At what point would you consider dictatorship to be better than democracy?

Great Debates
1

Say you have one or more of the following situations:

  • A democracy in which many voters are dangerously ignorant/uneducated and cannot be trusted on to vote for the right anything, or worse yet, malevolent and keep voting for malicious parties and candidates or are blinded by conspiracy theories and fake info;
  • A democracy facing an intense threat (pandemic, civil war or some crisis) that requires strongman leadership;
  • A bigger global threat; such as climate change, that requires carbon-emitting nations to be strong-armed into cutting back because the public wouldn’t do it on their own
  • A particular dictator is promising to enact sweeping change that would drastically improve healthcare, environment, taxes, public safety, infrastructure in a way that a gridlocked legislature-democracy wouldn’t

At what point - or in what other situations - might you consider the benefits of dictatorship/tyranny to outweigh those of democracy?

2

Democracy is always better. Government and the governed are dynamic entities, and strongmen are no more likely to act beneficially than a voting populace is. Of course one can set up silly hypotheticals allowing only a choice between “stupid, misguided voters” and “benevolent, smart dictator”, but they will be just that, silly hypotheticals. And even if one could find some real world equivalent, it would not be a stable solution to whatever problem it was set forward as beneficial for.

3

Never. Not even if the dictator is scientifically chosen to be benign and responsive.

4

When I’m in charge! :slight_smile:
Except I think that’s the logic of all those who become dictators.
Come to think of it, I think that’s the logic of those in charge of democracies as well.

5

Dictatorship is never better. There is something in the human condition that seems to prefer a benign dictator as a simple solution to government, but in practice even if it starts out benign it usually becomes decidedly less so very quickly.

The aphorism attributed to Churchill that

remains sadly true.

6
  • A democracy in which many voters are dangerously ignorant/uneducated and cannot be trusted on to vote for the right anything, or worse yet, malevolent and keep voting for malicious parties and candidates or are blinded by conspiracy theories and fake info;

This is pretty much what we already have in the US, and to a lesser extent, Canada. The US still managed to run a decent election where the sensible voters out-voted the idiots, so no need (yet) to eliminate democracy. Since Canada is literally having an election today, check back in with me on, say, Wednesday on the need for a dictator. I’m betting the answer will be “no”, though.

If enough people fell down the rabbit hole that democracy stopped working, why would I expect The Dictator to be any different?

  • A democracy facing an intense threat (pandemic, civil war or some crisis) that requires strongman leadership;

We’ve handled all those without resorting to The Dictator, so why would we need one now? Plus, our democratically elected leaders already have emergency powers if needed, and that should have been at least a small factor in deciding who to vote for - would I trust this person in a crisis? And if they screw it up badly enough, we have means to address that without throwing out democracy. Article 25 in the US, dissolving Parliament (or just a party leadership review) in Canada.

  • A bigger global threat; such as climate change, that requires carbon-emitting nations to be strong-armed into cutting back because the public wouldn’t do it on their own

I’d push better technology long before pressing to eliminate democracy. For example, I think the new electric F-150 that’s coming out next year will blow the electric vehicle market wide open. I expect this truck, and others that follow it, will utterly dominate the light truck sector, just because people want to buy them.

  • A particular dictator is promising to enact sweeping change that would drastically improve healthcare, environment, taxes, public safety, infrastructure in a way that a gridlocked legislature-democracy wouldn’t

If we can do away with the “gridlocked legislature” to empower a Dictator, why can’t we do the same thing, but instead empower a new, less-gridlocked legislature?

The fundamental problem with this, “Let’s all have a Dictator!” solution is that, fundamentally, The Dictator still needs the help of a large segment of the population to get anything done. And if you have that support, you don’t really need to eliminate democracy. Wanna-be dictators are fond of saying, “I alone can fix it!”, but we all know that’s bullshit. Any “fixing” needs the assistance of millions of other people, no matter how you structure that support.

7

When I was the dictator.

8

I’m thinking of all those times I played the computer game Civilization where my strategy was to create democracy, work with that for as long as possible, and then switch to theocratic despotism so I could push large projects through without having to worry about my population’s happiness. For me to embrace a dictator I think I’d have to become totally disillusioned with the entire government and my fellow citizens. But even if the dictator was “my guy,” I can scarcely imagine giving him dictatorial powers given that I might not trust the next person in line.

9

Never. Not ever. Didn’t literally bleed for democracy to give it up just because things look bad or people are idiots.

Pratchett put it best :
"It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: “Kings. What a good idea.” Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.”

10

The main benefit of democracy is it functions as a steam release valve. If things go too far off track then people will vote in a different set of leaders. However certain groups can become so entrenched that no matter who you vote for, certain problems do not get resolved. Supposedly democratic governments have far less war, famine, and other major issues due to this. If things get too bad, the public will vote in someone who they think will solve the issue.

As a hypothetical, if a dictator actually solved problems that democratic leaders refused to solve, no matter how you voted, then a dictator could be better. However in the real world it hardly ever works like that. Dictators have even less incentive to listen to the public’s concerns than democratic politicians. Hoping a benign dictator will choose to remain benign is very dangerous, because he faces no real consequences if he becomes evil. Had groups like the nazis or the socialists of venezuela not been able to undermine democracy after winning elections, they probably would’ve been voted out when they started to screw things up and make life miserable for the public.

11

Using the Covid pandemic as an example, an American dictatorship (ignoring all its other flaws) could potentially have tackled the situation much more effectively. A nationwide vaccine mandate from the very moment vaccines became available, nationwide mask mandate from the very outset of the pandemic, ban on public gatherings, much tougher protocols with much more severe penalties for failure to comply. We might have seen only, say, 5% the deaths and infections that we’ve seen in America today.

12

That’s largely because humans are still fundamentally tribal animals. In a small group, it’s easy to look around, and have everyone decide, “Hey, Bob is a really good hunter who always seems to keep us fed, and away from the tigers and whatnot, so let’s all just listen to him when he tells us what to do.” That doesn’t work so well with large populations, though, since there’s no way everyone can know Bob personally, so as to make a decent judgement of his character. So we resort to other means of Choosing Bob, some of which work better than others.

But in our hearts, most of us still want Bob The Good Hunter to be in charge.

13

Theres a saying ‘never set up a government that you wouldn’t hand over to your worst enemies’ because eventually that could happen.

Also in civilization you don’t need anymore science after a certain point, so theocracy makes sense. Also the public don’t get upset when you go to war. But I’ve found that you still make more money in a democracy vs a theocracy in civilization.

14

I think its worse than that, we evolved in small tribes that were very homogenous. People who looked or acted different probably weren’t related to you and were just a threat to your own tribe since they competed for land and resources. So a lot of people just want a leader who will represent their own tribe and show hostility to competing tribes, even if those competing tribes are your fellow citizens.

15

And it could also have handled it much, much worse. Imagine if Donald “It will fade away! Look at My Economy!” Trump had had dictatorial powers in 2020.

And that’s the problem. There’s no way to guarantee that The Dictator won’t be Donald Trump. And in fact, most of those who would support a dictator would most likely have supported Trump for that position.

16

I am reminded of an SF story from perhaps some time in the 50s or 60s where an ordinary citizen gets a knock on the door. He is to be escorted to his office as the Supreme World President where he will serve for a term. He argues that he has no desire at all for the office, to which the reply is “Exactly. Anyone who WANTS the job is automatically disqualified”.
Can’t recall title or author… anyone remember it?

17

That isn’t actually how it works in small tribal bands. At least, not the ones I’m familiar with, the Southern African Bushmen. They noticeably do not have Big Men. Cutting people down to size is, in fact, something they do a lot. Group dynamics to reduce jealousy and enforce sharing is quite the sophisticated art form in their society.

18

Promising is one thing. Doing is another.

The dictator, by definition, can’t be voted back out. So when it turns out that said dictator was either lying or clueless, one or both of which, judging by the historical evidence, is extremely likely: then the only recourse is civil war. Which will make all of the posited problems even worse.

I’m afraid we’d better stick with democracy, screwed up though it is.

Good grief, no. I wouldn’t be lying, but I’d almost certainly be incompetent.

Anybody’s going to be at least partly incompetent at a job of that size (or even at a job the size of a democratically elected POTUS); but making even a halfassed job of it requires both better social skills and more physical energy than I’ve got available. Also the ability to be woken up suddenly and be actually awake, which I have not got.

19

It should be understood that the primary benefit of democracy isn’t that it produces inherently better outcomes or is has “more freedom” or other high-minded ideals, but that by including “everyone” (for often restrictive values of eligible voters) it ensures that the the populace at least feels like they have an investment int he system even if they don’t get the result that they want, and thus, undermines the impetus for outrage or revolt. When a insurrection happens in a democracy, it is almost always because some segment of the population believes (factually or otherwise) that their votes are not counted or that a decision is pre-determined, e.g. “The Big Lie” of 2020. This is usually because of long standing ethnic divides or a social schism.

A ‘benevolent’ dictatorship could be theoretically more efficient because it does not involve negotiation between competing interests and all of the compromises that come with it. In the classical sense of the term e.g. the Roman Republic, a dictator was someone appointed with plenary authority to deal with a specific crisis for a pre-determined interval, specifically to limit the potential for abuse or inciting an uprising. In reality, most dictatorships end up being very inefficient systems in which nepotism and patronage play a much greater role in advancement that meritocracy, and in which the strong personalities involve dictate policy rather than empirical evidence or market forces. In the modern era, true dictatorships have rarely lasted beyond the death of their leader (North Korea being a notable exception, and then largely because of its isolation from the rest of the world and patronage by the PRC), and most autocracies develop into some kind of power-sharing committee system that if not democratic at least ensures that no one person has absolute control.

One could concoct any number of “emergency” scenarios in which a dictatorship with a competent tyrant would be the theoretically ‘best’ solution to a crisis; however, I think the reality of the situation such as climate change or global pandemic, an autocrat trying to apply solutions regardless of cultural sensibilities, national and regional alliances, et cetera would find themselves wasting more time and effort suppressing insurrection than dealing with the fundamental problems that the dictatorship was created to address. In terms of global problems like climate change or pandemic response, there is actually benefit in collaborative efforts negotiated among nations because specific solutions that work for one nation or region may not be optimal for others.

Stranger

20

Well, it’s a good thing I wouldn’t support you being the dictator then. I on the other hand would be awesome.