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

Great Debates
21

Yes, it could have, but it could have been even worse. Some of the worst responses to the pandemic worldwide have come from authoritarian regimes, which have apparently put more stock in denying that such a problem exists than actually fixing the problem.

China was somewhat of an outlier in that it’s an authoritarian society that actually did manage the pandemic well for the most part - it went to extremes to do so, in fact. More often than not, though, in democratic societies, there’s inherently greater accountability when political systems fail at something. One of the reasons the US has failed to respond well is that many of the leaders in this country responsible for mounting a response to COVID are themselves authoritarian

That being said, democracies function only as well as the quality of their collective analysis, decision making, and behavior will enable them to. My general prediction is that the world as a whole is about to enter a period of markedly less freedom, and it will have a lot to do with climate change, and how climate change reshapes politics and even political boundaries. Climate change is going to place unbearable stress on political systems, both democratic and undemocratic ones. But the appeal of the ones that are less democratic is that they will have greater political efficiency.

22

As far as I know, all of those could have been done by a strong democratically elected leader, as well. If part of your hypothetical includes the cultural, social, and political divide we currently have, then the resistance we are seeing now would still be happening under a dictator, and we’d presumably have to worry even more about a group deciding to overthrow the government.

In general, tyranny is just not a good idea. No one is going to do the right thing 100% of the time. Making it more possible to act without any oversight, transparency, or accountability is not going to improve the odds. And even assuming a stable (genious), benevolent, dictator, you always will have to contend with the succession problem. There’s a good chance you’ll have the dear leader’s offspring as your next leader. Offspring, crony, or violent clash/coup victor are the typical successors.

23

Just recall how badly a would-be dictator actually did handle the pandemic in the US. The US might have better governments if they actually encouraged everyone to vote. One of the most interesting parts of the voting rights act that Manchin is desperately trying to block is that everyone be able to vote within 30 minutes of getting to the polls. Although how that could be enforced escapes me.

I think that at least some dictators (Castro comes to mind) started out with good intentions. Then they stepped on some toes (what government decision doesn’t?) and the victim, having no legitimate way to dissent, starts acting up and is put down because the dictator is too busy to listen. It goes downhill from there. Castro did do some good things. Education and health care. But he didn’t stop there.

24

Well, many governors are would-be despots, and depending on state constitutions and agreement of the legislature may have greater or lesser authority to impose or limit public health measures, although as some have discovered they do not have plenary authority to limit municipalities and school districts from imposing individual mandates. The federal executive has very limited authority over public health because there is no provision in the US Constitution specifically granting powers to the President to impose public health measures and all just orders have to be framed as applying more narrowly to federal employees or via interpretations of the Commerce Clause. The real failure of the United States to manage the pandemic as effectively as other democratic nations is primarily due to the propaganda campaign that is specifically denying the harms or even existence of the SARES-CoV-2 pandemic which has gone hand-in-hand with voter suppression, promulgation of baseless election fraud claims, and fascistic political movements.

As for China, it is easy to characterize the government as having dealt effectively with the initial and subsequent outbreaks within their borders, but of course it is the lack of transparency and willful misrepresentation that allowed the contagion to grow to pandemic proportions without international surveillance, and it is anyones’ guess as to what their morbidity numbers actually look like and what the long term effects are. What we can say is that China focused their vaccine strategy on a single development of the Sinovac Biotech CoronaVac vaccine which despite initial reported efficacy has been independently evaluated has having lower efficacy than the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Janssen-Johnson & Johnson, and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines developed in the US and UK. Given that the long term solution to this pandemic is by developing more effective vaccines, better epidemiological surveillance systems, and and greater public health educational efforts, and not indefinite restrictive lockdowns, I would question the claim that China has really been ultimately that effective.

Stranger

25

Good post @Stranger_On_A_Train – I don’t disagree that it’s an open question just how ‘successful’ China has been.

Short on time but wanted to make the point that an authoritarian-leaning system that includes some democratic mechanisms somewhere within the system could probably work. What seems destined to fail is a cult-of-personality dictatorship that operates on loyalty to a person, family, or small tightly-knit group. That almost always fails.

I’m trying to figure out if China is still run by the CCP or Chairman Xi. If it’s the latter, I think China’s got problems ahead.

26

If you think elected officials are too influenced by the need to retain power, that’s absolutely nothing compared to what dictators have to do to retain power. Dictatorships almost inevitably devolve to:

  • extreme cronieship to maintain a power base
  • while at the same time, manipulating multiple rival factions so that no single one can challenge the status quo, with deliberately manufactured inefficiency
  • And more or less jailing or shooting troublemakers who rock the boat.

Plus, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the dictator will impose the things you agree with.

Elections are more or less peaceful civil wars.

27

I think The Economist did an analysis (it’s probably this, but the whole article is behind a paywall) a while back showing that, amongst developing countries, autocracies tend to grow faster than democracies. This is about the only example I can think of, and, even there, the danger is of course that a country remains oppressed even while becoming wealthy.
Looking at you, China. And, speaking of China…

Firstly, on the issue of the virus getting outside of China, has there ever been a human transmissible virus contained entirely within one country?
If we’re arguing that they should have stopped outbound flights, I’d agree with that, but I would disagree that other countries would have taken such action if they had been the origin.
If we’re talking (again) about the 10 day cover-up, yes, that was appalling, but I would disagree with the assumption that the picture would be significantly better were it not for that.

Secondly, on the question of cases in China, if China was merely pretending to have suppressed the virus it would be extremely easy for foreign news agencies to find one case to refute the zero cases many cities reported month after month, bearing in mind it was business as usual until delta arrived a couple months ago.

It stretches credulity that they could hide millions of cases. Western epidemiologists working in the region publishing in The Lancet, Nature etc have long ago conceded that cases in China fell to virtually zero.
It’s just politically awkward for politicians in the West to concede this, and embarrassing too for news agencies that kept teasing that a story about hidden cases was going to come, but never did (although CNN has long ago also conceded cases in China have been virtually nil).

28

I suspect a mod might try to steer us away from covid, so I will just summarize what I am saying in terms of the OP.

  1. The claim was made that the virus spread because China is a dictatorship (actually autocracy). I dispute this, as plenty of viruses have spread from e.g. The US.

  2. The suggestion was made that the low number of covid cases in China is probably a lie, and therefore cannot be an example of a possible benefit of an authoritarian government. I am saying that there is no debate at this point in the scientific community that China’s case numbers have been extremely low.

29

‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’

Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947

30

More importantly, even if the numbers are a lie, they haven’t been high enough to damage the credibility of the Chinese government. As far as people are concerned, China’s managing COVID. It’s not out of control. This is in contrast to the United States, where it’s breaking healthcare systems in multiple states.

China has problems but COVID isn’t one of them - at least not at the present time.

31

The issue isn’t about any particular measure that China should or should not have taken (and indeed, whether any other country would or should have done the same) but rather that it is quite evident that China did not report on a known contagion and has since embarked on a case of disinformation about the origins of the virus. Even if there was no way to stop spread of the virus (likely) the forewarning about the severity of the disease to the World Health Organization would have given nations more lead time to make preparations.

I’m personally agnostic about the “lab leak” theory, and I don’t subscribe to any notions that there was any deliberate effort on the part of the PRC to propagate the pandemic (which has hurt China economically at least as bad as any other developed nation) but the reality is that in autocracies and especially dictatorships there is the immediate and reflexive response to dissemble and disinform the public because that is how they maintain control of the population. The Soviet Union tried to lie and cover up the explosion of Chernobyl Reactor #4 (and didn’t reveal details of the partial meltdown in Reactor #1 and the other issues with #3 and #4 as far back as 1984), which wasn’t revealed until nuclear energy authorities in Sweden detected plume residues.

Of course, democracies also have coverups (especially those with agencies dedicated to clandestine operations and limited oversight) but they also have independent press that serves as an outlet for whistleblowers instead of just state-controlled media reporting pravda.

Stranger

32

It depends on the needs of the country and other factors.

For example, dictatorship, if not authoritarianism, was the norm in many Asian countries, and that’s what led to industrialization when it was coupled with long-term national economic planning, infrastructure development, import substitution, and export orientation. Recipients include those characterized by what was later known as the East Asian Miracle. This also adds to the last of the bullet points.

For Communism, results are mixed. For example, North Korea has had middling economic growth similar to that of the U.S., but China did well with some economic reforms leading to per annum growth of around 6-7 pct per year, and Cuba probably almost 10 pct. That means levels of democracy in the form of councils and think tanks, plus some opening up of the economy, in the form of trade, partnerships with foreigners, or both, will be needed.

Also, what are considered democracies might be more than that. For example, one pundit in the documentary The Coming War on China stated that while the CCP controls China it’s Wall Street that controls the U.S. That adds more perspective to the first point about ignorant voters, i.e., parties working for and with the rich.

Pandemics and global threats, including not just climate change but even limits to growth, will involve and even lead to the rise of authoritarian regimes.

33

Might be more interesting to ask when people would support a coup against the elected government.

Crazy President threatened to nuke North Korea, or China?
A communist government that intended to confiscate all private property, including your house and savings account? Or a theocratic one that banned women from working and girls from going to school?
A government that couldn’t/didn’t enforce the law, allowing effective mob rule in the streets?

34

Apologies to everyone for rehashing this stuff here, but this is a site for fighting ignorance, so I can’t let it lie.

Such as what? What disinformation are you referring to?

This is a common misconception people have. Where people assume that if the first human to human transmission happened at time t, then at time t China would have known that they had a human to human transmissible virus more severe than SARS. That’s not how anything works,
It takes time and detailed work to confirm that it’s contagious, that it’s a virus and then that it’s a new virus.

As I have said many, many times, the initial cover up was appalling and government officials should (but won’t be) prosecuted, and the doctors should receive compensation. But the gap between their letter and informing WHO was 10 days. There was still plenty of uncertainty at that time.

I feel the same way about it as the scientific community, which is that it is an entirely baseless claim. “Agnostic” here implies some kind of a toss up between two competing explanations but we know that the virus bears all the hallmarks of being a natural mutation (and none of the hallmarks of GM), and started in a wet market. Versus zero evidence of a lab leak (indeed, worse than zero, as we’d expect to have seen cases at WIV first).

35

When might I?

  1. Any situation where there is only one person bearing the majority of responsibility
  2. Any situation where quick and decisive action is necessary for survival

But also I am taking your question with the understanding that “democracy” includes “republic”: a government that does not act in accordance with the majority of its electorate is not necessarily undemocratic.

~Max

36

Democracy, IMHO, is not a panacea, it is not an end in itself, it is a means to achieve a maximum of justice and fairness for a society. I believe a better word for what people mean when they praise democracy is Rule of Law, which I characterize as:

The Law is known and published. There are no secret laws.
The law and its application is equal for all.
There are no retroactive laws.

This includes and presupposes a social safety net, repect for minorities and of Human Rights.

Numerous regimes that call themselves democracies do not respect the Rule of Law, as matter of fact, none does 100%, but some come close. On the other hand, I know of not one single regime that respects the Rule of Law sufficiently as to be acceptable that is not a democracy, with the possible exception of Singapore, of which I don’t know enough to judge.
From a subjective perspective and to illustrate what I mean by Rule of Law, I would rate the following countries on a scale of 1 (no Rule of Law at all) to 10 (perfect justice and fairness for all) as follows:
China: 2 - 3, 5 for Party Members.
USA: 4 if you are poor, 8 if you are rich, 10 if you are obscenely rich.
Swizzerland: 8.5
Germany: 7
Spain: 6.5
Mexico: 3 for women, 4 for men.
Brazil: 3

Democracy is not enough in itself, but dictatorship ist grosse Scheisse. Even if a dictator is OK-ish, say, like Kaiser Wilhelm I, you never know who might succeed him (yes, it’s always a he). You may end with a moronic egomaniac, vain and presumptuous like Wilhelm II, who is co-responsible for WWI and thus WWII, communism in Russia and many other evils. Democracy at least gives the majority the chance to change a moron, a crook, a bigot or an asshole that is in charge. Of course, a chance is worth nothing if it is not seized, an a democracy is no democracy when the results are rigged.

37

It seems to me that using your definitions of 1-10, the US shouldn’t be a 10, or even and 8, for rich people. If 10 is “perfect justice and fairness for all”, well, it’s well known that obscenely rich people quite often avoid punishment that they deserve. Getting away with murder because you’re rich is just as big an indictment of the rule of law as a poor person getting thrown in the slammer on trumped-up charges.

38

Part of the problem with a benevolent dictator/enlightened despot, is that once you establish the system by which there can be a benevolent dictator/enlightened despot in charge of the state, you have now created an incentive for the not-so-benevolent or enlightened to do what it takes to take over, and there is no mechanism to hinder it that other than those apparatchiks with an interest in the enlightened benevolence to command greater force to resist that.

At least in a democracy, as long as you maintain constitutional rule of law, you can challenge the would-be despot through lawful means.

That a commonly observed pattern is that once the despots reach power through proper constitutional methods they then proceed to try and make sure they become unchallengeable (Orbán, Putin, Erdogan, Chávez/Maduro, Ortega etc.), is a separate matter.

39

The problem in a democracy is, people can vote for despotic rule. They can literally vote to give their democracy away, without even realizing that’s what they’re doing.

In the end, authoritarianism and democracies are regimes, both of which have their advantages and disadvantages. I prefer democracy, but my preference assumes that the people living next door and across the street have the same values that I do. If they don’t, then the dynamics are changed. If you have democratic ideology that resembles authoritarianism, then do you really have a democracy?

40

Like I said in my last paragraph. That risk is simply built in the moment you allow mass voting, and your only brakes are if the constitutionalist bases are rock solid (and that works as just brakes, not a retaining net).