Fine. You have your opinion but it is just your opinion. Throughout history and geography people have held and hold other opinions as well. Lots of people believe it is God who imparts legitimacy. Many believe in a generic “democracy” but would disagree on the particulars. Most people would disagree on the legitimacy of laws and actions of the government when they feel they are unfair, no matter how democratically elected they were. Native Americans would not think the governments which kicked them around were “legitimate” because they were elected. Blacks being oppressed would not think it was all legitimate because there were elections held. Algerians did not quite feel the legitimacy of the French was sufficient.
Gays, Mexicans, … you think those who get the short end of the stick should just suck it up because the government who did it had some “legitimacy”? That was the story when it was God who gave legitimacy. losers were told to suck it up because it was god himself who made it all legitimate and if he made you black well, you better just suck it up, because that was his will.
Legitimacy is completely subjective and you can claim it is the votes which impart it while others may say it is god and others can say it is the actions of the government which give it legitimacy. Your opinion is one of many and is worth as much as any other.
Legitimacy is just the concept used by those who got the better deal to suppress and shut up those who got the worse deal.
I do not feel any need for the concept of legitimacy of a government. I feel it is a concept only useful for telling people to shut up and do as they’re told. I do not care to consider whether the government of the USA is more “legitimate” than the government of China or the Vatican. I could discuss whether particular actions of each government are “legitimate” according to my morals and values but not the government itself.
All governments rule by force. There is no other way. A government which has no power to exert force is not a government. This has nothing to do with legitimacy.
Good for you but most people would rather live in peace and safety than in a republic where they have no way to make a living and they fear for their lives.
Agreed - and we’re sort of proving that the subject of “nations in/and Spain” is so complicated that even those of us who aren’t anything resembling an independentist can’t quite agree about it. I’d offer to have a nice little discussion over calamari and your choice of beverage but I don’t think we’re anywhere close
At this point, I would be willing to say that as long as the dictator made a half-assed effort to not kill innocent people, he’d be alright. And by innocent, I mean people not participating in armed rebellion or people reasonably likely to be guilty of murder. By reasonably likely, I mean 51% chance.
It sounds like even that wouldn’t work. Suppose, hypothetically, that you had 1 million elite troops all unquestionably loyal to you (maybe they are robots, whatever). If you declared yourself “supreme dictator of the Americas”, using the troops to capture all the military bases and guard every street corner, it does not seem like you could get out of having to kill a large number of people to prove that surrendering to you is better than fighting.
The unavoidable flaw in dictatorial rule is human mortality. Let’s say an individual is an ideal benevolent dictator: he’s genuinely competent and has the best interests of his nation, his people, and humanity in general in mind. So while he is an absolute ruler, he uses his power for good and makes the nation a better place.
And then what happens? He dies. No matter how good he is, that part is unavoidable. So now either some other person steps into the dictatorship or the country has to create a new form of government. Either way, the benevolent dictator failed in one of the basic standards of good rule; he did not make a plan for his succession.
A government built on a foundation of democratic institutions can survive the death of individuals and continue indefinitely. A government built on the basis of one man rule is inherently going to face political crisis every time the one man dies.
Even dictators like Franco who were replaced by a democratic system, have to answer to this. They, after all, forced their country to go through a political crisis caused by their death and the transition to new system. They don’t get much credit just because the nation survived the trouble they caused.
The democratically elected leaders they are being compared to get a free pass in the killing of innocent people? Why?
The question being asked is “Are there 20th century examples of dictators who were good leaders and better than elected polticos?”
Why are we using different yardsticks to judge the dictators and the elected politicians?
I would dare say there are very few examples of powerful leaders of countries who are not reponsible for many deaths of innocents. It does not matter whether the leaders were elected or not, what matters is their position.
I would guess pretty much all colonial powers are responsible for the killing of innocents in their colonies. They were elected by their home populations, not by the colonized. Today the majority of Americans support policies which result in the killing of innocents. Being a democracy does not prevent committing attrocities at all.
If dictators do not get a pass then elected leaders should not either.
Since we are talking about Franco it is interesting to note that he cut his military teeth fighting in Morocco. This left him with a fondness for things Moroccan which would last for the rest of his life (like many of the military of that time). When the time came for Moroccan independence he was ready and did not want to fight to keep northern Morocco Spanish. He understood that the time of colonialism had passed.
The question of legitimacy is being attacked in the wrong way. The issue is not legitimacy, it is the power of the people to effect change in the government. In a dictatorship, if you want to change the government, the only real tool you have is a bullet. You have to be willing to kill others and risk your own life, ultimately. In a democracy, you can effect change with a ballot. Sure, it’s often a weak, crappy not at all likely of succeeding method of effecting change, but at least you can use it without having to kill someone, or get killed (especially get killed!).
(That’s why Sarah Palin’s “How’s that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?” comment was such a burn … it was the triumphant cry of the powerful telling the downtrodden they had no chance, that no matter who got elected, they were screwed. I’ll grant you, she probably didn’t REALIZE what she was saying, but … that’s what she was saying.)
That is good and works for those who believe in that. Many don’t. Just like legitimacy comes from God works for those who believe that legitimacy comes from God.
For those that believe that the game is rigged and you just can’t win you can try to convince them that it is not so, just like you can try to convince those who believe that God is the ultimate giver of legitimacy that it ain’t so.
But let us not pretend that belief in any political system is self-evident.
That the legitimacy of a government rests on the consent of the governed is not a characteristic of some governments and not of others - it is a bedrock fact of political philosophy. All governments that stay in power - dictatorships, monarchies, and all the rest - have that consent; if they didn’t, they’d be history. What most often distinguishes dictators from other heads of government is that the consent of the governed is coerced to a greater degree than for other forms.
The preference for democratic government (among those who prefer it, naturally) is because the consent of the governed, and the quality thereof, is right out there in the open where everyone can see it. Every government draws criticism, and every government coerces the obedience of its opponents. There is nothing about elections that magically prevents abuse of power. But it’s characteristic of dictators that they dictate, and so it’s usually true of dictatorships that they are more coercive than democracies.
Too much coercion degrades the consent of the governed, and so dictators begin to suppress dissent, and of course all they get is submission. Good governments do not have to suppress dissent; instead, they earn loyalty. Not that it necessarily makes a country good to live in - the fanatical loyalty of even a large majority, combined with the best intentions of the government, can’t make bad decisions into good ones, or turn incompetence into wisdom.
All of which means that if you praise Franco because he was less feckless than the Republicans, you’re not arguing with the concept of the legitimacy of government, you’re asserting that his government was legitimate.
I’m not following you. If you have an evil dictator and you want to change his plans, and he is not at all inclined to listen to reason (think Saddam Hussein) then your only choice is to meet the violence he uses to govern with violence of your own, i.e., rebellion or assassination. At least in a democracy you have a shot at changing the government without bloodshed. I do not see what this has to do with “belief” … perhaps you could suggest a circumstance under which this is not so?
It depends on who you talk to. For some, that Singapore is a one-party state is good enough to say LKY is a dictator. From what I gathered (being a Singaporean), the main beef seems to be the repression of free speech and political activism.
For instance, during a period of time, the PAP (the dominant party in Singapore) and LKY would sue opposition politicians, accusing them of libel. Ordinary, what the opposition say would be just bread and butter in the US, but in Singapore it’s good enough cause for you to be sued into bankruptcy. There were also attempts to suppress the art scene for fears it would cause instability. Not to mention - you cannot hold any rallies or protests, and LKY decided that free speech is not worth the trouble.
Essentially, LKY is of the mindset that stability comes before freedom.
I’m not saying a dictatorial system can’t have a succession plan. I’m just saying it can’t be judged as “good”.
Even if the current dictator in power is a genuinely good person, history has shown that most dictators are not good and abuse their power. So even a good dictator is perpetuating a system that will eventually put a bad dictator in power because the good dictator will eventually die.
So a good dictator can plan on being succeeded. But he can’t plan on being succeeded by a series of other good dictators. Eventually somebody picks a Commodus.
Not really. You can’t really give credit to a historical figure who picked the wrong side and then brought it down when that wasn’t his intent. Self-destruction is not a virtue.
And even in the specific case of Mussolini’s influence on Hitler, it’s a wash. Yes, you can make an argument that Mussolini was a factor in Hitler’s downfall (Hitler himself claimed this but he was seeking excuses for his own failures). But Mussolini also was a factor in Hitler’s rise to power.
In general terms I agree but, again, the object of this thread is not whether dictatorship in abstract is a better or worse system than democracy, the object of this thread is specific examples of dictators who were good leaders and better than elected politicians and Franco fits the bill. His regime was stable and orderly for almost 35 years and it succeded an elected regime which lasted a bit over five years and in that time was unable to provide any stability or order. When they filled in the application form, under “plans for future succession”, they wrote "self-destruct and take the country with us’. That’s how bad they were.
Hitler didn’t need any help losing the war, he lost it all on his own. If you are referring to Hitler having to pull Mussolini’s bacon out of the fire in Greece, this didn’t delay the invasion of the USSR as is sometimes claimed. Pushing the start date for Barbarossa back from May 15 to June 22 was due to the weather and lack of logistical preparation. May 15 was extremely optimistic even had the weather been normal, but spring 1941 was very wet and the rivers of Eastern Europe were at flood levels late into spring. In any event, operations in Greece were concluded on April 30, and German forces used in the Balkans were already back into position for the launch of Barbarossa by mid-May.
I disagree. First, Franco and his like brought civil war and after his victory massive repression and executions. You can hardly argue that the civil war was better than the years prior. And as for being later on stable and orderly, there’s no way you can know that the Republic wouldn’t have done as much or better during the next 40 years or so. You can’t make the assumption that the situation in Spain in 1970 would have been exactly the same than in 1935. In fact, making such an assumption is ludicrous.
And besides, you’re saying that this supposed increased stability was well worth the turmoils and deaths of the civil war and decades of repression. Again, that seems preposterous to me.
I disagree. First, Franco and his like brought civil war and after his victory massive repression and executions. You can hardly argue that the civil war was better than the years prior. And as for being later on stable and orderly, there’s no way you can know that the Republic wouldn’t have done as much or better during the next 40 years or so. You can’t make the assumption that the situation in Spain in 1970 would have been exactly the same than in 1935. In fact, making such an assumption is ludicrous.
And besides, you’re saying that this supposed increased stability was well worth the turmoils and deaths of the civil war and decades of repression. Again, that seems preposterous to me.
Instead of deciding to compare Spain under Franco in 1970 and the Republican Spain in 1935, why aren’t you comparing it to Spain in 2000? Obviously, the much better situation of Spain in 2000 proves to what extent Franco was incredibly bad by comparison to the democratic system what would have existed without him, doesn’t it?
The second Spanish Republic was in charge for a bit over five years. In that time churches were being burnt, priests and nuns were being killed, there was a state of virtual civil war with daily murders, the leader of the opposition was killed by the state police, the rhetoric was that of a communist revolution modeled after the Soviet Union. That was the road to the future. And we don’t know what would have happened if they had continued in power? They may have suddenly turned into Mother Theresa? How much longer should one wait to find out? The Soviet Union took many decades of misery and repression before it fell. Pretty much the same thing in China under Mao. North Korea and Cuba are still holding out and just look at them. And in Spain which was headed down the same road people should have waited longer to see how things would turn out? Sorry but it was quite clear how they were already turning out. Clear enough that when the military lead the uprising millions of Spaniards supported them and fought against the Republic.
Franco died in 1975 and left a country with a solid middle class and a stable economy which allowed further development and democratization after his death.
To say the economy would have fared better had the republic continued until 1975 is… well, an interesting point of view. It would have been the one only case in history of a communist country doing well. Compare east and west Germany. It was not the communist side which fared better in any sense.
Yes, it was the side with democracy that fared better. That’s one of the reasons democracy works. When a government goes too far towards an extreme, the people vote a new government in. Dictatorships forestall that possibility, which is why all the extreme regimes you see in history are non-democratic.
Personally, I find your argument weak. Franco established a brutal dictatorship. It’s hard to justify that by claiming that if he hadn’t done so his opponents might have established a brutal dictatorship. An actual dictatorship is worse than a possible one.
I also think you’re over-estimating the possibility of a communist regime in Spain. This was back in the thirties. The number of communist countries in the world still stood at one - it’s unlikely Spain would have been the second one. Stalin wasn’t able or willing to invest the resources to impose a communist regime in Spain (he had problems closer to home at the time) and the rest of the world would have opposed a communist regime. I estimate the possibility around one percent. Hardly justification for creating a anti-communist dictatorship instead.
I also dispute the claim that Franco came to power with majority support. He was a general who had the most guns. And a substantial number of his troops were from Spain’s colonial empire. But even with these advantages it took him three years to secure power - hardly evidence he was welcomed by the people.
