have to elect the same dynastic family again and again, from nehru to indira gandhi to rajiv to sonia's puppet our current pm to rahul..

its almost like dictatorship except that i can call my pm a glove puppet and get away with it

I would make an awesome dictator. My people would love me............or else.