Imagine for a moment that your nation has been taken over by an genuine autocrat. This person arranged a coup and has gathered a firm following, so they appear to be all but unassailable.
Now, you see what they are doing, and to you, the effects look to be net positive. Most of the citizens are going about their lives in fairly ordinary fashion, and some of what used to annoy you has greatly declined. There are dissenters, the boldest of whom seem to not be around after a while. Little notice is paid to this.
At what point do you become uncomfortable with the autocracy? Some folks have suffered, to varying degrees, but most of the nation is doing ok. We all know that there will probably be a big upheaval down the road, and the autocrat does not seem to be preparing the country to get through it (being whatever shape it takes will probably be post mortem to them).
In other words, when do you start strongly opposing someone whose actions you fundamentally approve of just because they are an autocrat?
Autocrats are difficult to remove. War and insurrection seem to be the primary methods so far. Maybe there’s something better, less destructive and dangerous - I hope so.
Even if the dictator is genuinely benevolent, and doing a good job at benevolence, he’s still mortal. Whether by usurper’s blade or just by old age, he’s going to die eventually. And who takes over then? Just because this one was good is no guarantee that the next one will be, too.
Autocrat has been very busy instituting what look to be lasting changes that will probably be net positive. There has been no spare time to work up a plan of succession. The era to follow may not have another autocrat in charge of things, or one with greatly reduced power. (There are no familial heirs.)
The problem with an autocrat is not the autocracy. It is the opposition, which requires an internal police capability of quelling it and preventing an overthrow. Which turns to a brutal autocracy. There is where you get your Ceausescus and Saddams, who if left alone, unthreatened, would have governed (in fact, did) fairly decently.
True, but there’s a difference between deliberate action and simple inaction.
A benign dictatorship is one of the best forms of government. That’s why monarchies lasted so long. But keeping a dictatorship benign is very difficult.
That’s why the beloved leader needs us to report suspicious activities before they turn into anything worse, the ingrates will be re-educated and all will be well.
Singapore seems to be the closest thing to ‘genuinely functioning benevolent despotism’. It’s been officially democratic since self-government began in 1959 but somehow only one party (the PAP) ever seems to win elections and Freedom House rates it as only ‘Partly Free’. The first Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew was clearly an exceptionally competent leader which can go some way to explaining why people kept voting him in, but the government doesn’t appear to be above using its media influence to tip the scales in its favour, and there’s a certain dynastic implication in the fact that his son is the current PM (though admittedly there was another PM in between)
I would call Singapore pretty autocratic, but also quite a decent place, and I’d be happy to live there. Authoritarianism certainly never rose to the levels of ‘disappearing political opponents’ which is probably in any case the sort of thing you only have to do if you’re *not *measurably improving all your citizens’ lives on a yearly basis
