Is there “good” dictatorships?
My personal opinion is there is no good dictator (ok, in HN context, BDFL in a SW project)
I like no totalitarian regime. No one.
A benevolent dictator is the best form of government. Unfortunately though power corrupts and they have a habit of becoming self serving, and very much not benevolent.
I'm not just talking at the nation-state level, but at community, company, sports and so on. There's no shortage of Open Source projects run using the Benevolent Dictator approach.
Compare that to companies run by committee (or governments run by dead-locked congresses) which preport to "represent the people" but just turn into "nothing gets done" factories.
So yes, there are good dictatorships. They're especially good at getting stuff done.
How is a dictatorship different from a monarchy? There have been plenty of good monarchies throughout history. Frederick The Great, created the Prussian State. Stuart’s were well loved that they ended parliamentary democracy to restore the Stuarts. Victorian, Elizabethan era were also prosperous and well known. Ceasar was the final monarch who united the enmity between the nobles and plebs.
The problem is we look at those states and all we see is the existence of slavery (that existed in all societies till at least 1800AD), women being relegated to a different social role etc. But it is wrong to assume that any of those were due to monarchy and that a monarchy in the modern age would not rule based on modern values. Just look at Singapore, for a small example of a monarchy ruling based on current social mores. Unfortunately since WW1, monarchies throughout the world have vanished, and all we have are liberal democracies, so we can’t say either way.
Xi is not all powerful; no one person is. The state is powerful, not an individual. And all states are ultimately authoritarian. The only question is what form and to what end.
f1shy|11 months ago
bruce511|11 months ago
I'm not just talking at the nation-state level, but at community, company, sports and so on. There's no shortage of Open Source projects run using the Benevolent Dictator approach.
Compare that to companies run by committee (or governments run by dead-locked congresses) which preport to "represent the people" but just turn into "nothing gets done" factories.
So yes, there are good dictatorships. They're especially good at getting stuff done.
There are also obviously bad dictatorships.
sashank_1509|11 months ago
The problem is we look at those states and all we see is the existence of slavery (that existed in all societies till at least 1800AD), women being relegated to a different social role etc. But it is wrong to assume that any of those were due to monarchy and that a monarchy in the modern age would not rule based on modern values. Just look at Singapore, for a small example of a monarchy ruling based on current social mores. Unfortunately since WW1, monarchies throughout the world have vanished, and all we have are liberal democracies, so we can’t say either way.
dijit|11 months ago
goodpoint|11 months ago
A good dictator is a...
ever1337|11 months ago